meester smeeth

Thanks Greg, Yes I see Fbx does work in general but not from the latest version of speedtree in my tests up to now. I can take the speedtree fbx to polytrans and re-export to fbx and it will then import. Only problem seems to be the vertex count changing on import to EIAS for some reason. If I understand MDD correctly, it holds animation for each vertex/point in the mesh, so the mesh needs the same or maybe a very close vertex count. The preview in Ei shows it working as it should, but only with a display of points. If the import would keep the vertex count from speedtree, this would be a very easy way to get fantastic moving trees. Anyway, more tests I think!

Hey Has anyone been able to import SpeedTree trees with animation? The MDD plug would do it perfectly but I'm having trouble getting a mesh with a matching vertex count into EI.... It's wierd as Max and Polytrans both show the same vertex count needed as shown in the MDD export but EI always shows a few hundred too many. If anyone's had success it would be great to know your workfow! Al

I've got to second the praise for AVT's rigging DVD. You not only get a great rig with nice control, you learn about the rigging process enough to solve your own problems. Invaluable!

Okayyyyy....did anyone actually give this a try?

Hey mate, Is that 4 x 1.55 per hour?

aha! perfecto! Thanks Tomas

I think this would be really handy - a little drop down menu in the G.I panel where you can save and name settings for use with different scenes within the same project. Or lets go crazy, how about an import too. It could go right next to the exclude set drop down, they would get on so well there.

Any updates Tomas? :)

Yes, it can be a pain that one. I suppose you could maybe use labels or add the objects to a selection set and re-select them that way.....May not always help but depends on what you doing I suppose? Not sure if you know but you can change the structure of the list too with the drop down using the very top left icon, this can sometimes help finding things....

Ahh, I didn't catch that you had parked the objects. Ok, so yes you are getting your numbers with position constraint. Another way to do this is to parent all your parked objects that you would like the world positions of - to a null, then un parent them and you will get world positions back for every object. Is this what you need?

Are you selecting the objects you would like at a certain frame and then going - Object menu - export object - native fact?

Best idea I've heard in a while! Reminds me a bit of the old website Electro303, it was great while it was around. One of the biggest inspirations to myself was the workflow breakdowns from Cristobal Vila while he still used Ei. He made me believe anything is possible. While tutorials are good, to expand like this woud be invaluable for everyone.

I did try one IK from start to end first but it was not giving enough rotation at each link. The only way I could find that it would act like a chain was to add an IK for every link and parent them all to the very last IK and this is the set up here. ****While just writing this reply I thought to check the project again and realized that I actually had animated a few IK handles separately to keep the curvature of the chain and they where buried away in the chain hierachy(this project was started weeks ago). So all ok, repeating these frames too now works! Thanks for your time AVT.

Hi Has anyone had a problem like this before? I need to basically animate a chain, so have used a length of bones and it works well after a lot of testing. The way that worked the best was to add some stiffness to the Y rotation instead of using limits. I just made 3 seconds of what was needed and thought to just change hold to repeat keyframes in the function curve but after the first 3 seconds, the stiffness value seems to stop having an affect. Take a look - https://www.dropbox.com/s/df121npv55dfoqw/chain.mp4?dl=0 I've tried even copying keyframes in the list and the same thing happens. I suppose as a last resort, each chain link could be range exported out and child cycled back etc. There may even be a better way of doing a chain....Any ideas? Al

Any news on an update Tomas? This is such a useful tool!

Hi Fellas Yes our biggest problem here is as you say - re-producing the error. I've been keeping an eye on it for a few months now and not seen it happen, but it usually happens here with a lot of repeated rendering and that hasn't been going on too much. I don't even think we can rule out problems that could be caused by network settings or how they behave when idle for a period of time etc. The reason I say this is that I have a 2007 iMac and it will literally not work as a Master to Pc slaves, but works perfectly every time as a slave from a Pc master. If they don't want to communicate from the start, something is in the way, from one direction only and nobody else has had this problem other than me! I now have a 2012 iMac and will test it at some point. Greg, is it mainly the Amazon set up that is doing it?

To be honest, I don't see this completely as a workaround. This seems an ideal way to get all the control you need in post, so no need to render blur frames. I understand what you mean when you say it is not TRUE, but I think I would actually choose to do it this way using RPF. EI does not fully support the full range of information that can be extracted from an RPF render, but hopefully this can be added at some point. Things such as object and material id would be great additions. You can also add a fully animate-able fog layer straight in post without the need to render one. Here's a tut using .rpf in After effects - Have a play with it and see what you think.

Here's the Luma matte eg. - https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ab2k06dfd1ysv1/channelExtract.mp4?dl=0 You'll get this from the same .rpf file in AE.

Try out the' RPF saver' shader and make sure Z buffer is checked in the options. You'll get a rendered file in the .rpf format which you can take into After effects and make good use of the 3D Channel effects. Here's an example using the Depth of Field - https://www.dropbox.com/s/t5b12md5nvk0z1k/rpfDof.mp4?dl=0 One slight drawback is that it blurs the very outside edge of the render frame so you will need to scale it up slightly, 1% was enough for this eg. Another way is to use the 3D Channel extract as an alternative to DoF and use this as a Luma Matte for some camera blur. This way doesn't give the blurred edge either but is a little bit fiddly using the sliders to get what you want. One way or another you will get your animate-able middle ground!

Yep mate, this one used to get me every now and again but haven't had it yet in the new version. Just tried your file though and it's doing it here. Only way I know to fix it is re-applying the original diffuse again. A bit of a bugger if you've got a few doing it though....

Thanks Loon! This actually works :D I've put up with this for a bit too long! Sincerely, thankyou!

Hi Tom I cant believe that I asked this question in 2012 and the same problem has only just got to me in 2015! I suppose you get used to working with disabilities. :) So yes, since v9, windows does recognise .img as files related to EIAS but I still cannot see the files as thumbnails in explorer or even through photoshop/bridge. At the moment, it looks as though windows cannot see the files as actual images. Do you have any ideas? Thanks Al

Yes, this update is waaaaaaaaaay overdue!

Hey Reuben! This works! Thankyou so much, this is a massive help.

Some other things to check through in case you havent - turn off windows firewall and make sure your internet security is not blocking the programs. I use Norton and all works fine. Try just a master machine to one slave using an ethernet cable, if this works it may be your router/hub. I found a switch box worked better than a router.