Before modeling anything, it is important to gather and study good reference material. It is also helpful to create templates for use in your modelling program. A good underlay will provide the modeler with exact dimensions and subtle detail that might be overlooked if modeling from memory.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

hen creating animations, you should be very careful what you do with the FloorRef. When walking or running, the character should stay at a constant height from the FloorRef object. When jumping, the Character should increase it’s distance from the FloorRef object to give the appearance of translation away from the floor. Characters should ALSO have a “stationary root” that only moves relative to the floor reference (e.g. for walking, jumping etc.) but that does not move constantly (i.e. in an idle animation the root should not move). This is very important if you wish to use your Characters with the Virtools Mulituser Pack, or the dead reckoning algorithm used for predicting distributed objects will not work correctly.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

During this tutorial you will be creating a low resolution ‘stand-in’ model of the reovirus sigma 1 protein (the tentacle-like trimeric protein that extends out of the virus’ turrets). The 3 monomers are thought to be in a flexible conformation during the early phases of the viral life cycle – once the surface of the virus loses its sigma3 coating (upon cleavage by chymotrypsin in the gut lumen), the sigma1 trimer transitions to a coiled-coil conformation and rigidifies. Therefore, we would like to animate each monomer as a flexible/trembling arm initially, and then have it erect and coil as a triple helix (with the other 2 rigid monomers).
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

Using Dosch Textures in 3D Studio MAX In order to properly use the textures in 3D Studio MAX please verify the location (drive-letter; e.g. D: or E:) where your image-maps are located. Then open the File/Configure-Paths page in 3DSM, switch to the “Bitmap”-section and enter the path to the IMAGE-folder on your CD-ROM at the “Configure-Paths” setting If the Raytracer fails to find a texture in any of the 3DSM-default folders, it now automatically searches through the extra locations defined in the “Configure- Paths” on the “Bitmap”-page. To add a path to the Path-List, press the ‘ADD’-button and select the folder containing the image-maps for your textures, e.g. the IMAGE-folder on the product’s CD-ROM. Using Dosch Textures in LightWave3D / Inspire3D Load the *.lws or *.lwo files directly in LightWave 3D or Inspire3D.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

First, we install the exporter script that we’ll need to export from Maya to Second Life. Get the script at http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/LlSculpt_mel . Copy the contents of the script. Run Maya: 1. Start the MEL (Maya script language) editor by pressing the button in the lower right corner 2. Paste the script text into the lower window 3. Save script to shelf will create a button in the Maya menu, allowing for easy access of the exporter SETUP 2: THE BASIC SPHERE A sculpty is sampled from a basic sphere form. The recommended setup is to start with a NURBS sphere of 16×16 sections. Here’s how to create the base sphere that we then can edit into nearly arbitrary forms:
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments

You are free in your choice of objects, scenery, animation, etc. as long as all of the requirements below are met: • You must use the letters “DDM” (note that MAYA has standard functionality for creating objects from text) in your scene. The letters must be an active (moving) part of the animation. • You must use keyframe animation somewhere. • You must use reactive animation somewhere (i.e. an animation that is influenced by another animation, e.g. by using driven keys). • You must use dynamics somewhere (i.e. rigid bodies or particles or …) • Your animation must have at least 15 seconds of unique frames (but more is of course ok!),
at a reasonable speed of animation.
Read the rest of this entry »

• 0 Comments