smudgedragon

You know, I use to find this easy. But as the technology has advanced it has acutally become more and more obtruse to the point of unworkable.

Case in point. Maya LT on Steam did another major update, breaking my model as I was just getting it finalized. Because it's subscription, I have noway to tell it not to update, and no way to revert. At least Adobe got that right with thier cloud model.

I've cleaned up the corrupted data as best as I could, and exported it out to Unreal only to find that the FBX exporter is dropping REALLY IMPORTANT sections of my model.

Yeah - I think I'm gonna take some time off and open my commission docket this week. I ment to do it last week, but I was so close to getting to stick a fork in this thing that I just plowwed though instead. But this... I don't know if I can recover from this.

So, I'm having a nasty round of medical hit money wise. Nothing life threatening but stuff that adds up quickly. New glassess after my old ones broke at a really inconvenit time, me hurting my back over the weekend, and dental coming up fast after loosing peices of fillings on two teeth, means lots of outta poket.

To help offest costs, I'm opening up 4 commission slots to start with.

$40.00 gets you a single character sketch either Traditional or Digital,
$60.00 for inks Traditional or Digital,
$100.00 color Digital Only,
$150.00+ for Traditional Watercolor.

All work will be 8 1/2" x 11" in size. PG 13 max subject matter. I reserve the rights to refuse any subject for any reason.

Drop me a note on FA or DA or use this contact form here, and we'll see what we can do.

So, yeah - no answers forthcoming to my tech issues. Still plowing away at it though.What is this project I'm working on? It's suppose to be a short 30sec animation celebrating my love for MMORPGs. 3 character models and a couple basic environments. Should only take, what? a couple of months, right?

BWAHAHAHAHAHA!

Anyways - this project is eating my life, but is slowly inching along. I am still on my first model, but she's probably the best thing I have ever built in 3D. I am learning and relearning a heck of a lot, all over again. Like a really determined tortoise, I am trudging along, boldly going forward, despite the bumps in the road.

Wanna see what I'm working on? I post my weekly update on Patreon! ^.^

Help - I think I'm in real trouble here with my current project and I need some advice. I've posted this on a couple of boards with no answers forthcoming. If your not a techie with Win7 experience, you might wanna move along as this will go over most peoples heads pretty quickly.

Original Forum post:

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Currently having a very frustration problem. While I can create a kinematic ragdoll, I cannot get Maya to display the collision objects for modification. This, of course leaves me blind for trying to fine tune my cloth simulations.

Yes, I have tried PhysX->Show/Hide->Show All Shapes along with just about every other display option toggle I can find, but with no results.

I will also note 2 things:
1: the locator also does not display (even though it is set to Visible)
2: I had trouble getting this to install correctly. The version number (the one listed here) is not my most recent install. I installed 3-3-4 in an attempt to see if updating would fix the issue before breaking down and posting here, but it does not seem to have acknowledged the newer version.

The only thing I can think of is to rip everything out (PhysX/Maya LT/Steam and all associated games) and start fresh, but am hoping someone might have an answer before I do something so drastic. Any insight would be welcomed!

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I posted that last week on Nvidia's support forum (as well as Steam's Maya LT forum), with no replies. Today I posted this:

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Update: Since I have gotten no possible answers here, I started ripping and reinstalling things to see if I could clean things up. Alas - I think I piled the problems higher and deeper instead.

As far as I can tell, part of the faulty install was due to an extremely old version of Maya also being on my system and the PhysX/APEX plugin partially installing there and not in the Maya LT Steam. Once I ripped that out (it was no longer being used since I have migrated onto the Maya LT subscription), and ripped and reinstalled Maya LT, PhysX/APEX will no longer install at all. If I try, it gives me a warning saying it can't install the plugin because the plugin must be installed first.

o.0

I can only assume that this odd error is being caused because the ancient version of Maya, that is no longer there, left something hidden deep in the system that I cannot clean out.

So I ask for help again. If anyone has any ideas on how to clean things up so that the plugin will install properly, I would dearly love to hear them.

Else I will have to go to my most feared, drastic measure... nuking and paving the OS. I really don't wanna do that if I don't have too.

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So, yeah - I need to get back to this project asap. short of someone with greater skill than I going in and cleaning out the troublesome hidden code that I fear is buried deep in the registry, I am faced with 2 choices:

1. Nuke and Pave the Win7 OS in hopes that it removes the legacy stumbling block.

or

2. Screw PhysX and their cloth/collision system, bone and hand animate everything and just suck the fact that all animations are going to pop between states inside of Unreal.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Been talking about it for a while and finally decided to do it. I've changed my Patreon setting from per piece to monthly. One dollar a month gets you a back door peek to what I'm currently working on. I've been really good about updating at least once a week.

So what am I currently working on?

I have been head down and nose deep in Maya LT trying to set up for a 30 second animation. I originally planned this to be a two month project but am now on week fifteen and still on the first of three models. Yikes! I'm learning a lot and not only refamiliarizing myself with old, mad, 3D skills, but learning new ones.

Come join me for the ride. ^.^

Since folks have asked, I've gone and tossed the 3 drawing I did last Saturday on Baron's Stream up on eBay. If your interested in any of them, take a look. ^.^

Draft Horse
Arhun
Tuppies the Enabler

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

We had a good time. It was a bit of a relax-O-con for Baron and I. Sales were soft, but we expected that. This show was more about networking than selling for us.

One thing I was really pleased to see this year is such a variety of different books. In past years, when in San Francisco, it was all hard-core Crumb/Too-much Coffee Man styled titles. While I like books like that occasionally, I think it helps everyone if there is more than *just* those style of titles. But the move back to San Jose seems to really adjust things to a more balanced mix of stories and artists.

Do we plan to go back? We sure hope to and are planing on it. But seeing that money is tight and tables are not free, we have to see how fiances balance out before committing to another year.

FYI - we still have copies of both 'To kill a Dragon' and 'The Keeper's Warrior' available. If your interested in either, drop us a line. ^.^

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

Woohoo!

Just got word that I just won one of the Judge's pick awards from the WeLoveFine Dungeons & Dragons t-shirt design contest with School of Hard Knox.

Check out all the winners!

**does the happy dance**

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

Hey all - just a reminder, there are 14 days left on the WeLoveFine Dungeons & Dragons Neverwitner MMO T-shirt contest. Smudge has 4 designs up and they need up ratings. So come make your voice heard!

School of Hard Knox - Dwarven Drinking Contest - Feed the Mimic - Laughing Troll

Mirrored from Smudge Marks & Engel Werks.

It has officially opened, the We Love Fine D&D Neverwinter Design Contest is open to rating it's entries.

I have really high hopes for my 4 designs. Though if I loose to RedMorpho's Boo I will totally not cry. They are awesome and I'd sure like one on my shirt.

Anyways - come rate my designs at We Love Fine!