.3 Point Patch

Three-Point Patch. Even patches build with only three control points will render. But sometimes they may show wrinkles and creases in one corner. So try to avoid them – unless you need the creases (e.g. at the edge of a mouth or eye of a model).
See Patch.

(Examples page)

.4 Point Patch

Four-Point Patch. A normal surface patch has four surrounding control points.
See Patch.

(Examples page)

.5 Point Patch

Five-Point Patch. An area surrounded by exactly 5 CPs on at least 2 different splines only renders as a patch, when you select the 5CPs and press the „Make 5 Point Patch“ Button. But they might show up creases at render time so they are best used at flat areas of your Model. See Patch.

(Examples page)

.Action

Simple or complex movement of an object e.g. walk, jump, pickup a ball, light a cigarette, .... Actions can be reused between different Models with the same Bone_Hierarchy. Actions are then combined inside a Choreography to very complex interactions. Multiple actions in a choreography can be overlaid and blended.
HowTo: In the Project_Workspace_Tree right click on the Action icon, choose New / Action.
See also: See also: Action_Overloading, Action_Blending.

.Action Blending

Blending between more than one action inside a choreography when two (or more) actions are applied at the same time to one model.
HowTo: In PWT Choreography click on the action shortcut (the action you want to blend) and then in the Properties_Window select the „Blend“ section. There you have three choices: Replace (this is the default), Cross Blend (in percent) and Add.
See also: Action, Action_Overloading.

.Action Overloading

Overloading one character with many simple actions to build a complex action. Overloading occurs, when two (or more) actions appear at the same time on the same model in a Choreography. When two overloaded skeletal actions want to move the same bone, the later applied (lower in PWT) action wins. When two overloaded muscle actions want to move the same Control_Point they simply add up and move the CP further.
See also: Action, Action_Blending.

.Alias

Alias happens in pixel images when scaling them down. There are strange artifacts or jumps in thin lines and smooth lines tend to show up „steps“. So final renders look more smooth when anti-aliased. But use aliased renders for game sprites.
On image maps though aliased maps most times look better, because the interpolated fill-pixels from the anti-aliasing procedure of your image software cause sometimes strange „halo“ effects in A:M when the image is used as decal. So maybe you should turn anti-alias of in your favorite image program when generating decals and maps for A:M.
See also Anti-Alias, Decal.

.Alpha Bias

Change the way, how a spline (or splines) run through a control point. Either select a control point, and edit its alpha bias in the Properties_Window. Or show the Bias Handles and mouse drag (with pressed CTRL key) the handles.
The alpha value makes the spline curve run more ore less curved inside the drawing plane through the control point.
See also: Bias_Handles.

.Alpha Channel

Aka „Transparency Channel“. Extra information (mostly one extra byte per pixel, so a 24-bit image becomes 32-bit) stored inside a pixel image to tell other programs how transparent this pixel is, so how much background shines through this pixel. A:M can load images with alpha channel (e.g. TGA format) for decals. And A:M can store rendered animations (e.g. TGA) with alpha channel. You can use this feature to combine your rendered image sequence inside a video software together with filmed real world live action.
HowTo: When doing a „Render to a file“ with Quality „Final“ and Output is an image sequence (no AVI, MOV video!) in the output section the option Buffers / Alpha will cause A:M to include an alpha channel to all rendered images.
See also Front_Projection_Map.

.AM Loft

Lofting means to blend one spline over some in-betweens into another spline (with different shape, but same number of Control_Points).
Some 3D modelers of other software packages have a build in lofting function, or a „railing“ function. A:M misses such a tool (unfortunately!). But there exists an external program which can import an A:M Model *.MDL file, perform some lofting and save the Model again. The program is called 'A:M Loft' and can do the following for you: splice, skin, revolve, extrude, single-rail-loft, double-rail-loft. Be sure to download this useful tool!
ExternalLink: AMLoft by Richard Swika

.Angle

Some of A:Ms functionality is controlled via „Angles“. For example the rotation of a leg bone during a dance action (sure also you can edit this by mouse dragging the bone!) or the spherical limit in a bone constraint (e.g. the human knee can't bend forward). There are different kind of angles – some of them are more readable by humans, some of them interpolate more smoothly when calculated by the software.
See Euler_Angle, Vector_Angle, Quaternion_Angle, Spherical_Angle.
Difference between them???

.Animation:Master

If you read this page,
you should know, what this is. ;-)

.Anime Renderer

See Toon_Renderer.

.Anti-Alias

When scaling a pixel image smaller, sometimes this lines get unwanted „steps“ and artifacts and smooth surfaces look less smooth. So some image programs (and also A:M) can interpolate the pixel color between neighbor pixels to smooth the overall look of the image. When you render out an image sequence with A:M, you can tell the software to „smooth“ the final image with an anti-alias step. Though the images most times look more appealing, they consume more time to render.
Be sure to switch of the „anti-alias“ feature in your favorite image processing software when generating maps for decals... (see Alias).
HowTo: For rendering: Tools / Options / Rendering / Final Options / Antialias – or change the camera property with the same name.
See also Alias, Decal.

.Audio

Load/Save for synchronizing actions with sound.
HowTo: In the PWT right click on the sounds icon, then „Import Sounds“. Afterwards drag'n'drop one of the imported sounds into an action or a choreography. Now when you use the scrub bar to move through you animation, the correct position of the sound file is played. This helps you in synchronizing you action with the soundtrack.
When your final render goes to a video file (like *.AVI or *.MOV), A:M includes the soundtrack. But when you render to an image sequence you have to include and synchronize the sound with a separate video editing software.

.Beveling

When modeling, make those edges and corners a little bit „round“ for a more natural look. In real world edges are never perfectly sharp, or (as Yves says) we would cut our hand daily on every thing we touch.
ExternalLink: The Advantages of Beveling by Yves Poissant

.Bias Handles

Change the way, how a spline (or splines) run through a control point. Either select a control point, and edit its alpha, gamma, magnitude in the Properties_Window. Or show the Bias Handles and mouse drag (solo or with pressed CTRL or SHIFT key) the handles.
See also Control_Point, Spline,Alpha_Bias ,Gamma_Bias , Magnitude_Bias.

.Birds

HowTo: PWT / Choreography / New / Flocking / Birds
See Flocking. [ToDo] Difference swarm and birds???

.Blobbies

Blobbies is a special kind of Particle_System which creates particles that are nearly round shaped and thus look like bubbles. You can simluate things like lava, water, snow and even fire with blobbies. E.g. you can control the blobbiness (how quick flow two bubbles together, when they touch), or size (radius) of bubbles at birth / death. You can control the color of the bubbles over their livetime.
HowTo: In PWT right-click on Material and select New Material. On that materials first attribute select: Change Type To / Particle System / Blobbies. Then apply this material to a model or named group of a model. Be sure you have selected Tools / Options / Global / 'Draw Particles' – otherwise A:M won't render your particle systems.

(MPG Movie)

.Bloom

A setting in the render panel when you do a final render. Simulates the behavior of real-world film material where slightly over-exposured (bright!) areas tend to bleed into darger regions of the film. This improves the 'film-look' of your animation.
HowTo: On the 'render to a file' dialog, select Quality / Final and then the same dialog gets a 'Film'-card. Select Film / Bloom.
See also: Film_Grain.

.Bone

You can control a set of Control_Points (which build the flesh around the bone) very convenient by the insertion of a bone. Bones can be arranged to build a Bone_Hierarchy – also called a Skeleton [??? is that true?]. If you then also add Constraints to the bone hierarchy, you have a Rig [??? is that true?].
Every bone has a 'root' and it rotates its tip around that root. At this root-end it can be attached to the parent bone (in the hierarchy). When a bone is attached to its parent bone (in the Properties_Window), A:M automatically turns on a feature called Inverse Kinematics(IK). A continuos series of attached bones is called an IK-chain and moving a 'lower' bone also moves the 'upper' bones (If I pull your finger strong enough, the rest of your arm will follow).
If you temporarily want to avoid IK, you can lock a bone in an Action or Choreography by selecting the bone and then click the lock button from the bones-toolbar.
HowTo: When editing a model (or when in a choreography and you select a model) you can change to the bones mode by clicking the bone button in the toolbar. Then click the 'Add' button from the toolbar and draw the bone. Take a look at the PWT and name your bones according to their function. Then select the new bone, afterwards select the controlpoints you want to be controlled by the bone, then right click the bone and click “Select Controlpoints” from the popup menu.
Hint: Every Model has a Default_Bone, which is important when working in a Choreography.

(MPG Movie)

.Bone Hierarchy

Bones can be arranged to build a Bone_Hierarchy – also called a Skeleton [??? is that true?]. The hierarchy defines, how the movement of one bone affects other bones (up and down the hierarchy). See screenphoto at the right for a simple human bone hierarchy.
If you then also add Constraints to the bone hierarchy, you have a Rig [??? is that true?].
See Bone, Rig and Skeleton.

.Boolean Cutter

Inside a model a boolean cutter Bone cuts its geometry from the geometry of all geometry shapes controlled by other bones (of the same model!). By this means very complex shaped objects are possible.
HowTo:In the Properties_Window of a bone select 'Boolean Cutter' checkbox. Render your final animation – to see the boolean cutter.
Hint: Boolean cutters only show up at final render-time and not while modeling!
Hint: A boolean cutter cuts itsself only from other parts of the model, that are associated with other bones. So be sure to add at least one bone for the to-be-cutted and one bone for the cutter and associate the desired controlpoints with these bones. CPs that are only associated with the Default_Bone, are never affected by the boolen cutter (this may sometimes be a desired effect!).

(MPG Movie)

.Bump Map

A bump map is an easy way to add natural looking dents and bumps to an otherwise artificial plain-looking surface. There are two ways to apply bump maps to a patch: Either as a special kind of Decal or as an option to a Material. White pixels of the map bump the surface towards the camera. To make gradual bumps, use shades of grey. For example use your image softwares 'Gaussian Blur' to smooth the bump map.

HowTo: First you can create a grayscale pixelimage with your favourite imagedrawing program and apply this image as a decal. Take a look at the Decal entry, how this is achieved.
HowTo: The second possibility to bump a surface is to generate a normal Material and in PWT drag it onto your Model or Named Group of your Model. A:M then generates a 'Shortcut to Material' node under your model. Click in this material shortcut and in the properies window you now have the possibility to let A:M interpret the 'brighness'-values of the material as hight of bumps by checking the 'Bump'-option.
See also Material and Decal.

.Camera

Your view into the virtual world. There are numerous settings for a camera, like e.g. focal length, Motion_Blur, Depth_of_Field. You also have the coice between a perspective and a non-perspective camera, where the latter is important for game developers when designing game backgrounds.
HowTo: In PWT either right-click on Choreographies and select New / Choreography – then A:M automatically creates a new Camera (under objects!) for you and places a shortcut to this new camrea it into the new Cho. If you want more than one camera inside a Cho: in PWT right-click on objects and select New / Camera. If you want to look through a specified camera right-click in your Cho-window, and select View / Shortcut to Camera from the displayed popup menu. Also hitting the '1'-key on the numeric keypad select the camera view.
Hint: If you look through a camera (in a Cho press Numpad '1'), you can navigate with the camera and all your navigations are keyframed. Print the Camera Navigation Chart on the right example column for your reference. E.g. if you want to pan the camera to the left, switch to the 'Move' mode (hit 'M' on the keyboard), then hold down the CTRL key, and move your mouse to the left.

.Cartoon Renderer

See Toon_Renderer.

.Caustics

Aka „Underwater Caustics“ – describes the artificial simulation of above-water-light shimmering on underwater surfaces. When the light travels through the surface waves of the water, it is focused in repeating patterns. The patterns move, as the waves (or the light) move and these highlight patterns then show up on all the underwater surfaces.
HowTo: [ToDo]
See also Refraction.
ExternalLink: For more information on underwater caustics see Mark Kilgard's page and the link collection of Jos Stam.

.Channel

Nearly every parameter of an A:M-Object (e.g. Model, Material, Light, ...) can be animated over the time axis. So you can e.g. animate the rotation angle of a bone, the transparency of a material or the color of a light. When you set the parameter value at the keyframes, A:M interpolates the parameter values at the In-betweens. A parameter changing over the time has an associated 'channel'. You can open this „parameter-channel“ and tweak and tune the parameter afterwards.
The example MPG movie on the right animates the materials transparency (from opaque to transparent) and its Y-position (this makes it flow topwards).
HowTo: For example to animate the transparency of a material, first apply the material to part of your model (e.g. a Named_Group of the model). Then create a new, empty Choreography and drag your model into the Cho. Move / scale it a little bit...this is to create the entry: Choreography / Shortcut to your Model / Choreography Action. Now drag a material attribute (not the whole material!) to this Choreography Action. Now click on the new material attribute under your cho action. The Properties_Window then displays the available channels of that attribute. Select the sub attributes (set a hook!) you want to animate and a new channel icon is displayed in the PWT. Double click on that new channel icon to open the Channel Window. Here you can animate the attribute value over the time axis.

(MPG Movie)


(GIF image)

.Cho

Abbreviation for Choreography.

.Choreography

Aka „Cho“. In a choreography you assemble all of the building blocks to the final animation. You insert Camera, Lights, Models, etc. into your cho via drag'n'drop. You add ready build Actions to the models, you add pathes to the choreography and force models, lights or cameras to these pathes via Constraints.... and many more.
HowTo: To create a new choreography, in the Project_Workspace_Tree right click on the „Choreographies“ icon, and select „New Choreography“. A camera and a light is inserted automatically by A:M.
HowTo: To render your animation, look through a camera (which is in your cho), and hit the toolbar button „Render to a file“.
Hint: While inside the choreography window, you can still tweak Bones or Splines or Muscles of your models by selecting the model and then clicking the mode buttons at the main toolbar (Modeling Mode, Bones Mode, Muscle Mode, Choreography Mode etc.).

.Cloth Wizard

With the Cloth Wizard, it is possible, to automatically insert a Spring_System (masses and springs) for (part of) a model that is meant to be a piece of cloth. All the controlpoints become masses, all the interconecting splines between these masses become springs. While you also can achive this manually, the cloth wizard makes cloth at the 'speed of light'.
HowTo: In your model make a Named_Group for the piece of cloth. Then either drop your model in an Action or a Choreography. Click on the Model, and via the main toolbar switch to 'Muscle Mode'. When in muscle mode, right-click on the named group, that is going to be cloth (use the model hierarchy of the PWT to do that). In the context menu of the cloth group select 'Cloth Wizard'. A:M then automatically generates a new spring system in the current choreography / action you are in. You then can right click this spring system and select 'Simulate' from the context menu. The simulation moves the masses (and thus the CPs) according to the Force_Objects, scene gravity, cloth (spring) stiffnes, objects that penetrate the cloth and so on.
Hint: Like all dynamic simulation, cloth simulation depends on the direction of the Normals.

(MPG Movie)

.Compensate Mode

The Compensate Mode is needed immediately before you apply a Constraint. The compensate mode automatically calculates offset values for the constraint, so that objects don't suddenly jump to their constrained position. An example: You have a hand that wants to pick up a coffee cup. You bring the hand close enough to the cup, then turn on the 'Translate To' and 'Orient Like' constraints, so that the cup will from now on follow the hand. The cup jumps immediately to the constrained hand bone an now moves together with that bone. The jumping cup looks wrong.
– the Compensate Button on the main toolbar.
HowTo: So, to avoid the jumping of freshly constrained objects first keyframe the object position (this is important, for later dropping the object), then click the compensate mode button, then add the constraint (e.g. Translate To...). If you want to add further constraints, always switch on compensate again, because A:M leaves compensate mode after each usage. Then do your animation (e.g. move the hand with the following cup). If you now want to drop the object, keyframe the object position first, then set the 'Percent' channel of your constraints to zero. The object is free again – without any jumping!

(MPG Movie)

.Constraint

A 'Constraint' forces or allows the movement of a Bone. A constraint is e.g.: Aim At, Kinematic, Path, Translate To, Orient like, Aim Roll At, Spherical Limits, Surface, Scale Like, Path and Scale to Reach. You can apply a constraint in an Action, a Choreography or a Pose. A few examples: with a spherical limits constraint you can prohibit a human knee joint to bend forward in an unnatural way; with an aim at constraint you can force the camera to follow a moving object; with a path constraint you can force an object to travel on a spline path.
Clever designed constraint systems can dramatically increase your animation speed, as it makes your objects 'pseudo intelligent'. For example you can tell a two legged model to keep its pelvis above the center between his two feet – so the model automatically finds its center of gravity.
HowTo: In an action, Cho or pose right click on a bone and from the context menu select „New Constraint“ and from the submenu select the kind of constraint you need. If you work in a pose or cho and you don't see the bones of a selected model, first click on the 'Action Mode' button from the main toolbar.
Hint: Constraints that you add inside a pose have the advantage, that they are stored together with your model, and they can be turned on and off easily via the pose slider.
ExternalLinks: Read 'Dem Bones' article by Raf Anzovin for a good constraint intro. Read about the 2001 Animation Rig and download free models with 2001 rig by Eggprops.

.Control Point

Control Points (or: Spline Points, abbreviation: CP ) are points in the three dimensional space, where Spline curves travel through. So the 3D positions of the controlpoints of a spline together with the Bias values of each point completely define the way of the spline. Controlpoints and spline curves don't render on their own! They only render when they build a Patch.
HowTo:To add one or more controlpoints to a model open (or create a new) model, select 'Add Mode' (hit 'A' on keyboard) or 'Add Lock Mode' (hit SHIFT-A on keyboard) and click inside the model window, where ever you want to position new CPs.
HowTo:If you want to build a legal, rendering, visible Patch, you have to attach at least 2 x 2 CPs residing on 2 different splines. To attach (means: connect or melt) two CPs on different splines to one CP drag one CP over the other (left mouse button) and then press the second mouse button – the CPs are now connected!
Hint: If left mouse buttons doesn't work for attaching two CPs, look in Tools/Customize/Keyboard „Attach Control Point“ for the current keyboard hotkey.

.Cookie-Cut Map

A cookie cut map is a pixel image that is applied as a special kind of Decal. You can think of them as a combination of Color Maps and Transparency maps. When the cookie cut map is applied to a patch it cuts away its transparent part from the shape geometry it is decaled on – and adds its color (of its non-transparent parts) to the object.
HowTo: A good example for the usage of cookie cuts is when you want to make a bunch of tree leaves. Instead of modeling many different leaves, simply take pixel photos of different leaves – lets say all of the photos have a white background (behind the green leaves). Then make some rectangular spline shapes. You can bend these shapes a little bit (they look unnatural, when the are perfectly flat!). Then apply the cookie cut maps to the shapes (see Decal entry on how to apply a Decal to a shape, switch decal type to 'Cookie Cut Map'). Bingo! The leaves are finished: in shape and color!

(MPG Movie)

(GIF image)

.CP

Abbreviation for Control Point.

.Creases

Creases are mathematical artifacts, that are (in most cases) unwanted. They mostly show up, when a patch surface is forced to squeeze into a narrow corner, or if you use 3 point patches or 5 point patches a lot, so that these meet each other on the surface. 4 point patches are much more robust against creases. A:M experts tell, that one day your skill grows, you automatically avoid creases by modelling 'the right way'. Up till then: good luck...
On the other hand, creases may be useful and wanted at some places of your model. E.g. at the corners of eyes and lips, where they increase the natural, organic look.

.Crowd

A special kind of Flocking where the models are not moved by the flock-system and can be stationary locked to a terrain surface.
HowTo: PWT / Choreography / New / Flocking / Crowd

(MPG Movie)

.Decal

Decals (sometimes called 'Textures') are 2D pixel images stamped on the surface of 3D Patches. Decals are an easy way to add a huge amount of reality to your models. There exist different types of decals like: color, Bump, transparency, reflectivity, diffuse, specular, ambiance, mirror, gradient and Cookie_Cut. The type of the decal defines, how A:M interprets the pixel information in the image. It is possible to stamp e.g. a color map, a bump map and a specular map in one step.
See the decal examples page for some possibilities of decaling.
HowTo: In PWT right-click on the top icon 'Images' and import your pixelimage into A:M. Then right-click on your Model, select New / Decal and choose your freshly imported pixelimage. Then in PWT click at Models / Your Model / Decal / Images / shortcut to your image and in the Properties_Window of your decal-image select what type of Decal that image should be (color, bump, transparency, ...). To stamp the decal to part of your model, first select that part and press the 'Hide' button (or 'H' on keyboard)– to hide everything else!. Then make sure, you look upright to these patches. Then in PWT right-click on the decal icon and select 'Position' and a semi-transparent version of the pixelimage will show up inside the modelling window. Move and scale it to the desired position, then right click on it and from the popup menu select 'Apply'. A new 'Stamp' icon will show up in the PWT below the decal icon. You can stamp a decal many times, until you click outside the semi-transpartent image (or select 'Stop Positioning' from its popup menu).

 
(Examples page)

.Default Bone

Every Model has at least one Bone: the default model bone (aka 'Model Bone') – even if you did not add any bones so far. The default bone defines the 'origin' or zero-position of the model, when you work in a Choreography. E.g. if you add a 'Path Constraint' to your model, while in Choreography-Mode, the default bone is forced on that path and the model moves with its default bone. Sometimes it's necessary to change the location or orientation of the default bone inside a model (e.g. if you need a different offset for your choreography constraints).
HowTo: To select the default model bone, open the concerning model window, switch to bones mode (via the button on the main toolbar), and single click on the model name. The default bone will become visible (its color is black!), and highlighted with yellow manipulators. You can now drag these manipulators with your mouse and thus change the position and orientation of the black default bone.

.Depth of Field

Depth of field is an effect that happens to images taken with real-world lens systems, when you use rather wide open lens apertures. Then objects behind or in front of in-focus objects become more and more blurry. Depth of field is used by real-world camera men / directors to draw the audience's attention to some special part of the scene by unsharpening the other parts of the scene.
HowTo: 'Depth of Field' is a Camera setting. So in PWT under the Objects icon select your camera (note: don't select the 'Shortcut to camera' under the Choreography icon!). In the Properties_Window / Final Options of the camera object select 'Depth of Field' (see screenphoto on the right). Afterwards the shortcut to camera in the Choreography gets 3 more handles at its camera cone (see screenphoto). With these 3 handles you can change the focal distance (sharp middle), near focus (beginning of sharp area) and far focus (end of sharp area).

.Dictionary

When using the Dopesheet feature, AM has to break down your entered sentences to words and the words to Phonemes. This is done by looking up the words in the dictionary file. The dictionary file (dictionary.dic) is a normal ASCII-text file, stored in the main AM program directory and has over 170,000 entries. At the moment the dictionary is only available in English.
Hint: You can add your own entries to the dictionary with a normal text editor (like Windows notepad), when you enter them in the correct format. e.g.
   programmer 'pr/oU/gr/&/m/@/r
   program_clock 'pr/oU/gr/&/m_kl/A/k
   program_feed 'pr/oU/gr/&/m_f/i/d
See also: Preston_Blair.

.Direct3D

Direct3D is a Microsoft API (Application Programmers Interface) for fast 3D graphics under the Windows platform. Direct3D is part of DirectX, which is a low-level API mainly for game developers, to get direct and fast access to the machines hardware.
A:M only needs this 3D acceleration, when you model or animate in Real_Time_Render_Mode. If you run A:M on the Windows platform, you have the choice to either use Direct3D or OpenGL (if drivers are present!) for real time rendering. On the Mac, the only (and satisfying!) choice is: OpenGL.
HowTo: To choose what type of 3D acceleration you want to use, from main menu select 'Tools / Options / Global / Real-time Driver'. After changing between OpenGL and Direct3D you must restart A:M for these change to take effect. Depending of your current setting, you have a section called 'Direct3D' or 'OpenGL' in the Tools / Options dialog (see screenphotos to the right).
Hint:If you have a hardware accelerated 3D graphics card (e.g. with nVidias cool GeForce chip) and you use the Direct3D mode in A:M under Windows, make sure you select the 'Direct3D HAL' (HAL = Hardware Abstraction Layer) as driver setting on Tools / Options / Direct3D. Otherwise A:M will do a software RGB emulation of Direct3D – which is much slower than using your graphic cards hardware (HAL)!

.Distortion Mode

When inside modeling mode, press this button in the main toolbar to enter the distortion mode. A wireframe box with gridded distortion handles is displayed around your model (or your last selection). As you drag around the distortion handles, your underlying model is tweaked and shaped. This is extremely useful for shaping complex parts from primitives – e.g. a simple toon face from a sphere.

.Dopesheet

The dopesheet feature is very useful for making a figure move its mouth Lip Sync to a voice sound file. You can enter a sentence and via the (extensible) Dictionary Animation Master breaks down your sentence into Phonemes and translates these phonemes to the desired character Poses (according to the Preston Blair phoneme set). Some tweaking and fine tuning is needed afterwards – but this feature makes lip syncing a breeze!
HowTo: First, your figure needs poses for the different phonemes of the Preston Blair Phoneme Set. Then create an Action for your character, import the soundfile into the PWT and drag'n'drop the sound into the new action. Make sure, the Timeline_Window is visible (Menu: View/Timeline), right click in the PWT on the action and choose New/DopeSheet. A dialog box asks you for the sentence (what is said in the sound sample file?), enter the text and press OK. You see the words in the timeline. Click on a word to stretch and move it, to fit exactly to the sound file. Red colored words could not be found in the dictionary. In the left column of the timeline, right click on a word that could not be found and select „Add Single Phoneme“.

(GIF image)

(MPG Movie)

.Dust

Dust is a Volumetric Effect that simulates little clouds of dust that are e.g. by footsteps or car wheels on sandy ground. For more information and examples see entry Volumetric Effect.
HowTo: In an Action- or Choreography window right click and select menu New / Volumetric Effect / Dust.
Hint: If you can't see the dust at render time, try to increase the Brightness setting from the Dust objects properties to a value of e.g. 1000%.

.Dynamics

See Rigid Body Dynamics and Soft Body Dynamics.

.Ease

Action Ease, Constraint Ease.

.Environment Map

See:  Alien Warrior

.Euler Angle

.Fall Off

.Film Grain

.Flocking

A bunch of Models, animated semi-automatically. There exist different predefined flocking systems where the models behave differently: Birds, Swarm and Crowd.
HowTo: in PWT: Choreography / New / Flocking select Birds, Swarm or Crowd. Then drag'n'drop a model from the objects section of the PWT onto the new flocking shortcut under your choreography. You can then drag an action onto the model shortcut under the flock shortcut.

(MPG Movie)

.Force Object

Used to influence the behavior of Particle_Systems, Soft_Body_Dynamics, Rigid_Body_Dynamics, Flocking, ,
There exist three kinds of forces: Fan, Vortex and Friction.
HowTo: In the PWT select Objects / New / Force.

.Frame Rate

Aka „Frames per Second“ or „fps“. The rate in frames per second at what your animations are rendered. Usual frame rates are 24 fps (Academy films), 25 fps (PAL European TV), 30 fps (NTSC American TV).
HowTo: change the frame rate: PWT / Project / Properties / General / Frame Rate.

.Front Projection Map

.Fur

See Particle System.

(MPG Movie)

.FX

See Special_Effects.

.Gamma Bias

Change the way, how a spline (or splines) run through a control point. Either select a control point, and edit its gamma bias in the Properties_Window. Or show the Bias Handles and mouse drag (with pressed SHIFT key) the handles.
The gamma value makes the spline curve run more ore less curved through the control point.
See also: Bias_Handles.

.Global Illumination

.Glow

.Group

See also Named_Group.

.Hair

See Shag and Fur.

.Hierarchical Lights

.Hook

.In-between

The (interpolated) images / positions / values between keyframed images / positions / values.

.Inverse Kinematics

Aka 'IK' or 'Kinematics'.

.Keyframe

.Lens Flare

A special effect simulating the light reflections of real world lens systems when a real world camera looks into a bright light.

.Library

(also .Libraries), Motion Library, Model Library.

.Light

Types: Bulb, Klieg, Sun.
See also Light_Turbulence, Light_Gels, Radiosity, Hierarchical_Lights, Light_Lists.
See also Shadow.

.Light Gels

Also „Light Projection Gels“.

.Light Lists

.Light Turbulence

.Lip Sync

See Dictionary, Dopesheet, Phoneme.

.Loft

See also AM_Loft.

.Magnet Mode

.Magnitude Bias

Change the way, how a spline (or splines) run through a control point. Either select a control point, and edit its magnitude in the Properties_Window. Or show the Bias Handles and mouse drag the handles.
The magnitude value makes the spline curve run more ore less peaked through the control point.
See also: Bias_Handles.

.Map

See Environment_Map, Projection_Map.

.Masses & Springs

See Spring System.

.Material

.Material Effector

.Mirror Mode

.Mist

Mist is a Volumetric Effect that simulates a layer of fog lying on the groud e.g. at a spooky graveyard. For more information and examples see entry Volumetric Effect.
HowTo: In an Action- or Choreography window right click and select menu New / Volumetric Effect / Mist.
Hint: If you can't see the mist at render time, try to increase the Brightness setting from the mist objects properties to a value of e.g. 1000%.

.Model

A type of „Object“ in A:M. A model might be your complex character or simply a ball your character is gonna play with. Inside a model you can save all the Patches (the surface) that makes up your character, the Bone_Hierarchy and his Poses.
HowTo: PWT / Objects / New / Model.

.Model Bone

See Default_Bone.

.Motion Blur

.Motion Capture

Aka „Mocap“.

.Muscle

.Named Group

See .

.Normal

Every infinite small patch has two sides. But only one of these sides is considered by the A:M software to be the „outside“. The outside is the side where the „normal indicator“ points outwards. The normals become extremely important when you should use Rigid_Body_Dynamics or Soft_Body_Dynamics because the A:M uses the normals to calculate collisions.
HowTo: To display the normals press „SHIFT-1“ or Select Tools / Options / Modeling / Modeling Mode / Display Normals.
HowTo: To see backfacing patches in Real_Time_Rendering select Tools / Options / Rendering / Real Time Options / Show Back Facing Polygons.
HowTo: To flip the normal to the other side of a patch/patches, first select all the patches (CPs) and hit the „F“ key (Flip Normals).

.Null

See also Object.
HowTo: PWT / Objects / New / Null.

.Nurnie

.Object

.Onion Skinning

.OpenGL

OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is an open API (Application Programmers Interface) for fast 3D graphics under various operating system platforms.
A:M only needs this 3D acceleration, when you model or animate in Real_Time_Render_Mode. If you run A:M on the Windows platform, you have the choice to either use Direct3D or OpenGL (if drivers are present!) for real time rendering. On the Mac, the only (and satisfying!) choice is: OpenGL.
HowTo: To choose what type of 3D acceleration you want to use, from main menu select 'Tools / Options / Global / Real-time Driver'. After changing between OpenGL and Direct3D you must restart A:M for these change to take effect. Depending of your current setting, you have a section called 'Direct3D' or 'OpenGL' in the Tools / Options dialog (see screenphotos to the right).

.Particle System

A special material attribute. You can create special effects like water,fire, vulcano lava, sparks, hair and many more with particles. Though particles create great effects, keep in mind, that they can increase render-time quite a lot and that the real-time interface becomes less 'real-timeish' when particles are used.
HowTo: To create a particle system, in PWT: Material / Attribute / Change Type To / Particle System select Streaks, Blobbies, Fur or Shag.
HowTo: To speed up the program interface you can tell A:M to temporarily ignore all used particle-systems in a project (don't draw them, don't render them!) – select Tools / Options / Global / Draw Particles and Fur. Also if your particles don't show up in a render – check, if this option is selected!

(MPG Movies)

.Patch

All Models in AM are build of patches for a smooth, natural, organic look and feel. A patch is the smooth surface build between 3 to 5 Control Points (CPs) in 3D space and the splines between these points. Whenn the points move, so do the splines and thus the patch bends and twists. Most times a patch has 4 CPs but even 3 point patches render.
Important: To attach (means: connect or melt) two CPs on different splines to one CP drag one CP over the other (left mouse button) and press second mouse button – the CPs are now connected! If left mouse buttons doesn't work, look in Tools/Customize/Keyboard „Attach Control Point“ for the hotkey.
When does an invisble area become a visible patch? The Three Patch Rules:
1.) Any closed area build by three or four control points is a patch, when its control points are located on at least 2 different splines.
2.) Extruded splines build legal patches in the direction of the extrusion.
3.) Lathed splines build legal patches in the direction of the lathe.
To make a 5 point patch you have to explicitly tell AM to do so by cklicking the „Make 5 point patch“ button.
[More on Patches...]
See also Spline, Control Point and Polygons.

(Examples page)

.Path Animation

See also Constraint.

.Phoneme

See Dopesheet , Dictionary, Preston_Blair.

.Physics

See Rigid Body Dynamics and Soft Body Dynamics.

.Polygons

.Porcelain

A special Material provided by Hash Inc., to simulate the ultra-smooth appearance of glazed ceramics. Therefore the surface normals are averaged so that the surface becomes even more smooth – but some details may get lost, and shading quality may suffer.
HowTo: Simply apply the material to (parts of) your model.
ExternalLink: Download Porcelain.mat from Hash.
Hint: The porcelain effect is stored as „AverageNormals=TRUE“ in the [ATTRIBUTE] Section of the material file. Though you can't change this value via the A:M interface, it should be possible to use a texteditor and edit a different material file and insert this setting.

.Pose

.Preston Blair

Preston Blair was a famous US cartoon animatior. Born in California, he lateron was involved at the Disney Studios (e.g., Mickey Mouse in Fantasia's 'Sorcerer's Apprentice') and MGM (e.g., Tex Avery) and lateron e.g., „The Flintstones“. He is autor of the famous „Cartoon Animation Book“, for self-studying toon animation. Preston died in April 1995 at the age of 85.
He developed the „Preston Phoneme Set“, where sets of Phonemes (letters) are grouped together according to their optical representation (how looks the mouth shape, when this phoneme is generated by a character?). In AM for every phoneme group there need to exist a Pose of the character in order to use the Dopesheet feature for Lip Syncing.
These are the nine Preston phoneme groups:
(A I), (E), (O), (U), (M B P), (F V), (W Q), (C D G K N R S TH Y Z), (L).

.Procedural

.Projection Map

Spherical, Cylindrical and Planar. Do not confuse with Front_Projection_Map.

.Project Workspace Tree

The hierarchical tree on the left of your A:M program window, which shows all the used building blocks of your project.
See Material, Action, Choreography.

.Prop

.Properties Window

Almost any settings for the individual parts of your animation can be viewed/ changed in the properties window. Just select an object by a single mouse click in the Project_Workspace_Tree and view how the properties window changes its contents.
HowTo: If you don't see the properties window on you screen, from the A:M main menu select View / Properties or hit ALT-2 on your keyboard.

.Proxy Model

For a complex model (like your main actor), it's a good idea, to create a proxy model with the same outer dimensions, same bone hierarchy, but with much less patches and without textures and Nurnies etc.
Although the usage of 100% splines and patches in the modeller make A:M models lightweight (compared to usual polygon modellers), an even lighter version of your character can speed up you animation process because the interface reacts quicker – especially in Real_Time_Rendering. When you are done with building your actions, timing and animation, you simply replace the proxy model by your real character and render your final animation.
HowTo: To switch between proxy and normal model, make sure, you have both, the normal model and the proxy model imported in your project. Then in the PWT beneath your Choreography select the proxy model. On the first section of the Properties_Window of the proxy model, click on the dropdown box 'Shortcut To' and simply switch to the other model. This works in both directions.

.PWS

Abbreviation for Project_WorkSpace_(Tree).

.PWT

Abbreviation for Project_Workspace_Tree.

.Quaternion Angle

??? 

.Quick Shaded Mode

See Real_Time_Rendering.

.Radiosity

.Real Time Rendering

Aka „Quick Shaded Mode“. To get a more „solid“ look while modeling, you can switch the Model window in „Shaded“ mode. In Shaded Mode A:M subdivides every patch into polygons which are then shaded in some sort of a „quick draft“ mode while you turn, scale and edit your model.
Refresh speed of the screen will drop significantly, if you don't own a hardware accelerated 3D graphics card. Be sure to select the correct real-time driver under Tools / Options / Global / Real-time Driver. And then under the „Direct3D“ or „OpenGL“ section switch from software emulation to Direct3D HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer).
HowTo: Press „9“ Key (not on Keypad!) to switch to shaded drawing mode or „0“ Key (not on Keypad!) to switch to shaded+wireframe drawing mode.
HowTo: To increase/decrease the number of polygons every patch is subdivided into press „PageUp / PageDown“ in your model window. Or select Tools / Options / Rendering / Real Time Options / Polygons Per Patch.
See also Polygons, Direct3D, OpenGL, Normal.

.Refraction

See also Caustics.

.Rig

Similar to Skeleton??? Differences between Rig and Skeleton?? William Eggington says: „A rig is a system of bones and constraints that assist you when you wish to animate a character or model.“

.Rigid Body Dynamics

.Roll Handle

See also Angle, Bone.

.Root Bone

.Rotoscope

.SFX

See Special_Effects.

.Shaded Mode

See Real_Time_Rendering.

.Shadow

There are different ways in influencing the look of your shadows.
HowTo: First you have to set in the Properties_Window of at least one Light, that this light is going to poduce shadows. Second in the final render panel choose, that you want shadows to be calculated by the render engine at all (see examples page on the right).
Hint: To create soft edged shadows - in the project workspace tree klick in a light. Then on the properties of the light select the 'shadows' section. There choose between fast 'raytraced shadows' or slower (but more natural looking) 'z-buffered soft shadows' (see examples page on the right).

 
(Examples page)

.Shag

[ToDo]
See Particle System.

(MPG Movie)

.Skeleton

See Bone.

.Skewing

.Smart Skin

[ToDo] 

(MPG Movie)

.Soft Body Dynamics

.Special Effects

See Volumetric_Effect, Particle_System,Volumetric_Light .

.Spherical Angle

.Spline

See also Control Point and Patch.

.Spring System

.Steam

Steam is a Volumetric Effect that simulates little vapor coming from a hot cup of coffee or from a burning cigarette. For more information and examples see entry Volumetric Effect.
HowTo: In an Action- or Choreography window right click and select menu New / Volumetric Effect / Steam.
Hint: If you can't see the steam at render time, try to increase the Brightness setting from the steam objects properties to a value of e.g. 1000%.

.Stereo Rendering

.Storyboard

.Streaks

[ToDo]
See Particle System.

(MPG Movie)

.Stride Length

Aka „Step Length“ is a setting of an Action. When you want a character to walk (or run, or jump, or drive) along a path, you have to tell AM, how far your object should advance on it's path with every step it takes. If the progress on the path does not fit to the step length, the characters feet slip over the ground in an unnatural looking way. HowTo: select the action in the PWT (step#1) and switch the „Has Stride Length“ setting to „ON“ (step#2). A little ground-grid is displayed beneath your character. If you click on the grid, two little sqare handles indicate the extremes of a step – drag them to match your charater's action (step#3). Finally adjust the time, each step lasts (step#4). See image on the right for a step-by-step screenphoto.
Hint: If the feet slip forward with every step, then the stride length is too big (decrease it!). If the feet slip backward with every step, the stride length is too small (increase it!).

(MPG Movie)


(GIF Bild)

.Swarm

A special kind of flocking where the models are moving randomly like a swarm of bees or leaves.
HowTo: PWT / Choreography / New / Flocking / Swarm
See Flocking.

(MPG Movie)

.Texture

See Material and Decal.

.Timeline Window

In the „Timeline Window“ you can view / change the time positions of the keyframes of your animation. In the title bar of the timeline you can see the frame number (or time position) and in the area below every horizontal grey line indicates an object with at least one keyframe and every grey little block an that line indicates a keyframe. The keyframe blocks are inserted automatically by A:M, when you select Edit / Make Keyframe.
HowTo: If you don't see the timeline window (then you'll also miss the PWT!), from A:Ms main menu select View / Project Workspace (or hit ÂLT-0 on your keyboard).

.Toon Lines

See Toon_Renderer.

.Toon Renderer

A special render setting in A:M which allows you, to give your animations a 'cartoonish' look. With the 'Toon Lines' setting you e.g. can specify that the outlines of your shapes should get a black border. With the 'Toon Shader' you can specify that the shapes are not shaded smoothly, but e.g. only with two colors: the object color and a shadow color.
HowTo: To control the toon lines or the toon shading of a single Model, and select the 'Toon Lines' or the Shading section of the Properties_Window of that model.
HowTo: To control the global toon render settings there are two ways: either over a camera object, or over the render to file dialog. E.g. select a camera object, and first have a look at the section Final Options / Toon Renderer. If you check the options 'Override Lines' or 'Override Shading', you get two more sections at the properties: 'Toon Lines' and 'Shading'.

(MPG Movie)


(GIF image)

.Toon Shader

See Toon_Renderer.

.UV Coordinate System

The UV Decals are used to correctly bend and twist decaled surface images while your underlying model bends and twists. So UV is more a “mathematical” thing and the end-user shouldn't care about it. See Decal. [??? is this correct?]

.Underwater Caustics

See Caustics.

.Vector Angle

.Volumetric Effect

Volumetric effects are little animatable clouds of micro-particles for effects like Dust, Mist, Smoke, Fog and Steam. You can control parameters like e.g. „Color“, „Swirl“ or „Turbulence“ to achieve your desired effect – you can even animate these parameters over time. Volumetric effects add a lot of realism and atmosphere to your scenes, but require additional rendertime.

HowTo: In an Action- or Choreography window right click and select menu New / Volumetric Effect and choose Dust, Mist or Steam from the submenu.

(MPG Movie)

(GIF image)

.Volumetric Light

.Weathering

.WIP

Abbreviation for 'Work in Progress'.