You are all so helpful I know I have to walk before I can run and I am taking on all your advice. I love this program and I so want to do well with it. Thanks again

I may have posted this before but.... just on a note of the quality of graphics... here's a bit of a cottage in the medieval collection and praise is worthwhile here because this is both beautiful and easy to re-edit!

The Graphics Quality impressed me (again) and who ever the artist is, they're an unsung hero!

A bit of House map from "The Medieval Village Collection." in City Elements.

You are all such a helpful lot - thank you - will try your tips and am sure I will improve. I am so impatient and when you hav e a husband standing behind you asking questions and making suggestions about things he knows nothing about - well - :w00t:

Hello Heather. I just thought I would make a humblising addition to my particles pictures above.

When I reference "easy" I'm actually making comparative reference to being able "now" to control the VOLUME and POSITION, DEPTH, HEIGHT of a particles' active space.

Before, you could not see the box it was within OR the core of it.
Now, you can.
So, rather than rolling forwards and back, adjusting, rolling forwards and back, adjusting and on and on, you simply reshape and watch the results on screen live.

And the others are right. The bit by bit approach is best.

Who on earth could ever claim they knew all the particle behaviour variations with so many combinations & adjustments.

What do I do?
How do I learn myself?
I open a flag.
I bring up its control screen and change a value/number.
I run the preview and watch the flag move now.
I change something else.
I run it and watch.
I change something else a larger number if nohing noticeable happened.
I run it and watch the changes.
Sometimes I adjust something and it all goes completely haywire nutzo.
Or sometimes I change something and visually nothing happens because the value I changed was toooooooo small.

That's all I do.

Nothing else.
I am no master guru programmer.
Thats my learning method.
I dont know another one.
Hands on  works. ;)
.

Yes - Heather, Gabe is right.

iClone is best learned in small chunks as you need it and as you use it. With so many features to choose from it would be impossible to master them all quickly. I've spent the last 3 weeks just focused on lighting techniques and I've barely scratched the surface!

Cathy :hehe:

Just click on the graphic to go there.

heather not to worry- i am a long time iclone user and i have yet to touch or learn how to use a number of features even on iclone 2 - i basically use what i need for the movie i am working on and that is usually the time i try to learn a specific feature

i see many folks worrying about not knowing how to use all the features - my advice is don't worry about knowing all of it - work on a project, break it down into scenes and work on each scene, use what you know and ask a question on how to do a specific thing on a scene

eventually you'll get used to the flow and pick things up as you make more movies

You know there are lots of things I really don't know what to do with. The flex base for instance - how do I use that. God! I'm so uninformed. Wish there was a book!

How easy it is to manipulate the particles now. I dont know if this was availale in THREE because I was involved in other issues but today... it suddenly struck me what exactly it was I was doing... and it was easy.

If you've never had a good scourge and dig around inside particle behaviour you're missing out.
Armstrong.

This was the original walk through. I was tired and forgot about Particles. A case of "Way too much to choose from." :P


Setting up particle volume where I did NOT want leaved trees but rather thought particle leaves would add some animation and give the feel of a fireworks display as well. Easy when you can see these boxes.


I like particle leaves.:P No sweeping 'em up afterwards.


Loud, contrasty and Disneyfied. This is just for the header movie tommorow, thats all.

The controllability of Flex Base and Flex Cloth models. Now that I have time to start finetuning and get some images for JM II I thought an indepth search for those bits I never see was in order.

Sometimes scanning what is helps me to concieve what could be far better. If I dont know about all the mechanics I cant mentally assemble as much.

This also animated in Wiremode so you dont have to keep firing up and closing downa nd opening up the controlling window again and again. It stays there and you can adjust the settings after each run.

I changed the Sag and Speed of reaction and in so doing created a heavier canvas appearance for the painting. I also changed the frequency which made the model appear motionally smaller because of the users visual illusion of lower mass due to its response being quicker to the "wind".
Armstrong.

Just reading what others are doing is so exciting. Now I managed to do a small thing with the boy and dog but I was so pleased that I got the movements right. It is a joy to work with and with the help of all of you with your hints and ideas I am looking forward to doing so much more. Thank you IC4 and thank you members. It's a great thing to be part of this.:D