Asking for assistance
I wanted to make this cannon unit for a project of mine, and I made a 3d model in 3ds max (like people told me to) and rendered it from twelve angles- things like standing, moving, firing, as well as death animation. It is currently a bunch of bitmap files that yet have to be processed in photoshop and then compiled into a collection in amber- 146 frames. Im a PC user so I don't have amber, as I mentioned in an ealier thread, and so I wanted to ask if there is anyone with amber willing to help me out and make these files into a collection. If there is one such noble soul, I will explain more in detail what my file "codenames" are supposed to mean and in what order I would like them. If I receive no assistence I may have to resort to stealing my friend's macintosh.
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TarousZars
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Hrm, I'd amber it, but it's the processing using Photoshop that I don't like, as it consumes far more time than the actual ambering.
Also, you'll want to be sure your naming convention uses numbers, e.g View #03 Frame #08, otherwise it's a pain to import into Amber, if you use naming like n for north, ne for northeast then you'll make it vastly more difficult than it needs to be
So long as it's named in numbers in a convention like <view>> with preceeding zeroes where appropriate then you're good to go, as Amber will import an entire sequence that way, then all you have to do is line the images up (which for a cannon is usually not so bad).
Also, you'll want to be sure your naming convention uses numbers, e.g View #03 Frame #08, otherwise it's a pain to import into Amber, if you use naming like n for north, ne for northeast then you'll make it vastly more difficult than it needs to be
So long as it's named in numbers in a convention like <view>> with preceeding zeroes where appropriate then you're good to go, as Amber will import an entire sequence that way, then all you have to do is line the images up (which for a cannon is usually not so bad).
Being Haravikk gets you girls like these:
My system is: I have two zeroes in the beginning, or a 01, to indicate the number of that particular frame in the sequence, and then the name of the sequence, and then the angle
For example: 01firingelev210
The reason I could not do the photoshop part myself is because I have never done it before and would not know if I made mistakes. If I used my own copy of amber I could quickly check in amber the correctness of what I did in photoshop. For instance, I tried importing some of my bitmaps into tahoe after I made them indexed and color table and all that, and they came out funny...
For example: 01firingelev210
The reason I could not do the photoshop part myself is because I have never done it before and would not know if I made mistakes. If I used my own copy of amber I could quickly check in amber the correctness of what I did in photoshop. For instance, I tried importing some of my bitmaps into tahoe after I made them indexed and color table and all that, and they came out funny...
unless your a batch wiz with photoshop which ive never got to work right ... use graphic converter like iron suggested... I still havnt hooked up my macs since i moved... awaiting new desk.. and installation of network so i can go online via the cable modem... right now i have the bonus of 3 neighbors with wireless connections that are wide open so I can log on via their wifi... back to the point my macs arn't live yet so no help here .. unless pc amber is done yet. To help out whoever is doing this for you... maybe make them a color table with 240 colors that makes what your trying to do look good...
good luck... also if you put the frames in folders of sequences they can be imported by sequence bit maps..
good luck... also if you put the frames in folders of sequences they can be imported by sequence bit maps..
if one does not learn from the failings of the past they are likely to suffer its return.
Well, Point, I am doing this myself now on my friend's mac- I've run into a few problems, and the fact that I convert the files on one computer and have to transfer them to another for amber doesn't help. My friend does not have GraphicConverter, and I believe it is another Mac-specific program. I rendered the files as RGB bitmaps and have converted them with photoshop using the batch action Gleep mentioned, twice-on the first try my colors were somewhat distorted by the "index" function, and the second time they were not, but there remained a blue outline around my unit when I opened it in amber. So now people tell me (contrary to the tutorials i read) that photoshop doesn't work and that Graphic Converter is the way to go. I can't have it, and I had to beat my friend into letting me even install amber on his computer, so I doubt he will let me install GC.
Plus my names suck, as I have discovered, because Amber sorts them in alphanumeric order.
So unless someone has a hint as to why the blue outline wont disappear I'm stuck.
Plus my names suck, as I have discovered, because Amber sorts them in alphanumeric order.
So unless someone has a hint as to why the blue outline wont disappear I'm stuck.
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Killswitch
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Viktor wrote:I rendered the files as RGB bitmaps and have converted them with photoshop using the batch action Gleep mentioned, twice-on the first try my colors were somewhat distorted by the "index" function, and the second time they were not, but there remained a blue outline around my unit when I opened it in amber.
I'll take a stab at what I think is happening. Was the unit rendered in your 3d app with a blue background? And if so, did you have anti-aliasing on? (AA gives those nice smooth edges). If so, the the problem might be Amber is masking out the 100% blue pixels, but not the 0%-99% blue pixels.
Let me explain pictorially:
The 3d app might render one image like so:
Notice the nice soft edge. However, when Amber masks out the 100% blue pixels (pixels with RGB values of R:0, G:0, B:255) then you might get something like this:
That's because the eges of the render don't have RGB values of 0,0,255. They have something like 17, 13, 255.
So how do you fix this? Turn off anti-aliasing in your 3d app when you render. That should be a setting somewhere (I don't have/use 3ds max - anyone?). You should/might be able to render an alpha mask separately from the color rendering. (An alpha mask is a grayscale image that has transparency information.)
If you'd like, you can send me a couple of bitmaps and I can see what's up. I am by no means an "Amber master" but I know it pretty well.
Right, that makes sense. It also means I have to redo 146 renders.
I don't know if that's neccessarily the case though, because when I converted the RGB renders into index at lower quality (color distortion)this issue did not occur.
If you are right there is no point in sending you bitmaps. I just have to redo them. 146 of them. Aaarg.
I don't know if that's neccessarily the case though, because when I converted the RGB renders into index at lower quality (color distortion)this issue did not occur.
If you are right there is no point in sending you bitmaps. I just have to redo them. 146 of them. Aaarg.