Hi Tilandra, will your update make it usable with M3? egaeus, how do I access the free archive? do you have to be a Platinum member? (Currently, I'm not) LR

Yes, thank you. The BOUNDING BOXES suggestion works well. I don't know why I didn't try it before.

Cool. When I get a chance, I'll check into your suggestions. Thanks!

Thanks. The shadow rez is set for 512. I'll try 1024. Don't want to go much higher because I'm animating very complex scenes at 30 fps.

YEEHAAAA! I figured out a work-around. The problem was that if I had two M3 figures in a project and added the M3 Millennium Beard to the second figure, it would conform its shape to the first M3's face and wouldn't morph when I moved the second M3's facial features. It would have been simple enough to just put the beard on the first M3. But I couldn't do that because I already had a M3 in a scene that I had painstakingly integrated into the scene and it would have been a lot of work to recreate him and place him in the flow of the animation, soooo...

I created two versions of the project. In the first project, I removed the first M3 and then added another M3 and added the beard. Then I removed everything BUT the first M3 from the second identical project and then imported him into the first project and he took his place exactly where I needed him. But I did run into one last glitch -- after I brought the second M3 (the one without the beard) into the first project, all of a sudden, the head morphs for the bearded M3 wouldn't work anymore (although the beard did fit him perfectly). So I removed all the morphs and injected them again (in the bearded M3) and now everything works fine. OY!!! (heh...not sure if what I just said makes any sense to you, but that's how it happened)

I am looking forward to hearing from DAZ tech support this next week about this issue. It seems like a definite bug.

The problem IS with multiple figures. I already have one M3 figure in the scene. When I bring another M3 in and then try to give him (M3 #2) a beard, it is conformed to the face shape of M3 #1 (even though it is pasted on M3 #2's face).

And then when I open the mouth of M3 #2, the beard does not move with it, although when I move his head around, the beard DOES move.

Another bizarre side problem that I just discovered is that when I put the M3 Millennium Beard on M3 #1 and open his mouth, part of the inner mouth parts of M3 #2 start to move as well (a hole opens up under his jaw). This is very strange. Help!

PS - This is a very small detail, but I still contend that there are no translate dials under the HEAD section of the M3 Millennium Beard. There are scale dials though. The translate dials are always found at the very bottom of the dial column and are labeled X TRAN, Y TRAN and Z TRAN.

PPSS -- Importing a second figure in as a prop won't work for me because I need him fully functional, for a fight scene.

The picture is not of the M3 Millennium Beard - it's for a different beard. And unfortunately, the HEAD section for the M3 Millennium Beard does not have any translate dials. The only section of the beard that has translate dials that actually move the beard are under the HIP section, but they don't move the beard very intelligently

It would be great to talk to someone who has this product -- to see how they made it work.

Well...I just had an inspiration and opened up a new project with just M3 and the M3 Millennium Beard and it works fine. But I went back into my original project and the original problem persists. This is a huge project with six figures and many props, lights and buildings. Could this be causing the problem? I really need to bring this beard into this project because it must be worn by a figure who is a part of this big environment.

Oh, BTW -- In case this is important: I have Pro Pack.

Thanks for any help anyone can give me.

LR

I take it back. The translate dials under the HIP section only move the beard up and down. I have no idea how to maneuver this beard. Help!

Thanks.

Anyone else know of anywhere I can get motion files for V3/M3 that work in P4/Pro Pack?

Thanks for the info!

Hi nruddock,

Thanks so much for your help. I will check on the Virtual Memory soon (I'm not at my workstation right now). The frames are 720 X 480 at 30 FPS. And I have lots of HD space (Three internal drives, each with over 50 GB of free space on them).

I will also check the task manager for memory use (I do have 2 GB of RAM, so I didn't think memory would be a problem).

Hi,

I can't remember if I installed the memory update or not. (I know I did before I bought my new system, but I quickly looked for the update in my download folder and it wasn't there.) The current version of P4 that I have is 4.0.3.127 -- is that the memory updated version?

I have Win XP Pro and am rendering uncompressed video.

Thanks for any help you can give me -- I really appreciate it.

LR

Anybody have any ideas?

ARRRGH!!! I just did another render (a little shorter than the first) and the same thing happened. HELP!!!

Thanks for the suggestion. I just did a defrag of all my hard drives a few days ago. And disc cleanup shows that there are very few files that could be removed.

Oh, one thing I realized. The quality in the scene doesn't change until I try to close the error message. Then it changes the image onscreen to a lower render quality and also changes the settings in the actual render settings menu. (!?)

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with P4. Anyone know where can I get some .PWK files that look better than the default ones in P4?