I am thumping a tub here, mainly because if you go over to the actual Bryce forums, there is a huge clamour for faeries and forests (which as you may see are not my field ) and very little backing for animation, both from users and developers. The pdf for Studio talks of animation, but it's all in the future. There is a very loud group of people who will not budge on the look and feel of Bryce, and seem very happy that it exists at all. I feel they need to get new people in, not just cater for the existing user, or they will get nowhere. So if I have a skewed idea of the direction that DAZ may take, that's why.

If you have something to say then out with it man! I will wait, but not too keenly. It sounds as if Bryce may be the solution, or it could be something else or...it would feel safer to me if I knew which way the thing was going to go. However, Bryce seems to suit my needs, without to much hassle.

Ironically, Bryce suits my prime animation aim quite well, once I settled down and listened to your ideas! It's just that I started to wonder...and of course the sales pitch is aimed to make you do just that.... "dynamically-updated deforming meshes" ...that's what I meant....That would make Bryce a very powerful animator. Where do the models for Studio come from? What are they created in and can I (one) do my own, OOI?

Hey dukduk! Thanks for all that stuff about rotating and linking and locking! I think I was too bo8nd up in Rhino, where you ask to rotate, and you have several object selected, and then you can select a rotation point. I actually grabbed a 'wooden" model called adam3.3dm from around here (rhino stuff) and imported it into Bryce. Using Parenting and locking, and leaving all the actual joints "free", you get a fully-mobile human model. Most fascinating. Worth setting up and using in other situations when needed. I did leave the poor guy's thumbjoint floating around for a while but he didn't complain...glad of the walk, I guess. I would not be surprised to see that there is one already made. But it was an enormous learning experience.

Just tried locking and yes it could be very useful. Glad I could "help" I have to say that in Rhino, I learn more by trying to help others on the RHino NGs than any other way. It's been the same for me whatver new stuff I take up, and even when it's not new to me. I also often hold the same sort of conversations you do with myself as I interact!

Tried the arm. The bucket's centre of rotation was not at the pin, so I put it there. Logical. I left a hole where I should have had a pin. When I was trying the imports, I had no idea of what would happen, and actually ended up with everything as one item, not knowing about ungrouping. This would only happen with 3ds, so I was not sure of what I should include in the imported object at all. So thanks, dukduk.

Need to think about this. Thanks dukduk, from me as well.

If you are talking about taking the path an object travels >along and changing it from a curve to a right angle then >open the object attributes, go to the animation tab and >turn on show handles. The handles of the paths show ny default, but if I move a handle, it causes a spline curve, not a sharp corner. >With these you can change the angles, etc using key combos. But what key combos? I wish I could right-click, or click as I can an object and edit. This is one of the gripes I have about Bryce. Buttons, triangles, dropdowns, menus and now key combos.... sorry. >If you are really interested in Bryce then get Real World >Bryce 4 (works for 5 too). This book is the Bryce bible >and goes into detail of how things works. It's 1000 pages >of goodness. :) 1000 pages! Yike! Oookay!

If you are already into the Advanced Motion Lab, then you >are accelerating at a rapid pace. The AML is unexplored >territory for me. I hope you continue to have progress. Perhaps in too many directions at once? Rather than accelerating, I think I am more sort of cannoning around, emulating the very bounce I tried to create. I really did just want this to animate Rhino stuff, and got carried away. Try the AML! I looked at it in complete loss at first. But in the end....at its simplest....you pick an object, which flicks up its attributes. Pick an attribute (position), which shows a line on the "screen". Pick a place in the curve, wait for the "pencil" to show onscreen. Create a dot. You can literally drag the dot to make what was linear motion/time into something that follows the curve you draw. You can add points at any place on the line, and create motion/time of any sort. If the line is vertical, you have instant motion. Horiz makes it stand still. And what have you in between. You still need keyframes as you do in the normal screen. So far I have only done position, to accelerate. I have to admit I have not even started on Origin etc etc. My chaotic progress has to have some linearity!

OK. Thanks. I can get that OK. I was meaning more from them point of view of the path it travels along. I wasn't really referring to the bucket (sorry, too many questions), but, say, a bouncing cube, trying to make it bounce, not sort of wash its way around the corner. However, you have given me an idea with your mention of keyframes..... Yup, Worth more looking at. Place a keyframe on the frame right before and maybe right after the one that is the apex of the turn, no movement of the object. This makes the path take a sharp corner! Just learning ghe Advanced Motion Lab, and how that makes things accelerate too. Dang! I was doing all this stuff with keyframes and placing them all over at differnt distances etc! Just made a really nice bounce. Nice and crips, and accelerates down and decelerates up! Hah!. Sorry....

You can always switch views, I do most of my placing in >>the top view first, then right and front (or whatever is >>easier) to get the right height. >How do you zoom in when you are in the top, or side >viewports? UVDan. You can still use the + - and hand controls. This zooms the View, not the Camera. My issue here (and I have been to Support about this but not yet had an answer) is that I find selecting stuff, especially teh Camera, unreliable in any but the Director's View.

Thanks for the reply. As I said in my OP, I placed the Origin Handle at the desired point of rotation. I was looking for a way to do it accurately, not by guess. As far as I can see there is no way to place a thing except by moving it about until it loooks OK. I was wondering if I had missed something in the programme. Thanks for all the input.

To get the bucket to rotate, I would move the time scrubber to the point in the timeline where the bucket should have maximum rotation, then rotate it how you want it. If you are using auto keyframe it should sort itself out. If you are keyframing manually, then add a keyframe >for rotation at that point with the bucket selected. But to get thew bucket to rotate about what point? It wants to rotate about its own centre. I need to alter that accurately.

OK. Thanks for all the help. Really appreciated. I actually posted here because I sent an email to Bryce....with an extra "l" on the end of my email address....and of course had no replies...hhnnnnngggh!

OK. Thanks. They mentioned multiple SomethingOrOthers, but in words that sounded like they were trying to hide something! I use Download Accelerator Plus, which handles broken connections etc. SO I was not sure if this was all it was.