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This is an open forum for discussing Animation:Master and discussions should relate to A:M in some capacity.
Ask questions. Share experiences. Outline goals and aspirations.
Discuss what you hope to accomplish with A:M and projects you are working on.
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939 topics in this forum
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tried loading a sound into project even tried one from data it does not play ....windows 10 issue?
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I am running Version 18n 64 bit on a computer with 8GB of RAM and an i7 64 bit processor. Sometimes, it takes 10 to 14 hours to save my work. I work in wireframe and sometimes stop and render along the way so that I can see what the patches look like. I am wondering if there is a way to shorten the saving time, or is there a way to know when rendering time for a frame is going to exceed 7 minutes or so, before I press the render button. What happens when I render sometimes is that the computer buffers (twirls) and twirls indefinitely. I try to abort, and the rendering program seems to abort but twirling continues, and I cannot get back to where I can start the 10 to 14 h…
Last reply by Pitcher, -
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Long-ago forum member Zachary Brewster-Geisz's acting career continues to edge upward. Behold, a very favorable mention in the Washington Post review of "A Midsummer Night's Dream". Zach, seen reclining below...
Last reply by itsjustme, -
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xhttps://vimeo.com/93206523 Watch this Was linked to the free FutureLearn animation course
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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While cleaning out the storage are of the theater room, I found an old PC. Not being sure about the PC, I placed a monitor and power cable on it and started it up. It is an XP box and much to my suprise I found several acts and scenes from TWO. After investigating the machine it is one that I set up for Steve Sappington to use Web Render on. It was fun seeing some of the TWO files. Steve
Last reply by Shelton, -
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I'm posting this here not so much to plug the kickstarter but to highlight one of the interviews/demonstrations that relates to it. Over on the Traditionalanimation.com site, Lavalle Lee conducts an interview with Don Bluth, then one with Gary Goldman and then raps up with a few question with both that dovetails into the announcement of the kickstarter. The main event however is saved for last and that is an animation demonstration by Don Bluth with him breaking down a simple animation of DIrk the Daring swinging his sword. A few highlights of the video include: Don demonstrates the traditional art of animation Don uses an exposure sheet and metronome as an aid…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Anyone that is interested in having a 2D animation program, may want to check this link out: http://digicel.net/SpecialOffer.htm The Lite version is only $20 right now and the Studio version is $89.99. They are offering the educational discount to everyone, I'm not sure how long this will last, so if you're interested you better go grab it now.
Last reply by detbear, -
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Last reply by Tore, -
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http://monocle.com/film/culture/new-generation-animators/
Last reply by Tore, -
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Steve Jobs was pretty good at presenting. Most corporate heads are not. Wanna see a painfully long stretch of mirrored posing and mechanical delivery? Skip ahead to 2:00 and watch the CEO of General Motors talk to a crowd... Mary Barra CES Keynote Speech
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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I don't know much about this but saw it and didn't want anyone to miss out if interested. Apparently there is a free online animation course from Futurelearn. Here's the write up: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/explore-animation I don't have specifics but according to the article I gleaned this from the course is free for the next month only. It appears to be part of a bid to get more interest going in online classes after a $200K investment from Creative Skillset.
Last reply by fae_alba, -
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- 17 replies
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I was watching a retrospective documentary that was an extra on the final Clone Wars release and part of it was dedicated to something I found interesting. At a certain point, Lucas realized that in order to keep on schedule, they needed to forego the storyboarding stage and go straight to pre-viz. Lucas went to his guys at ILM and a team was put together to create a piece of software called "Zviz" that would make it easy to create a pre-vis version of the episode first. The tool would not only allow you to import and animate assets, but you could create assets and most importantly, shoot and edit the material. Using Zviz on a laptop, directors could set up or change …
Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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Strangely interesting... xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XahbqLdCVhE
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 688 views
For those of you wanting to move your A:M work into the communal online world and perhaps eventually make a few $ in the process here's a platform that is in early stage of fielding and yet considerably mature underneath the hood. https://www.otakhi.com/pages/overview Here's a current look at the repository: https://www.otakhi.com/pages/home.php This would be for those of you that like to use code as a key component is three.js (javascript) but the platform states that writing javascript is "purely optional**" as the modular approach is designed to be drag and drop. My guess would be that a trip through a program such as Blender would be required to get y…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Shhhhh... keep this on the lowdown. Recently I was plugging Don Bluth's effort to get his traditional animation project off the ground and this relates to that in a way. How? Way back when, at Don's Masterclass one of the attendees was Keith Osborn who near the end of the course showed me a few secrets of a then hush hush project; Warner Bros Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote when they were first making the move to CG. The highlight of the animation was Keith's work with smears, duplicate limbs, etc. which were all pretty hard to do in most software in that timeframe. Well, seeing ample opportunity to spread the word on his approach and technique, Keith has publish…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 10 replies
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Wow, go see this, if nothing else, for the scenery. Actually it is very touching. My wife was crying. Lots of fun.
Last reply by Steveotron, -
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Who better to demonstrate the Dreamworks pipeline for making Animated films than the penguins of madagascar. Learn it. Live it. Love it. Then... go make another animated movie. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CbG0d_tnSg
Last reply by Fuchur, -
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https://www.facebook.com/aescripts/videos/956695491034110/ AE Scripts has a new hand-drawn cel animator that lives within After Effects... Looks like they have a cool 'decal' mode that tracks to CGI renders like AM would render... If I am seeing it correctly. Have not looed into price yet.
Last reply by Rodney, -
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I have applied decals many times. Now I have one that applies fine when I have the patches that it touches selected and the others hidden. When I bring back the other patches, however, the decal becomes spotty on one of the patches where it was fine before. I have tried to apply the decal with the entire figure showing, but when I do that, the patch that rejects the decal will not cover. I have found normals and flipped normals, and everywhere I could find anything about normals I tried to do something. Please tell me what is going on and why the decal will not apply evenly and continue to stick. Thanks.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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I'm still receiving reports that the like system isn't working for folks. The issue on my end is that I don't see any setting that is restricting the use of likes. If you would be so kind... Please like this post and comment if you cannot get it to work with the nature of the error. You can comment if it works as well but that will be assumed by the number of likes. Added: I don't see the 'like' option (presumably) because I'm the originator of this post.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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Hi A:M Folks! I'm new to these forums, so I apologize if this has been answered before. I bought Animation:Master out of high school around 2004 and have used it sporadically over the years ever since. (I even managed to get it working on Linux when I stopped using Windows.) Recently, though, when I went to look for it for a new project, my CD was nowhere to be found. To my horror, I realized that I may have accidentally thrown it out with the wrong pile of stuff during an epic cleanup session. (It was very epic cleanup.) Anyway, my question is, being that A:M requires the CD in the tray to load, what is Hash's policy about replacing lost CDs? As I said, it wa…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Last reply by Roger, -
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I wondered how it comes when I import models with the *.obj extention I often get a scrambled surface on the skin. For some reason the trivertices don't seem to fit in well and make bad shadows. Does this have a reason, for example the normals are not fit in well, or is it just because of the nature of the object files? Is there a way to get this effect blended so the surface rounds up well again?
Last reply by detbear, -
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- 3 replies
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As a kid in the late fifthies/early sixties, I loved watching a stop motion series of very short films on danish tv, starring a dog made of folded (origami style) paper. I think it was british, and each sketch started with a man's hands folding the dog, which then came to life. No dialogue as far as I remember. I have tried to google it, but can't find anything. Could be fun to watch it again. Any of you know the animations?
Last reply by Tore, -
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Welcome.prj
Last reply by Rodney, -
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might this be of interest to someone ? http://graphicshakespeare.tumblr.com/
Last reply by Wildsided, -
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British BFI has recently released a 3 DVD set with the Czhec animation legend Jan Svankmajer's complete filmography. 26 fantastic animations plus interviews and documentaries etc. Highly recomended and very inspirational! Here is a cut from one of the shorts "Dimensions of Dialogue" from 1982 https://vimeo.com/15308509
Last reply by Tore, -
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- 4 replies
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I was good in Algebra, 35 years ago. My 12 year old is in 7th grade and is bringing home Algebra problems and wants help. OK, I remember alot of procedures to solve problems in Algebra. To bad the procedures I remember do not apply to the problems he is bringing home. Really, I dont remember anything. I am having to re learn and learn the new procedures in solving Algebra. My brain hurts.
Last reply by pixelplucker, -
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Hello Hashers- I noticed these cool time lapse clouds that sort of roll inside out- xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3-BVBocCxI and wondered if anyone has been able to achieve this with sprites (or otherwise)? Tom
Last reply by Tom, -
Render test
by Tore- 1 follower
- 9 replies
- 1.1k views
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Last reply by John Bigboote, -
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It is just superb ..... the time is precise... the appeal... hilarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZvmPJuksnk
Last reply by Wildsided, -
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- 675 views
I haven't plugged anything from Aaron Blaise in quite awhile (although he's been quite busy). Aaron has just released a video that outlines what I find to be missing from most computer animation lipsync/dialogue and something that quite often character rigs don't allow for out-of-the-box. In short, it's not about the mouth shapes so much as it is squash and stretch and shape change of the whole face and body. Well worth the few minutes it'll take to review the lesson: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYPx6sGZzow
Last reply by Wildsided, -
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The book on animation by Preston Blair came up in anther topic. I thought it might be interesting to see some of the original art as it was put together to be published. (I'll try to organize these a bit more later) And here's the place where most folks go to find the books original scans: http://animationresources.org/instruction-preston-blairs-advanced-animation/
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Even if you don't follow the games world much, these new "next gen" titles are visually stunning. Rendering at 60 fps real time(or something like that.) The real time render world and games show the value of GPU and physically based texturing/ lighting. Light years ahead of CPU. You can catch a look at these all over YouTube in HD. What do you guys think?
Last reply by largento, -
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Brendan Bolles, creator of the ProEXR plugin for After Effects etc. has launched an effort to cull together various open source image and audio formats into a new (more universal) media format for image sequences. It looks like he'll easily make his initial funding goal. This is of interest primarily because having a -simple-, -universal- and -patent free- image format that allows for still and moving imagery has long been of interest. Will MOX just be another file format to contend with or can it achieve it's lofty goal? If anyone can do it it might be Brendan Bolles. This video outlines some of the problems and the support behind the idea:
Last reply by Rodney, -
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For those of you that keep track of file formats and other technical aspects of the trade you may want to watch the glTF (Open GL Transmission Format) standard as it seems to be gaining a lot of traction especially in light of current interest in augmented (and virtual) reality. Perhaps more specifically, flTF optimizes assets for rendering instead of modeling frameworks; primarily via JSON (Javascript Object Notation). Of interest, glTF is not a file format so much as it is a scheme to move 3D data from file formats into a standard encoding that can be compressed/decompressed for transmission (primarily over the internet). The example used is that of other standard…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 21 replies
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I seem to have run into son banding when mixing the Screen Based Ambient Occlusion and Depth Of Field. Is this a biproduct of the two being used or is there a setting in the SBAO that will decrease the dark "halo" like banding on things. Thanks for any suggestions, Kevin
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
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- 568 views
Slight dust accumulation beneath my CPU fan. I only noticed this because the fan spit out a blade and was rattling the whole case and I had to examine it closely.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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There are ways to try Windows 10 and get back your old OS if you don't like it. If you decide within 30 days Windows 10 will ostensibly do the roll back for you. Alternatively, you can do a disk image of your OS drive before you upgrade and use it to revert later. I only recently discovered that Windows 7 can make a disk image for that purpose. how to roll back windows 10 to windows 7
Last reply by Wildsided, -
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- 18 replies
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Octane Renderer is extraordinary. The company that sells it creates plugins for many software like Blender, Carrara etc ... And why not Animation Master. I sent an email to see if they have plans for plugins AM. It would be good that many send an email if interested in this renderer. Octane is a GPU engine Unbiased. User-friendly gpu allows use to make an image from 10 to 50 times faster. I use octane and it's really impressive.
Last reply by Xtaz, -
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Some users finding they are given no choice by Windows update... Preventing Windows 10 Upgrades from Windows Update with GWX Control Panel My AfterEffects is not compatible with Windows 10 so I don't want the upgrade. update: MS claims the involutary upgrades were a mistake... Microsoft is sorry it forced that Windows 10 update down your throat
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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VFX animator Webster Colcord is interviewed in CGW... Spotlight on Webster Colcord I note it for this interesting portion...
Last reply by nemyax, -
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- 636 views
This one almost doesn't rate a 'tech watch' label but there are aspects to it that certainly lend itself to further exploration. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWzurBQ81CM
Last reply by robcat2075, -
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This may be of interest to those who need more realistic characters... of a variety of body types. It was previously reported that Adobe had acquired Maximo and the latest news shows plans moving ahead to provide Fuse software with Adobe CC. Fuse is a bipedal set of tools used with Maximo (and other software) used to create characters. It's similar in many ways to MakeHuman and other software. For geometry the characters can be exported as OBJ. For animation the preferred format is FBX. In something that reminds me much of Hash Inc's earlier ground work with segmented models, the highlights of Fuse are the quick modification of modular characters (those …
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 832 views
Data mining features of Windows 10 are now being sent as updates to Windows 7 and 8. Article on how to side-step them... Windows 10 Worst Feature Now Installing On Windows 7 And Windows 8
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 1 follower
- 10 replies
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There is severe flooding in Clarendon County, South Carolina where forum member Kevin Detwiler lives and in half the rest of the state, also. I hope he and his family are OK! Clarendon Sheriff: All Main County Roads Impassable
Last reply by Shelton, -
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- 493 views
Here's a brief but good article from the Animated Spirit Blog: http://www.animatedspirit.com/the-five-phases-of-work/ Overview: Phase One: Beginnings Phase Two: Preparation and Planning Phase Three: Doing the work Phase Four: Struggle Phase Five: Completion This process is not unlike any good story-telling worth being told. I can easily see overlap between the phases that suggests similarity between the three (and often four) act structures of theater/film production. And (because things in collections of 5s seem to be important) don't forget to read James Chiang's five part review of the book 'Five Cs of Cinematography'. It's very well worth th…
Last reply by Rodney, -
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- 619 views
This is my kind of movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RgquKVTPE
Last reply by Rodney, -
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Hi, Not sure if this is the right place to ask this stuff. If not, feel free to move it to the proper location. I used to use A:M a number of years ago and moved on to polygon modeling (yes, I know polygon isn't a nice word around here). I want to get into doing some animations and am looking back at A:M again. I remember how easy it was to rig and weight a character was and especially to animate it. So, my questions are: 1) In the software that I am currently using, I have the ability to move a point along an edge without having to guess where to place it. Does A:M have anything that would allow you to move a control point along the surface of a spline? …
Last reply by robcat2075,
