A:M Rendering
Rendering, Compositing and Special Effects
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99 topics in this forum
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Anyone using AM on Windows 8? I installed it on my crappy little Acer i5 2.1ghz with 4gb RAM and it is rendering 3 time faster than my Windows 7 Toshiba Qosmio i7 1.8ghz with 8gb RAM. I wouldn't have thought that the extra 0.3ghz processor speed would have made that much difference..... Cheers
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 7 replies
- 2.2k views
Hi all, Remember those toons where the fade to black was an iris? How would you recommend achieving that in AM? My only idea is to use an unlit black flat piece of geometry with a circle in it and I move and scale the circle to suit. Cheers
Last reply by Rodney, -
- 4 replies
- 1.4k views
Tried to search but the forum errors because it's a 3 letter word..... My own trial and error attempts have not produced what I expected (ie I am trying to 'hide' the scintillation on the ocean waves in the distance in my animation but I do not want to obscure anything else - ie the sky..... Cheers
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 3 replies
- 1.3k views
I find it interesting that the Rendering of light 'through' geometry (ie windows/doorways) is different between a Final Render in AM and a Final Render in Netrender (Netrender gets it right). In AM, the light pentrates the geometry. In Netrender it is properly blocked by Geometry. (17g 64bit) Cheers
Last reply by Fuchur, -
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Saw a post on here a couple of months ago about converting TGA files into an AVI movie using AM 10.3 and up...the process described won't work for me...there is no option under the file drop down menu to import any image files.Running AM 13.0....??????Anybody used this before????If AM will do it don't want to spend money on a new utility progam for this.... TNX
Last reply by Rodney, -
- 2 replies
- 1.1k views
Well I'm not sure if this is new ( on a Mac ) but I can now drag and drop a quicktime movie as is ( no tga stuff here ) into AM as a layer or roto and even a decal renders and player great !! at least so far so good I'm using the latest version love it ! j
Last reply by jimd, -
- 1 reply
- 1.7k views
A:M has a format for importing/exporting camera data. For what it's worth, it seems to work like this... It is a text file that appears like this 30 16 1 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.72529e-009 1 12 -0 100 0 0 2 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -1.11022e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 8.33262 100 0 0 3 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -1.66533e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 17.0863 100 0 0 4 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -2.77556e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 26.1848 100 0 0 5 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -2.22045e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 35.5286 100 0 0 6 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -2.22045e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 45 100 0 0 7 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 -1.11022e-016 3.72529e-009 1 12 54.4714 100 0 0 8 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 3.72529e-009 1 12 63.8152 100 0 0 9 1 2 3 0 0…
Last reply by 3DArtZ, -
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AMers On my Pirate project I'm thinking on attempting to get the look of stop motion like seen in those old Sinbad movies (those skeleton sword fights) , what approach would/could one take in getting that effect/look in AM ... animating is by no means a strong area of mine..that is if I have a strong area.... Thanks, Mike "Kamikaze"
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 1 reply
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Just goofing around here .....What I have is a clothsim where I have is several deflector half tubes spaced below the cloth and moving towards the camera, the cloth settles on them and I adj CS settings to try to get a bubbley effect ..a little jerky here and there ..the cloth is decaled with an image....with a little work on settings I think it could look nice.......... Lava.mp4
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 6 replies
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Hello, I recently returned to AM. I'm working my way through TAOAM. I am also just digging around and pressing buttons and just getting to know the program. Question - How do I add a background image? I'd like to create charcaters, etc. but also use backgrounds; like cityscapes, or the inside of rooms, or environments created in other programs, and render my charcaters on or ontop of the background. Thanks!
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 6 replies
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Is there a good tut out there that points out the differences in usage in the inherent glow (when turned on) of an object vs. the glow caused by lens flares. Looking at a "beam" type glow from the eyes of a character. I created this effect initially with a couple of bone/Cp-driven bolts eminating from the eyes. Looks good, but I'm thinking there should be a way to duplicate the "late night headlight" effect without the normal circular "lens flare effect. As always, any advice is appreciated. Rich EDITED: "good" instead of "food"
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 2 replies
- 940 views
I'm doing a test render of my holiday animation and even at one pass, at half-size (360x180) each frame is taking around ten minutes. I'm only rendering every tenth frame and it looks like around 45 hours just for this test. And it *doesn't* have the snow falling, just some hair material and the shooting "roman candles". I need to look into this and then I'll be in touch with a couple of folks here who have render farms. I should also test the render times on the Mac as it's always rendered faster, but I'm a little leery that the Mac may render the particle systems differently. It has in the past but that's a few versions ago.
Last reply by Gerry, -
- 2 replies
- 1.6k views
In the "Heat Distortion" Thread I posted a sample project that uses a Material effector to change the refraction value of a small portion of a lumpy transparent tube. HeatDistortion.zip The idea is that where the refraction is greater than 1.0 the lumps will bend the light and distort the background seen through the object, creating something like the wavy distortion you seen in the air above a very hot object. You may also recall a similar tactic used by Jeff Lew in "Killer Bean 2" to make the "trail" of a bullet in the air visible. However the effect only appears properly in Progressive render, not Final renders. Steffen Gross has looked at the pr…
Last reply by johnl3d, -
- 13 replies
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Not sure what else to call it ....... I would like to have an effect for the exhaust section on my jet engine to have that heat wave like effect, not really smoke or very little smoke and maybe it would extend out 10 feet or so from the exhaust , maybe a translucent sprite effect with a fast end life or a material effect? never was good at understanding animated materials. ... or some other method? I always have h hard time getting the look I want with sprites, due to my limitation not the sprite sys. I will go abouts working on ideas..if you have any! ..... sound like a job for "TinkeringGnome" hope I spelled that correctly....John Mike C
Last reply by Kamikaze, -
- 0 replies
- 931 views
Hey Folks I have an old model that I build a ways back in v14c of a c-130 aircraft ....... I'm trying to get it to leave a smoke trail as it goes along a path in a chor. I had it working in 14c back in the day but I am having problems in 64b AM 16b on windows 7 64 bit......when I put it in a new chor alone on a path it works fine but when I bring it into another chor..to be specific the chor used in the "rear window" group project started by robcat ..it does not emit sprites... I want to use this c 130 in a flyover scene .....with the smoke trail behind it...now for more detail.....the 4 engines on the c 130 are brought into the chor as action objects ...... and firs…
Last reply by Kamikaze, -
- 5 replies
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Howdy Folks, Been awhile sense I've used A:M and seeing if I can get back into it before a possible upgrading....I am using 14c Some of U may remember this old newbie... Ok the problem ,I want to use a picture I took and add a 3d model to it with its shadow on the ground plane.... I've gotten the shadow to show up but the model does not show........or visa versa.... Ground plane has receive shadows on and shadow only on and front projection target and flat shaded on but even when off no render differance Model has cast shadows on Camera has shadows on and a rotoscope pic/decal with On top off and include in alpha buffers off I've done …
Last reply by Kamikaze, -
- 13 replies
- 1.9k views
I'm creating an explosion and I wanted to have some sprites change from yellow to red over their lifetime, i.e., from the center of the explosion to the periphery. I've been playing with settings but can't seem to find a way, or even just coloring them one color throughout. Can this be done? Or does it need to be an animated sprite?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 2 replies
- 1.1k views
Is it normal for A:M to grind to a crawl when working in a Chor using particle sprites? I'm not be able to scrub through the Chor timeline as normal in order to see how they are looking or how the animation timing is for the emitted particle sprites. I can step through the Chor a frame at a time but I have to wait for a couple of minutes before the each frame is displayed. This is happening with my old nemesis, the Rear Window set! I have deactivated most of the set and character to try and speed things up, which has at least got the wait between frames down from 4 minutes! As soon as I turn off "Show Particles/Hair" I can scrub through normally again. I don't t…
Last reply by markw, -
- 1 follower
- 9 replies
- 1.5k views
Cloth has been very hard to get a grip on. Second run at it Steve Cloth.mov
Last reply by Shelton, -
- 1 follower
- 3 replies
- 1k views
Testing out netrender on my animation machine. Ran just perfectly. Steve
Last reply by Shelton, -
- 1 reply
- 829 views
Hey, all, delving into texturing and I've created a Color texture. I'm wondering since I've created this texture, would it be possible to create a displacement texture using the UV that was created for the Color texture? I say this as when I created the Color texture, I did a test and run kind of method (flatten, apply Decal for Color, not save Action). So, I'm almost done with the character and started to wonder about other possible decal textures - displacement, bump, etc. I'm wondering if there is a way to utilize what I've already done or would I have to start all over again and just create more decal images (one for all I suppose because, how would I determine how ma…
Last reply by ernesttx, -
- 1 follower
- 7 replies
- 1.9k views
im trying to do a flyin with a ribbon waving. i was curious about the "wave" plug. are there any tuts on it?
Last reply by jason1025, -
- 3 replies
- 799 views
I've got a shot in my Nightcallers scene, where Midge lands at the front entrance and the doors open to reveal Biff and his Enslaver Ants. There are only a couple of lignts in the shot, with main light coming from a klieg, in fact I think it's the default rim light. Up to where the doors open, it renders fine, about two minutes/frame. But as soon as the door opens, the render slows almost to a stop, it says it's rendering the rim light's shadows, and it just hangs hangs hangs until I cancel the render. Even with a Shift-Q screen render, it just won't render if the doors are open; the info line says it's trying to render the rim's shadows. As an experiment I mad…
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 0 replies
- 768 views
Jody (aka MMZ Timelord) has been setting up a render farm and we did a test shot for Nightcallers that came out great. I'd recommend his help just on this basis because it went so well. Not posting it because the flame effect needs some serious tweaking but once all the tech stuff is managed and we do another render I'll be posting.
Last reply by Gerry, -
- 5 replies
- 1.3k views
I placed a light into choreography and noticed that the lens flare "ON" was greyed out and disabled. Have you guys noticed this??
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 0 replies
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Staging and Composition probably should have a forum area of its own but perhaps a separate forum isn't strictly needed. Discussion of these two themes is certainly encouraged and insight into them by practitioners of the craft is always appreciated. There are a lot of similar concepts in 3D staging and composition to photography, filmmaking, illustration... carpentry.... flower arrangement... Staging and Composition can be found everywhere. And what can be applied appropriately can enhance what we produce in CG. Here is an article from Videomaker.com that proposes to set up standing sets for use with live action filmmaking. The concepts found in these fiv…
Last reply by Rodney, -
- 0 replies
- 765 views
Is it possible to copy the settings from one of my older projects into a new project Have a new project where that was tracked in PFHoe and, I could not get the ground to have shadows on it. I imported a 4x4 grid that I used many times before but still can not get shadows. So I found one older proj. that does work, Thus my question. Can the Grid settings from the old Proj., or Chor., be imported to the new grid?
Last reply by Walter Baker, -
- 19 replies
- 1.7k views
Hi all, I am creating a scene in which I need an object clips out the rendering of other objects. So if the clipping object is in the foreground, it will alpha out anything behind it. I imagine there is a way to do this using compositing layers and other software. But it there way to simply designate an object so that it can do this? Thanks, -Adam
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
- 6 replies
- 1.2k views
Have been having this issue for a while now and not sure how to get rid of the problem. Basically you see striations in every gradient, particularly bad in areas of extreme contrast. Not sure if its a rendering option, a card issue, or what. No matter what card, amount of memory, or processor I have used over the past, and they are varied, I get the same results no matter what. Info on PC is an Intel Duel core 2.6 G, 2 gigs of ram, 1.9 T hard drive space. Also have tried a variety of passes and between 2 passes and a 100 absolutely no difference. Again if anyone can help me I really would appreciate it. Also side note, when doing alpha layer rendering, I notic…
Last reply by jimd, -
- 8 replies
- 1.3k views
http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...mp;hl=propellor Ok Gang, I have an idea for the new forum project and need to get the above (MUFOOF) info to work. I have worked on this for several days and when I go to render all seems to be fine and the window says 2-3 hours. After 5 hours I go on to bed and in the morning it is still rendering.....stop it This morning started it with new settings at 7am just got home at 5:30 same results, ran all day still rendering....stop it The object is to have a model spin around blurring then stopping for something else here is the project Hopefully one you folks can look at it and see where I hav…
Last reply by Walter Baker, -
- 14 replies
- 1.8k views
I'm having difficulty getting cloth to work - at all - in 16.0a. Simulation always creates infinite collisions, no matter how low I have the threshold set. Loading the same project in v15 makes the cloth simulate perfectly fine. Submitted an AM:Report, anyone else having this issue?
Last reply by Walter Baker, -
- 4 replies
- 976 views
As far as I know, you need to use multi pass to get OpenEXR renders to contain most buffers, including the depth buffer. Or is there some way to use regular render and still get a depth buffer? It can't be a "normalized" depth buffer like the 8-bit renders get with the depth buffer switch ON (because that won't work with fakeAO, AFAIK)
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
- 5 replies
- 1.2k views
THis is very short and not to impressive but I was curious one day and did this from something I saw on TV. Any way I added some of my video to some blocks to see how it would look. test2.mov
Last reply by Walter Baker, -
- 4 replies
- 891 views
Here's a current job running. Is this common? Instance 0 got started first and is doing something but Render Server doesn't seem to know. But instance 1 appears to be reporting in correctly.
Last reply by HomeSlice, -
- 24 replies
- 2.4k views
I have a question about sound in TARGA sequences. After rendering a choreography as .tga there is one more file - .tga.sinfo. I am guessing that this is the sound information. When I import the sequences in Quicktime 7, only the video images are imported. If I import the sequences back into A:M and then "Save Animation As ..." and select .mov the sound again is left out. What do I need to do. Thanks.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 3 replies
- 598 views
After importing Smoke2 as a Sprite it goes Material>Smoke2>Sprite Emitter>Sprite Emitter (2). Why are their two? I could not find an explanation in the Tech Manual.
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 6 replies
- 1k views
I see I don't have to use the pre-canned resolutions in the render tab. I can set my own. So I am wondering how to compute the proper aspect ratio?
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 4 replies
- 859 views
I may not be asking this in the appropriate place, If sO I apologise. I have spent a long time rendering out .tga files from my current project. They were rendered at 1920 x 1060 and I am now trying to compile the frames in Final Cut Pro into the finished piece. Can anyone advise as to what video Codec to use to get the best quality at full registration ? The still frames rendered have no visual banding but, when I compile them in FCP, even in uncompressed form, ( all 508Mb for 3 seconds worth ) then banding is very noticeable. Is there acny way around this ? If I am asking in the wrong place, can anyone advise as to where to ask ? sincere…
Last reply by Darkwing, -
- 3 replies
- 809 views
I am rendering a scene and want to render every third or fourth frame. Right now I'm just entering the frame numbers with commas between each in the custom frame options dialog box when rendering, but I feel that there was an easier method that I am forgetting. Is there a way to set a render so that it renders only every other frame or however you want? Also, as my reason for rendering this way is to get a choppy, "stop-motion" look to the animation, is it possible to accomplish this in a choreography when there are camera movements and I want the camera movement to be smooth while the models I am animating have the jerky stop-motion look?
Last reply by HomeSlice, -
- 3 replies
- 738 views
I need a brown dust sprite / brown smoke? I tried the dust from TAOAM but its not looking how I need it to. it would be a big help if someone has such a sprite. Thank you very much! Gene
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 2 replies
- 684 views
OK Heres the deal , i have a top down view of a building and i have a little ball thats going to move through it , i need a line to follow it in a way similar to how a line follows a pencil sort of like is created at the center of the ball but does not move on its own accord, was wondering if any one had any ideas that could make this work ?
Last reply by jakerupert, -
- 5 replies
- 818 views
I did some more testrendering for a project of mine. Format Full HD with quite a few big models in it with shadow, reflections, toonrender on. I know I should use singlefile format, but just for a general test , if it would work at all, I choose Quicktime with high quality. So what happens with my scenes they render quite o.k. with times from 5 to 15 minutes till all of a sudden from one frame to another the rendertime rise exceptionally to 40 minutes or higher, seems like it is stalled somehow. Can I forget and quit this now or does it make sense to show some more patience? What might be the reason? Not enough ram maybe? Would this happen with…
Last reply by HomeSlice, -
- 15 replies
- 1.8k views
Hello- Playing with sprite smoke and wanted to ask two questions. 1) Is it possible to achieve an effect like the one in the still image from a 2D Disney cartoon whereby smoke is underlit to give a dramatic effect? Sprites don't seem to be affected by lights and if you colored the individual small graphic (which makes up the smoke ) to be underlit, then the underlit effect would be over the entire smoke cloud and not isolated as it would be in a dramatic setting... 2) I have been trying to get a very slow (almost hypnotic) effect with smoke rising using sprites. Can't seem to slow the smoke down enough to get that effect. I tried playing with the "ini…
Last reply by Tom, -
- 37 replies
- 4.1k views
I was watching one of the videos and it referred to a white render. I like that look but don't know where or how to do it. Anyone?
Last reply by NancyGormezano, -
- 3 replies
- 996 views
i´m working on my second rubberguy short right now, and i want to have a bullet flying through the air effecting those matrix-rings as in the movie... (you know, when you can see the air displaced by the bullet...) i´m using an animated reflective transparent perlin-combiner as material on the rings, that works pretty well so far.... my question is: how would make the rings scale up as the bullet flows through? and how would you fade them in and out? sure, i could animate that all by hand, but i´m pretty shure there´s a more elegant solution for that, like using constraints or something... thanks ahead... matrixtest.mov
Last reply by thefreshestever, -
- 5 replies
- 1.1k views
Animate Boolean Effect (Animated Gif attached - click on the picture and wait loadings ) Project file BOOLEAN_v15_7.prj
Last reply by robcat2075, -
- 3 replies
- 736 views
I know a number of apps can load OpenEXR files but what current apps can load them and give individual access to the various buffers that one file might contain, such as the depth or normal or light buffers, much as the composite feature of A:M does Does anyone have After Effects CS3? Does it do that sort of thing? If there aren't apps that do that, is there a way to extract these buffers into separate files?
Last reply by MattWBradbury, -
- 12 replies
- 2.3k views
Toon Render Animation Master’s Toon Render has a lot to offer. This topic is dedicated to providing the Animation Master Community with an in depth examination of Toon Rendering. Of the many properties for surfaces, Toon Lines and Toon Shading control how surfaces render when Toon Render is ON in the Rendering Options window. To turn Toon Render ON, click Tools on the menu bar and select Options, or press Ctrl+P to bring up the Options window. Click on the Rendering tab, make sure that Advance is checked, and click on the OFF next to Toon Render to turn it to ON. If you open up the Toon Render menu, you will see thre…
Last reply by MattWBradbury, -
- 9 replies
- 2.5k views
hey! for all you people out there favouring The Dark Side over any christmas any time, here is a little seasonal treat: Vampire Vampire allows you to change the Diffuse Color and the Transparency of a material when seen in a mirror. Just set the Opacity, Color and Tint percentage you want to have in the mirror, drop the material on your vampire and you are done. http://www.kci-group.com/z/vampire.htm also check out keekat's new cool vampire teeth! Vampire is Freeware. have fun + post some pics using it here!
Last reply by nino banano,