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Installers: Windows 32Bit Windows 64Bit Intel Mac v19.0 Intel Mac SSE4.2 v19.0 SDK UpDate Change Log: Fixed All: 0006942 Audio in Chor doesn't play Fixed All: 0006941 Crash on Decal scaling New All: for chor new entry in the menu -> "Bake and Remove Bullet Constraints" bake simulation data and remove than the Bullet Constraints from the models If the Shift key is hold while clicking this entry, a simulation run is first done for all Bullet Constraints New All: for objects new entry in the menu -> "Reset Main Bone", set the main model bone back to the default values (helpfull for simulation with bullet constraint, if the main bone not at default , unexpected behavior can occur) Fixed All: 0006934 Bullet "Bounce" parameter has no effect Fixed All: 0006938 Bullet simulates with strange results Fixed All: 0006820 Specular highlights not working on transparent surface. Fixed All: 0006931 Magnet Mode distance handles disappear Fixed All: 0006935 Rotoscope disappears if resized Fixed All: 0006933 32 bit version crashes Fixed All: 0006928 AI-Wizard crashes A:M Fixed All: 0006932 Explode/Rebuild doesn't work Fixed All: 0006937 Crash on adding Null Fixed All: 0006936 Crash on Save Fixed All: 0006895 Depth of field doesn't work Fixed All: 006894 Scale keys lost after save Fixed All: 0006914 NetRender: Corrupted surface on first frames Fixed All: 0006927 Final render darker than previous versions Fixed All: 0006926 Decal Image name lost after adding non-loca material. Fixed All: 006921 Crash on dragging Groups in PWS Fixed All: 0006919 Crash after selecting CPs Fixed All: 0006912 Netrender: Can't expand "Time" Column Fixed All: 0006913 NetRender: Disabled slave Prgress precent freezes Fixed All: 0006925 endless loop for complex undoing operations Fixed All: 0006920 Pose slider made by Push_CPs doesn't work Fixed All: 0006855 Soft shadows not soft Fixed All: 0006917 Reordering Groups after making keyframes in Chor causes crash 11 Fixed All: 0006922 Substeps for frame render is always 0:0... Fixed All: 0006811 incorrect real-time and progressive renders on particle image sequences New All It's now possible to show in which group a cp is in.For existing installations the button needs to be add manually. Add the button Tools->Customize->Commands->Manipulator -> "Show Groups, where the CP is included" to the toolbar, or "Reset Toolbars" For new installations it's default in the manipulator toolbar. Works only for single selected cp's. OSX latest supported version is OSX 10.13.6, because my mac can't be updated to a newer OSX version

The library printed my Sphinx j model. Here are a few pictures. As you see, it still did not print perfectly, but I am happy with the result. Thanks again to everyone who helped. Your ideas, illustrations, and video clips really taught me a lot.

Rob your the best!!! I'll check these out. Rusty An ad for my scifi books I made in AM. ExplorerTwoAd.mp4

Hi Robcat, You have always been very helpful. It's too late for the contest, but it just so happens that my project involves a model of a plane.

I decided to hold off on the laptop, but have been working to install Windows on my Mac via Boot Camp today. A much easier process than the one I remember from the olden days (which involved burning an install disc and lots of hoops to jump through.) Everything seems to be fine, so far. I've set up a Dropbox folder that I can use to share files with my Mac and I think it'll be good for my productivity to have a kind of distraction free workspace when I'm working in A:M.

This question came up in Live Answer Time today and I thought I would post the official word from Hash (link is to store page): Can A:M use multiple cores? A:M is currently not fully multi-core-optimized. However A:M is able through Netrender (included for free in v16.0 and up) to use multiple cores for rendering.  OpenMP is used to utilize multiple cores for several operations. More operations are altered to use multiple cores in each update.  Since A:M is a rendering application, it is recommended to use a CPU as fast as possible to decrease rendering time. So if you have an 8 core system, base AM may not make full use of all 8 cores however if you pick up an additional 4 or 10 netrender nodes for the nominal cost of $10 or $15, you can utilize the other cores as background render nodes. So those of you contemplating Threadripper/Ryzen/Ryzen 3000 updates may find this useful info. *EDIT: I should add, most programs are not fully massively-threaded aware yet. I expect that to change over time, but for right now Netrender is the best way to make use of those extra cores.

A fine New Year to you all...

Hey everybody, I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry Christmas with a small little card created in A:M :). Best regards, have a nice celebration and keep on splining *Fuchur*

https://zandoriastudios.com/tutorials/uv-tutorial/

It took a ton of work, but it's done. A:M Stills is now here and almost all of the images where saved. I'm going to look in to if there is a way to users to 'claim' the image. But I have a lot of work before I can do that I think it will have to be done in the DATABASE it's self. But enjoy!!!!!!!!!!!!11 https://forums.hash.com/gallery/category/7-am-stills/

Hello Forum- have not been here in awhile! Busy! A client recently inquired if I could perhaps make a SnapChat lens... he may as well of asked if I could have made diced clabberboards, because I had no idea what Snapchat... or a snapchat lens even WAS! My research taught me SnapChat has been around since 2011 and is a popular (amongst the young-uns) social media chat and photo-sharing software, much like Facebook. After downloading it to my phone and playing with it i realized it was resonsible for much of what I have seen on Facebook as far as kids with bear-noses and fuzzy ears, face- paint and sparkles that track with them of distort their face and voice for the length of a very short movie. I downloaded Lens Studio, a free software from Snapchat.com and discovered the wealth of possibilities I had unearthed, as far as 3D and Augmented reality... my client was thinking of using it in a somewhat commercial way- and light-bulbs kept flashing in my head... IDEAS...POSSIBILITIES! Within the week I have been learning Lens Studio they have now released V2 which goes even deeper into the realm of gameplay. My first inclination was... can I get my A:M content into this thing, and seeing that it only allows .FBX file format (A:M needs to add this FEATURE REQUEST!) I embarked on Gerald's (A:M user Fuchur) 'FBX Pipeline to Unity' tutorial - https://www.patchwork3d.de/html/page.php?page_id=64 and discovered that thru A:M's robust .X exporters and purchase of Ultimate Unwrap ($50) I am indeed able to pipe my 3D animations (keep 'em simple) into Lens Studio- and the process is NOT as painful as I pre-judged it to be. The debate is open as to whether Snapchat has seen it's better days- or needs to become part of Facebook or Twitter, or perhaps there is something better out there. I am wondering what the forum knows of this... is anyone else making Snapchat Lens's... does anyone even bother with Snapchat at all? Thoughts.

too lazy to do woody woodpecker so...

I might be interested. It has been years since I've done any programming, but if it applies to computer graphics I'd be interested. I've actually been thinking about learning Python but C++ might be more relevant.

Color me intrigued. I'm very interested in learning C++. This not just from the standpoint of plugins but also standalone programs/utilities. If I had a 'plugin' to champion creating for A:M it might be some form of integration with FFMPEG so that various additional output formats could be generated. Not sure if that really fits the plugin category but... that's what immediately comes to mind.

Thanks! I feel like I really learned a lot by doing the project, and I appreciate the help all of you gave during the process. I hope that reading this thread will also help others who might want to try 3-D printing.

Ah, that explains it :). SLS/powderbased printers are really very expensive... even the one developed by Form Labs at the moment is pretty much out of my league... and that one is very inexpensive in comparision. Just to have said it again: The quality of the molten medal is pretty amazing :). Thanks for the hard work on that it really shines happily on a prominent spot here :). Best regards *Fuchur*

Dual extruders are nice (my replicator 2x is one) but as interesting as dissolvable supports are, they only have advantages if you are not able to reach the supports (for instance they are inside of an object or they are very small. The problem with supports for FDM is, that both are melting and get mixed a little. And like that they are not totally separated and will leave small marks too. I would have to try it out again because the last time I did that is years ago (some software updates could make a difference here) but my first tries can be seen here: https://www.patchwork3d.de/blog-5-en/abs-u-pva-print-on-my-makerbot-replicator-2x-514 I tried to make my replicator 2x a all-rounder-machine (it is in general meant to print ABS, not like my replicator 2 PLA) and ABS has a lot of problems with shrinking. But for PLA (which has close to no shrinking problems) you need different cooling mechanisms. For that I have build additional cooling fans next to my nossle and stuff like that but I never got it perfectly to run till now (have to admit that I did not try it extensively...) so I use my replicator 2 for most prints just because it is very, very dependable. I can shut it off for half a year, come back to it then and it will print as if it was half an hour later... I really like it. The moment I activate my replicator 2x and print something else then ABS with it, I have to invest a lot of time. That is, why I tend to just model stuff the way I need it to avoid overhangs... like these minions for a wedding cake: https://www.patchwork3d.de/blog-5-en/minion-mariage-or-what-you-should-put-on-a-cake-part-1-731 https://www.patchwork3d.de/blog-5-en/minion-mariage-or-what-you-should-put-on-a-cake-part-2-732 (when I printed them I was in the middle of reassembling my printer with a new nozzle/print head so the quality suffered a bit because it was not really done till then, but it had to be done very fast because the wedding was close and it was still fun to do and they liked it a lot ) In the images attached you can see how I've split up the male minion model for printing it and then I just glued those together afterwards and painted them (and yes, I am really not talented with painting models as you may see ) Best regards *Fuchur*

i printed it out again with supports enabled and a size of about 7 cm x 3.5 cm x 6.5 cm. It already looks promising. printed with 300 micron layerheight in black pla on my replicator 2. not perfekt but pretty ok already. As you can see we have supports at the front at the nose and the mask. i'll break them away and see how it behaves. best regards *Fuchur*

An alternative to the standard chor paths... We can also use any spline from any model in the chor as your path. Create a new (empty) model and drag/drop that into the chor. Draw a spline and edit that path as desired in the Chor. A reason I prefer modeled paths is that they can be considerably more complex than standard Chor paths. Under the hood Chor paths are just specialized models with limited parameters.

Here is an example I did long ago that uses the path constraint to place bones along a spline. Then you just animate the points of the spline. TentacleSplineRingPath04.zip TentaclePathB.mp4

Here is a test implementation of David Simmons' suggestion of a spine switch. It's fussier to create than using a premade rig but once it works it does make for a better controlled spine... tubeFlip000.mp4

I got the TSM2 spine that i was trying yesterday at LAT to behave. Basically this is animation of a pelvis bone and a torso bone to get the flips going, The interpolation of the IK spine isn't as smooth as I hoped so i will look into other solutions. ButterFlip_12.mp4

Well, I'd hold off on that. It's possible there are some problems with the store since Jason did some stuff n teh server.

I just went to the store and selected Hash, Inc. Software (3). The center choice is the one I've always purchased.

All it needed was the rotate offsets to be set to "0" on the BicepLeft bone's "Orient Like Control Bicept Hint Left" . Just turn off "Compensate Mode" when you apply that constraint. Hope that helps. Rig_update.prj

There's a lunar eclipse going on now. Go out and look at the eclipse but remember to wear your moonglasses. https://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/in/usa/dallas

I am a bit rusty at splining but it all comes back. I don't want any compensation, AM community has been really good to me and it is a way I can try to return the favor. There is still a good amount of content that has been contributed already, anything there feel free to toss in the dvd. I don't know if other contributors feel the same but might be worth reaching out. It is a healthy start. For distribution, why not an iso on the company store?

Back in 2004 A:M Justin Barrett created a video tutorial set on facial animation in A:M. He has now re-released it on Youtube for free! Check it out! Thanks, Justin! Animate a Face

See if you can't view the author of a 'Like' now.

You probably have noticed that Z-buffered Kleig light soft shadows (most of what we use) are not rendering soft. Shadow cast on Ground Plane... However, it turns out that models can shadow themselves correctly. So... Use the Grid wizard to add a flat plane to your model and give it a bone that is independent from everything else in your model. In the Chor, constrain that bone to the Ground, then set the Ground to OFF. You can scale that bone to scale the plane to be as large as you need. Shadow cast on plane that is part of model... Of course this won't work when you have more than one model in a chor. For that, take your project to V18 and render there.

What if my grandma got run over by a reindeer? I mean dealing with that could eat up a lot of my time.

Further dev on helmet hair with displacement map and "Westin" specular shader (lower right). The image map is Photoshop "noise" with a horizontal blur.

Guilting Tuesday

and https://invisioncommunity.com/news/product-updates/44-animated-gifs-r1102/

Hi Edward! Mirror mode is for when you have made a model that is symmetrical on the X axis, like if you used Copy Flip Attach to make it. Turn this button on... and then when you move CPs on one side, the other side will move also.

Hey Wally, This is a common glitch in the Mac version. The workaround is to switch to another app and then back to A:M. I use CMD-TAB to open the app switcher and I usually go to Mail, since it's usually open and seems to work every time. Once I'm in Mail, I do the same thing to go back to A:M and you'll find that it's not greyed out anymore. I almost do it out of second nature these days.

YouTube it is. Here is the link: https://youtu.be/yLnrZywVnbA Sorry about the misfires... If anyone can provide a Mac-based workflow for reliably producing videos that will play in the forum -- much appreciated.

Here is a movie of my Rhino-Beest model (so far). Looking at the video of Jansen's Rhinoceros, it appears that the six leg pairs (front + rear = pair) each have separate cycles. I decided to simplify the task of boning/constraining the model/action by making 3 pairs of bones/constraints and assigning CPs to leg bones so that the legs move symmetrically on either side of the model centerline. The action is driven by bones M1 through M6 which rotate around a common center and each move one of the leg mechanisms plus its respective CP doppelgänger. The walk cycle that seems to best resemble Jansen's Rhinoceros has pair M1-M2 (front-rear) set at 40 degrees apart, then an 80 degree gap followed by M3-M4, etc. Thanks again to Robert and Serge. Rhino-Beest-gait2.mov

Identity Theft

Here is a zip with the PRJ with the leg both the undone (01) and done (06) form if you want to try it as in the video. BeastLegPRJ.zip

How exactly the mechanism works for you, Holman! It is wonderful!

Experiment 😀 MECH_05_RUNNER.prj

Batmobile

Modeled a column for my Guardian set and got to the difficult part of having the rounded divets on the ends of the fluting. I could have just faked it, but I went ahead and worked it out. This might not be the best solution, but this worked for me.

So with the A:M Reports moved, and hours of work i big program is finally getting fixed. For years all of the attachments in A:M Reports have been stored in the database. Since v11.0 back when you could email in reports. This makes the database really large 4.6gb for a small database(when text only). Now all the images/attachments are getting move to a folder not the database. This will mean hours saved next update or move!

I've added the weekly 'Live Answer Time' to the Community calendar: https://forums.hash.com/index.php?/calendar/

Hi Martin, Sorry, I know I'm 12 months late but....Welcome Back! I don't do much animation at home now. Doing animation all day every day in the games industry has greatly reduced my enthusiasm and stamina for that. However, I did use A:M for parts of a music video I did in spare time a couple of years ago. I do still love the software and feel nothing but excitement every time I think of it. I had one such flash of nostalgia just now and decided to look in on the forum again and saw your post. Fantastic! Dale

I've just finished updating my website, focusing my freelance niche towards digital character modeling for animation, games, VR and for 3D printing statues, figurines and miniatures. http://www.zandoriastudios.com Feedback/critique welcome--I'm not a web designer, but I hope this looks a little more professional...

Sorry- I've been away... I never had success in my searching for A:M models and animations to FBX file format.

Work-around Explained Problem: A Microsoft update for Windows versions 8.1 and earlier (KB3086255, released in September 2015) disables the secdrv.sys file that enabled copy protection like that used by CDROM-keyed versions of A:M (v14 and earlier). With the file disabled, the CDROM verification gets stuck and A:M is never run. Microsoft felt the file had become a security flaw. The copy protection software that uses that file was not written by Hash, Inc. Hash only licensed the software and won't have access to the code to update it or fix the security flaw. Solution: The best solution is to update to the current version of A:M that doesn't use the CDROM copy protection. Current versions of A:M are much faster, more stable and incorporate new features. However, in rare cases, it may be necessary to revisit old projects in the version they were authored in. If you need to run one of those past versions of A:M in Windows 8.1 or earlier, it is possible to re-enable the secdrv.sys file and permit a CD ROM version of A:M to run in Windows 8.1 and earlier. This Microsoft Bulletin explains DOS-Style commands that can typed in to enable and disable the secdrv.sys file as needed. I was not able to get them to work on my computer, possibly because of "path" confusion. The bulletin also explains a registry modification that performs the same enabling/disabling. That procedure does work on my PC. Microsoft warns that enabling this file is unwise and Hash, Inc. is not recommending you do this. I am not recommending it either. To minimize your risk, enable it only before starting A:M and disable it when done with A:M and disconnect your PC from your internet/network for the duration of that session. On my PC, a restart is required before the registry enabling takes effect and another restart for disabling to take effect. What about Windows 10? There is no published solution from Microsoft for Windows 10. If anyone finds one, let us know. Another version of the How-to-Geek article hints at using a virtual machine of an older Win under Windows 10. I have not tried this. Run as Administrator? Another problem mentioned above was that the CD ROM versions of A:M would fail to start and give an error message that they must be run by an administrator even if the user was logged into their PC as an administrator. Individual programs can be set to automatically run as if by an administrator. on the program's icon, choose Properties, select the Compatibility tab and under "Privilege Level" check "Run this program as an administrator".