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Rodney

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Posts posted by Rodney

  1. The project I've uploaded should open in v15 and v19.  

    Probablly not v10 but it's easy enough to try.

    When in doubt use v19 unless there is some specific reason to go back versions... such as to use plugins are features no longer included in later release.

    Plugins usually need to be recompiled after time passes due to various changes both internally and externally to Animation:Master.

    I believe the attached in this post is the original project and that should open fine in v10... all the way through v19.  A:M will prompt when saving to update so you'll have to make a decision at that time.

     

    For those that are curious you can also see various things that I modified.  ;)

     

    Stanley.zip

  2. I was doing a Google Map search on various places and I thought... hmmm... Tuckertown... I wonder if the sign is viewable.

    And... it is!

     

    image.png

    It's a little hard to read but the sign is still there.

    image.png

    I see varioius mentions of Tuckertown and Tuckerville online but none I've seen thus far are THIS Tuckertown.

  3. What the heck...

    I always thought Tony Lower-Basch was awesome but... How in the world did I never see his Simple Stanley model/rig?

     

    Move the character anywhere and the rig stays in place.

    FK/IK, Center of Gravity and all sorts of other neat things.

     

    Probably broke the model in messing around with it.

    This retrieved from a link on Vernon Zehr's A.R.M. site.

    TLBSimpleStanley2024Revisit.prj Stanley.txt

    • Like 1
  4. Here for instance is an archived site of Emilio Leroux... author of the Sweeper Plugin...

    Where his older SetBias plugins is described and can still be downloaded.  (likely only  works on old releases of A:M)

     

    (https://web.archive.org/web/20041220104344/http://www.moscafilms.com.br/emilioleroux/amplugins_setbias.html)

     

    Aside:  Emilio was the first to clue me in to the power of tweaking biases on splines.  :)

  5. Sadly, short of content that has made its way to the Extras CD and Extras DVD the most likely way to get to old copies of those sites is via Archive.org's Wayback Machine.  Even there a lot of the connectivity has been lost over time.

     

    If you are dilegent however... treasure can be found.

     

    Try looking for Animation:Master users of the past whose websites might be archived:

     

    https://web.archive.org/web/19970120055548fw_/http://www.hash.com/users.html

     

     

    This will take you to where you can find different vintages of users listed on via www.hash.com:

     

    https://web.archive.org/web/20050701082243/http://www.hash.com/

     

  6. Hi Rusty,

    Always good to see you!

     

    There is the Treez plugin that is lauched from an Action.

    Perhaps you are thinking of that Plugin?

    It's not easily discoverable... had to remind myself how to use it but my memory came through for me.

     

    The key steps:

    Spline/Lathe a base shape - For example, Lathe a 2 control point spline into cylinder with 5 cross sections and then lop off/remove the top half leaving a circle.

    Select and name this group "base".

    Create a spline, plane, grid or set of splines and grids and place these above the circle/base as a target for the canopy to be created. If designed well you might be able to use these patches for leaves later.  I call this group of splines and patches "target" although when generating using the Treez plugin It may be whatever is selected that becomes the target.

    Now the crucial launching step... Create an Action that uses this model, Right Click > Plugins > Treez

    This should launch and run to project the base toward the target.

     

    Edit:  Just now see Robert's response and that will likely have more detail.

    Note that the target's control points are what determines where the branches will be generated and target. 

    image.png

    • Like 1
  7. Regarding rendering images to file, Steffen was kind enough to add a Render option to the File menu.

    This is something even old time users of Animation:Master never had.

    That (in theory) makes rendering images more easily discoverable than using the classic Render icon.

     

    image.png

     

    If we haven't saved our project, by default A:M will prompt us to save the project first and then take us to the Render options panel.

     

    Aside:  In working with 2D folks I've noted that many simply don't have the term 'render' in their production vocabulary.

    For me. prior to engaging with 3D. I guess it meant 'to tear apart' but more closely means 'to separate or refine into detailed parts' as in 'the man drew a finely rendered drawing of the barn'.  After introduction to 3D it just became the way we create images from our projects.  :)

    • clap 1
  8. Something you can do as well is select the Camera and then Right Click > Duplicate to create a copy of the camera that stores the settings of the current camera.

    Then it's easy to return to that later as needed.

    I like to do that when I have the camera almost in a perfect position or with ideal settings but feel the need to experiment.

    Better to just create a new Camera with current settings and press on with that new Camera.

    Then if those changes don't work out... just delete the camera.

     

    A bit off topic...

    We can also save the Camera as a .cam (Camera) file but that doesn't particular help with animated cameras.

    There are some other options that can help in those cases such as creating an empty Model to house an Action and then add a Camera to that Action.

    Then that Camera is an Action Object inside of that Action which can be drag/dropped into Choreographies and even onto other Models.

     

    Edit:  Steffen also added the View Undo/Redo feature several years back that can be quite useful.

    • Like 1
  9. Here's a fun experiment.

    A Clone Trooper helmet created via AI generation... text prompt to 3D model... output to OBJ format.

    Brought into A:M as a prop object.

     

    Here's a link to the original result prior to refinement (on LumaAI):  https://lumalabs.ai/genie?one=3a206fdc-7ec1-41ba-8a75-99aaba7a709d&two=d348c729-2e62-4efa-8561-49382fdcd49a&three=1f7d8eb8-f392-4579-9f3a-a4b57478dce1&four=e368e03d-ac93-4fa6-bb7d-cb4b29a28962&view=one&metalness=0&roughness=0.95&color=255%2C255%2C255

     

     

     

    clonetrooperA.gif

    • Like 1
    • Haha 1
  10. I must not have as I would have posted it here.  

     

    The good news is that the helmet doesn't look overly complicated so I'm confident you can model it.  :)

    Apparently back in 2016 I modeled the following head/helmet which isn't too far away from the Storm Trooper style.

    I have no idea where that model would be however.

     

    (Bit o trivia:  Motion Monster was a temporary fork of the 2D Opentoonz program that was used for testing experimental code... created by a guy named Jeremy Bullock which interestingly enough is NOT the actor that played BobaFett in Starwars but does share his name)

    superzuit.gif

  11. @JackDrama

    A large number of the models on the A:M Extras CD were created by Alain Descochers.

    About the time that I started with A:M (1998 timeframe) Alain had an extensive website that featured most of his models.

    They were avialable for purchase at that time.

    Later when he closed his website many of the models began to make their way to other sites such as The A.R.M. (Vernon Zehr's A:M assets website) as well as others.

    In the process of collecting resources for the A:M CD the entire collection (or at least what was generally available) was donated to the cause.

     

    All of the characters were used in some way for some production (or at least preproduction) work.

    I believe most of those can be seen on the Hash CG History youtube channel although a quick search didn't turn anything up.

    Here's the link to that channel:

     

    https://www.youtube.com/@hashcghistory3211/shorts

  12. For those interested in such things, I've updated the direct link to the SDK.

    The forum had that hard coded to point at the v19.0 zipfile.

    Now points to the v19.5 file.

     

    The link at the top of this topic pointed to the correct location so nothing has changed there.

    • Like 1
  13. That's very cool @Madfox

    There are a number of different approaches you might take... one of which I think might be to use Animation:Master's lipsyncing tools... but... woowee... its been awhile since I played with those.  A problem here might be the limited number of phonemes available to the lipsyncing tools.

    Hmmm... 

     

    Have to think abou this one but if you have all of the animations for each letter contained in one output file (AVI) then you could also find a way to dial in specific frames of that animation.  How to do that in time and space across wordings... a bit more difficult.

    If I were to do this in another program such as Opentoonz I might assign each letter as it's own 'level' (separate sequence or file) and then expose those directly via typing in as exposures.

    Your AVI as a GIF animation for those interested:

    customtext.gif

  14. I reordered about a week ago.  Instant response as always although I generally don't use any emails.

    Generally when ordering you can use the email (that for me also arrives immediately) but there is also a message in the store itself confirming order and supplying information/links.

     

    You might double check to see if your paypal account (or credit card**) was charged.

    If not then likely the order didn't go through which in turn would not generate an email.

    I haven't read all the postings so if you've already confirmed that... press on.  press on.

    (Just now read the part about checking out a guest)

     

     

    **For those using credit card that goes intially through the paypal menu at the store but then we'll (eventually) get the option to change to credit card.

    I've been using paypal just for ease of purchase lately though.

     

     

  15. There are a lot of ways (and services) available for generating AI images.

    There is also just google as well (no kidding).

     

    If anyone hasn't done the AI image generation thing and would like to many services are using "pollination.ai" under the hood.

    I believe in turn they use Stable Diffusion.

     

    tiny%20white%20mouse%20with%20blue%20bac

     

    It's certainly not required but as a programming exercise I created a simple C++ console program that asks "What kind of image do you want to create?" and then launches the URL lookup that generates the image.  It then returns in loop to ask if we want to create another image.   A plus here being that with the console program we can arrow up and down through previous promptings and adjust them as necessary.

    A more direct generation can be made by going to their web generator:   Pollinations

    3d render, full body view, tiny white mouse adventurer with blue backpack, images 3.jpg

     

    And yes, this is all research for eventually creating a tiny white mouse adventurer in Animation:Master.  ;)

  16. Mouse characters are pretty well covered in cartoon land so anything created (or imagined) is likely going to be seen as derivative.

    That'd be an interesting challenge... create a mouse character that is 'truly unique'.

     

    It'd be interesting to do some comparisons with standard google searches.

    My quick look turned up a lot of mice... some more adventurous than others.

    None particularly looked like the one created in this instance.

     

    An unanswered question I have would be; what becomes of the generated images made with AI?  Do they get stored and referred to for subsequent generating processes?

    I must assume so.

     

    I've created many mouse characters over the years... some certainly more interesting than others.

     

    The process used to generate images via AI prompting is an interesting one... and one we tend to do in similar fashion ourselves when we create such things.

    The big difference being that (supposedly) we are intelligent.  ;)

     

    Immediately after seeing the generated image I asked myself the question; if I had drawn/painted/sculpted this what might I do differently.

    My very first thought was 'add a backpack'.  (i.e. replace the current backpack with something that reads more as a 'backpack')

    Second thought; 'add subtle flowers in the background'.

    There is certainly more that could be changed but I'd probably leave that for after developing more of the story.

    The story being the driving force for any changes worth pursuing.

     

     

     

  17. @Roger gets the prize.

    Both of these images were in fact created using 'AI' text prompts.

     

    The 'problems' are manifold (err... many-fold).

     

    Problem 1: Authoring

    This is a bit like googling for an image and then claiming the resulting images as something we've created ourselves... potentially quite problematic.

    (I do like the little mouse though!  And this was the first image created... all subsequent images where of lesser interest/quality)

     

    Problem 2: Hands and Hoverings

    Historically AI generated images have been notorious for not being able to create 'hands' and...

    This likely fits into @robcat2075's observation of things (tails) floating... AI images often have shapes that are suspended in place without anything to ground them or connect them to other shapes.

    I see this as the difference between real 'intelligence' and the smoke and mirror of patten matching/prediction that easily reads as intelligence... in many case indistinguishable even.  There is no doubt however that speed is a huge advantage for these generative processes.

     

    I'm sure there are many more problems but I've been playing with AI of late in a variety of ways... creating images, music, stories, code... and find it all quite useful.  In many cases VERY useful.

    And yes... problematic.  ;) 

     

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