Rodney

For additional videos featuring Ed Catmull: http://renderman.pixar.com/view/future-of-renderman

The following expresses a major shift that Disney/PIXAR has been moving toward over the past few years. I'm sure a lot of this is due to competition from other rendering solutions but it's also an acknowledgement that high priced entry points interfere with access and innovation. This is the strategic aspect they refer to as without this move they will certainly lose significant ground as other more accessible solution abound. *Emphasis added

Its a bit early to release this but some major changes to configuration and pricing are pending for Renderman and the Renderman suite of tools. A few details are now emerging at the Renderman site. Of note is the (free) non-commercial license. A commercial license is now a much more accessible $495 per seat. Ed Catmull has a (very) short video making the announcement here: http://renderman.pixar.com/view/non-commercial From the site: Note: I registered with my current renderer entered as "Animation:Master (Netrender)". One never knows when someone's interest at Disney/PIXAR might be piqued enough to experiment and further bridge the gap. For those that believe using Renderman is too far a stretch for A:M users it should be noted that at one time several plugins were created for converting A:M files to .RIB format for exactly that purpose. For those with a keen interest in programming and rendering it will be well worth your time to study Renderman as they continually invest in technology and lessons learned will apply elsewhere. For more information check out Renderman University. According to the Renderman FAQ the roll out is to coincide with SIGGRAPH 2014.

Heck, you made them as far as I'm concerned. I'd never even heard of Bliptv before watching an episode of Epic Gamin'. Stand tall and proud.

A product of another time fir sure. I actually enjoyed the movie. It had enough going on to hold me to the end and I was curious as to how it would turn out.

Welcome to the forum Robby. If you haven't check out the Intro videos that's a great place to start: http://www.hash.com/startup/ And The Art of Animation:Master exercises are designed to get you up to speed quickly: http://www.hash.com/index.php?pcode=video_tutorials I would watch these through the first time just to get the information to begin to settle. Then go back through with a goal to implement what you are learning.

The reader can do a lot more than it use to but you'll need Acrobat Pro to embed 3D. Acrobat comes with a Creative Cloud subscription so if you have that suite of tools already you have the capability. For those on a tight budget, one could always farm that work out to someone with Acrobat Pro/CC so you wouldn't have to trouble yourself with it. I've never used that service but doubt it has the 3D embedding capability. The creators of the 3D tools used in Acrobat were charging a premium for its use (that is to say for the whole 3D embedding solution) as a plugin previously.

Thanks for the clarification Jason.

Oh yeah. It's great to see you back in action!

My mesh exported from A:M may have been more dense than necessary. I picked 16 subdivisions because I didn't want it to be too sharp and faceted. (I probably should have opted for 'variable') Ah, if only splines were the favored model format... life would be so much sweeter.

You want to make sure the texture is saved when exporting/converting the Model from OBJ (or whatever) to .U3D. Enable Advanced options in the Export panel of Meshlabs and look for the texture options on the last tab.

I am reminded that there are some pretty cool views in the options for 3D model viewing in PDF. One is the intersection/cut plane. I could see something like that being useful. Custom views of the model can be saved so that they can be used/viewed by via the dropdown menu. Those views can then be recalled/triggered via 3D comments. In such a way an interactive tutorial or walkthrough could be created.

I couldn't find my previous pdfs but here's a quicktest exporting/importing Shaggy from A:M through Meshlab into Acrobat. I believe that what I was going to go for was the A:M model file attached to a PDF rather than converted/embedded. That'd work well as attaching can be done with the freely available Acrobat viewer. I figured most folks with an interest would have a copy of A:M handy to view the files and a rendered image could accompany the file as the background of the actual PDF. Added: My memory says that the 3D model doesn't show in an online Acrobat Reader PDF browser window. Folks have to download the file first and then interact. shaggy.pdf

Meshlabs is the means I've used to get A:M Models into PDF files. I was contemplating doing something like this for model kits for the A:M Exchange area. Then... I realized how much work that was going to be. It's been a few months since I converted but I think Adobe Acrobat still does not accept OBJ files directly. But in Meshlab you can convert to U3D or PRC (as those are the only formats Acrobat PDF files can use). Disclaimer: I've only used U3D. Here's a write up from back in 2009 that appears to still be mostly accurate. The main difference being that Adobe 3D is now part of Adobe Pro. As I recall, that functionality (the ability to use 3D models) needs to be turned on in the preferences though.

Feels about the same here. Although my mouse has been on the fritz. Not sure what is up with that. Im not sure what server we on but i assume still the old one.

Yeah, when I first heard the announcement I was... "Big Hero 6"... who the heck? I recognized Sunfire but then again I don't think he's set to even be in the movie, at least not as the persona that appeared way back in the Roy Thomas/Neal Adams years of the X-Men. Perhaps Disney will surprise us. Perhaps he'll be mostly a background character so that the kids of the next generation can take the stage. Disney has long been looking to crack the code on the vast interest in anime and this certainly speaks to the 'boy and his robot', mega-monster and even 'boy is a robot') themes from when Japanese stop motion and animation first arrived on American TV screens. I didn't see a lot of anime when I was a kid but I definitely saw shows like 'Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot' and they made quite an impression on me. How to get it done in such a way as to merchandise characters and roll stories over into live experiences for their theme parks... that's an important piece of the puzzle. I'm not thrilled about all aspects of this film's premise but have confidence that Disney knows how to entertain.

My kind of fun... from Disney: vco0SpSz17g This certainly isn't everyone's cup of tea but there are some themes that are core to capturing the imagination of a youthful spirit. Such themes of creativity and invention... righteous empowerment even.. and the other naive curiosities that inspire us when young are often set aside as we enter adulthood. Returning to such timeless fascinations is why we watch movies in the first place.

You've got some great portfolio material in the various projects you've produced.

I downloaded and 'The Wobbling Dead' and have now watched it... twice! Fun aplenty! I had only seen a few episodes and I recognized those sequences immediately. You have a way with gags too! Congratulations on the roll out. That's another fine arrow in your quiver of productions. And thanks for the entertainment!

I had forgotten about that one. Very neat John. The issue with using that type of expresssion is that it is Chor/Time dependent and it needs to be space aware. There is probably some way to setup a scene to where (similar to what Chris is doing) parts of a set are turned on/off through time but my goal would be to automate that process similarly to what is happening in A:M itself when it comes to clipping the viewing area to determine what will get rendered. No small task there. Now... if we consider your expression: If(ChorTime()>0.5,If(ChorTime() The only way I know to proceed (in this ChorTime() vein) is to create a controller that when a value gets to a certain level it turns off an object/character/building etc. Think of this as a proximity value or potential for action. When that value gets either inside or outside of a particular range it would then trigger an action. This in and of itself sounds to me a lot like a percentage pose. (or more for boolean true/false results simple triggers could be called via on/off poses). This would almost call for every Object to have a new parameter (although this could also be an Action or a Pose) called Active State or something similar. Then at whenever time the specific criteria of that Active State is met the expression would fire. This is the primary way I would think using something like ChorTime() would work as key events would be dictated at specific times and that would then trigger all 'live' Objects' Active States. This might be something as simple as turning itself on or off or triggering something far more complex. I thank you for this consideration because it may supply an important element in the process. Using ChorTime() as the initiator does make good sense as whatever happen in the Timeline SHOULD represent the primary action in a scene. Therefore the Active State would drive secondary action/reactions of those primary event. Added: I really don't understand expressions.

I was thinking along those lines but at this point it's not quite ready for camera turns, at least not in the sense that the expression only accounts for triggering on/off in the Z axis.

Even if there isn't a direct way I believe as of the current release (or one or two releases ago) variables can be stored for later use in expressions. I haven't had time to play... heck, this is only my second or third working expression... but I sense that the recent additions by Steffen are a very big deal with regard to expressions.

Here's an approach from a drag and drop angle. I'm liking this because folks wouldn't need to concern themselves so much with coding of expressions because... these actions could be collected/shared as little scripts/macros. The idea is to create an Action that you can drop onto a Character/Object that would tell it when to Activate. The trick is that the Active setting is actually (and I must assume always?) applied to the Model Bone. As such all we need is an expression that turns that state On/Off (or causes some other action) based on some criteria we set in the expression. In my project I put together a little test that expressed that if the Shaggy with the the Action applied was to rise above 100cm he would be 'taken' (i.e. deactivated). The other two Shaggy's rise beyond 100cm with no effect (of course.. because they don't have the required Action. I arrived at this because the other approaches I was investigating were getting too complicated. Simplicity is key. My thought was initially to create a Null called Activator and have things appear based on where that Null is located. You could then constrain the Null to something like a camera. But... that's only approaching the problem from one angle. We know that each model has a steady state of on/off and (even if we alter/augment that) the results of changes to that state can be anticipated. ShaggyGetsTaken.prj

Here's another Project file based on the first with the following changes: - The On/Off state of the Expression has been reversed - A Filter for 'Active' has been created to more easily see what objects are using the expression. Not that this is also how behavioral (artificial intelligence) could be similulated in that a variety of expressions could be created and applied to groups of objects independently. One group might activate (or move farther away) while another group might deactivate (or come closer). Project_Camera_Proximity_Activator__2_.prj

I'm surely using the wrong terminology by using the word 'embedded' but I refer to the nature of a Chor that allows you to work with/save Chors without saving the Projects. Perhaps 'referenced' would be more accurate but that doesn't quite fit either. Slightly unrelated... but for those that save Project files... Chors are embedded by default into Projects unlike other assets. This can be seen in the File Info property under the Chor where Embedded is set to On by default. This is telling, and also a matter of interest. While the over all time should remain constant the keyframes surely change. This could be slightly problematic in that everyone sharing the files may not be using 30FPS so we may not always see the same thing. This then would be another case where Project files are preferred method of file sharing. I dimly recall a common FPS being emphasized during TWO to keep keyframes from changing. The assumption being that because 30FPS was assumed Chor files could be used and Project files themselves jettisoned.