Rodney

This is the closest I can recall to a list of functions and how they work: http://users.hol.gr/~sogou/animaster/functions.htm Examples of usage: http://users.hol.gr/~sogou/animaster/expressions.htm Of course many other resources (video tutorials etc.) to be found in the Expressions forum.

Well, technically... (Why do I always get involved in these things) Let us assume that you purchase three A:M subscriptions today. You install and activate one today. You wait a year and then install and activate the second. You wait 15 years and then install and activate the third. You were in effect subscribed for one (or three) years but extended those subscriptions to 15. In theory... ahem... IN THEORY... we can buy THOUSANDS of years of A:M subscription in advance. But that is where the theoretical meets reality. When and where technology (and other constraints) arrive, changes to the current method/scheme of installation and activation also come into play. What if a better way to do business arrives tomorrow... what of the inferior yet comfortable ways of today? There is no guarantee of future activation beyond today... but once activated a subscription to A:M is good for one year from the date of that activation. Barring the end of the world, etc. etc. As we cannot predict the future we can only make educated guesses but we can speculate that the current activation methodology used today will change in both small and significant ways. The underlying reason why subscriptions for more than one year aren't offered is because of this potential for technological change. Hash Inc can't predict the future either although, just as we can, they can anticipate and plan for foreseeable change. Disclosure: I didn't wait to resubscribe last year. I resubscribed with about 6 months remaining. The downside... I paid a little more than necessary... the upside... the subscription that would have run out a few days ago is still six months away. I also figured Hash Inc could use the extra cash to build a better the future with us as the beneficiaries. Yes, I'm a bit selfish that way.

Welcome to the A:M Forum Arturo! I enjoyed your 'Pics of Pigs'.

That should prove to be useful and interesting. Thanks Steffen!

Outstanding. Thanks David! Edit: In looking back I see I would have to revise my words to state, 'a number between 0 and 255' as I'd need to account for the occurrence of multiplying by zero).

Here's the same thing extended to each of the RGB values separately (i.e to isolate colors to their linear... yes linear... paths within their respective Red, Green and Blue color spaces). For the fun of it, I will note that linear color is an abstraction that allows us to interpret nonlinear color space. While the numbers 1 through 255 are linear, color isn't normally isolated as such in the real world and any path traced through time will be influenced by many other factors, creating nonlinear paths through color space. In short, it's all about relativity. Sometimes these paths are smooth... as in a weighted arc... and sometimes... as in these psuedo-randomly generated expressions... erratic. RandomColorExpressionRGB.prj randomcolorexpresssionRGB.mov

John, I'm not sure if this is what you are after but it appears to work on my end. Try: RGB(Rand()*255,Rand()*255,Rand()*255) Where you seed each of the RGB values with a different random number. Note that I don't know how to limit the Random value to a range between 1 and 255. Anyone? I've attached the project file with one groups surface property being altered and will post a few variations on the theme in order to explore more. This technically is the first expression I've ever written that had an actual reason for being written. Warning: Anyone prone to seizures due to rapid color change might want to forgo watching the .MOV. RandomColorExpression.prj randomcolorexpresssion.mov

BUMP Because... occasionally this forum's autosubscription notification (yes, the one that keeps working even though no one has subscribed to anything)... occasionally... it points to something of value. In this case it would be Marcos's video tutorial explaining how to use expressions to rotate an object relative to current screen time. Direct link to the video (also seen above) Thanks Marcos!

Nice job! Making memories.

Did you watch the video at the top of the kickstarter page? That has several examples as well as a (sped up) example of printing a vase. The shapes in the video may or may not be created with the M3D but they are suggesting that is in fact the case. I'm not sure which guideline that would be.

That's another thing I like about these guys approach. In their write up they state that they are opposed to the 'ink jet' proprietary model that forces people to use only their products and they appear to be committed to keeping access open, even to the point where the nozzles are designed to be replaced by those with the desire to innovate beyond what they have already opened to. I see that the company supported several other kickstarter project that are compatible with their effort, one of which was related to material that can be used in a variety of 3D printers. Time will tell how open these products are but I think the entire world is opposed to repeating the mistakes experienced by having ink cartridges become so proprietary and expensive. 3D printing is going to be huge and I they want to be a part of that. One what to accomplish that goal is to be the first to market with a product such as the one they plan to mass produce. Can they keep up with the big boys that have millions already in hand to produce such things... I think so.

The small size is actually a selling point for me because I don't want to find myself spending a ton of money on the creation of larger items. I figure prototyping smaller objects on this thing would be proof enough to be able to take larger items to a larger 3D printer or service should I have that requirement (which is considerably more unlikely). The smaller size is more for that need for instant gratification without breaking the bank. I need to take the plunge on a 3D printer sooner or later so... I just signed up for one so ask me if I have any regrets come February 2015. I was broke a week ago and for my own good I probably should have stayed broke.

It's been awhile since we've seen a post about 3D Printers on Kickstarter... Here's one that recently launched that is already exceeding $2 million of their initial $50K goal with 24 days still to go. At a glance I'd say there is some interest in the technology... It's certainly small. Added: It seems the majority of folks are opting in to one of the various $299 options. AND NOTE... MOST OF THESE OPTIONS ARE GONE. What they appear to be doing is adding new $299 options but with subsequently later release dates. As of this moment it looks like that tier would expect a February 2015 shipping date. The Micro: The First Truly Consumer 3D Printer From their write up:

RE: Large rendering times Perhaps you can render the background pass and then the character pass separately and composite.

Hehe! I think you are on to something there. We need to put in a feature request to directly tie a spreadsheet into A:M. Then when we update the info in the spreadsheet/xsheet... BAM... the live update will be right there in A:M. Duplicating the models might be similar to how I export a series of models from an Action out to AV2 and then reimport them back into a model. That replicates the onionskinning process fairly well. Upon reimport you can choose from whichever models from the sequence you want as well... "I like the one from frame 16.... 19.... 20.... and what the heck... frame 10." The downside being that complex models, such as rigged characters, don't like to import into the same model. I assume this to be related to the old 'same name bones' issue that kept that from working before. I don't recall ever having reimport issues with models that do not have bones in them. I hesitate to report this because it's such an obscure thing that I'd hate to see Steffen waste time on it. It would be good to document the occurrence though as it might relate to something else that needs fixing somewhere along the way. I need to set up a room where I can put together videos with audio so I can share more of my explorations. Each time I sit down to record there is something that prevents useful recording such as waking the family up in the middle of the night... too much ambient noise... the list goes on and on...

I note that there is a clipping plane that cuts through the objects that also prevents this from being an entirely useful methodology. I'm not sure if that clipping is related to specific graphics cards or is simply an optimation of A:M to prevent needless redrawing of objects that aren't really there. My first thought was that the plane cuts everything off that was behind the 0 point on the axis but I'm not sure that is always the case.

Thanks David! I will note that this methodology bumps up against a limitation that I'd wager Steffen didn't think would ever be needed, namely that of the user only being able to enter two digits for onion skinning previews. Who would have thought someone might need to view more than 99 frames before and/or 99 frames after the current frame. If this kind of thing ever catches on we'll have to request the upper limit of onionskinning and FPS be increased. hehe The good news is that A:M chews through those higher real time frame rates without missing a beat.

Good guess work Nancy! Onion skinning, yes. Currently only for stills and screen captured video, yes. The other critical element is ramping the FPS up to 1000 to get smoother transitioning between frames. Although for the initial setup setting FPS to a low number is recommended. For instance, if you want your shapes/clouds to take on a specific form or animate in a specific path you'd hit the key poses first and then go in and inbetween those later (or have A:M do that automatically)

This is somewhat related to Robert's 'Painting with Light' series but the methodology is very different (I'm not as smart as Robert!) It's something I stumbled upon last night while exploring things in A:M I've never considered beyond the tried and true and defaults. At the end of the video I show some other stuff that can be done with this technique that goes beyond painting clouds. Midway through the cloud painting portion of the video you can see the shape that I'm painting with. It looks like two oval shapes, one inside the other. Everything is created in real time directly in v18d with no plugins or extras. Strickly A:M stuff. cloudpainting.mp4

Nicely rendered John. Ah, that brings back memories.

At first I thought that specularity might be the secret ingredient but now... I confess I do not now how you did that with a single sun light setup.

You've made a believer out of me.

Yeah, I think that is the PDF that Adam referred to in the first post. That one is for the Mac. I assume that and other information was gleaned from the Netrender forum. Jody's guides for Netrender setup (Windows) are here: NetRender_Guide-Basic.pdf NetRender_Guide-Advanced.pdf Source: Link Welcome to the forum Adam!

This image won't make much sense to anyone but I want to post it to remind me to delve into this area further. What it represents is a rapid workflow that didn't exist before v18 (the process could be done but not in its current form). The basic concept is this: Phase 1 Modeling - Create a simple shape/object (in this case a simple can) - Create a new Action of 5 or 6 frames in length (the number of frames really depends on what you want to produce. In this case I wanted to place a few cans in psuedo random fashion on/near an imaginary ground plane) - Turn Onion Skinning on (it's best to add this to your toolbar which you can do in v18... adjust the onionskinning so that all 5 keyframes of the Action will remain in view) - Position the can on each frame relative to the past and future locations of the can (i.e. composing the image by viewing all positions of cans that will be created later on) - Rotate the can on each frame as necessary in 3D space to further refine the composition - Export the 5 frame sequence to AV2 format (for some reason exporting to sequential A:M models is not supported. AV2 is a fairly good format for quick export and reimport although the biases and splines layout may be altered upon reimport. Hash's PLY format works pretty good too but I've always been partial to AV2) - Create a new Model and Import the sequence of AV2 models (They will all take their place as in the anticipated composition) - Save the Model Phase 2 Decaling Use A:M's Snapshot feature to capture the image of the cans (preferrably from an anticipated camera/audience view) and then immediately paste that snapshot back onto the cans as a decal Right click on the image container in the Project Workspace to open the associated image application (this could be anything but in this case it opened in Irfanview... draw/paint something and save over the top of the previous decal (Note: It would be best to save under a different name so that it can be used again if needed but the original decal is not particularly necessary) Phase 3 Refinement/Final Look (Not explored) Here you would tweak and refine the model and decal to serve the specific scenario for which it was designed in the first place. From start to finish this process should only take a few minutes (5 minutes might be optimum... 10 too much) The whole idea is to rapidly produce content that will be refined or replaced later. As such high level of detail should be avoided. If I can make any headway with this I'll share a video of the basic workflow.

I keep forgetting these two share the same day in history. Mark is well known to everyone in these parts. His talent is, simply put, far above what can be reasonably expected in mere mortals. Just when I think I have a favorite project of his that sets new standards of excellence and innovation that cannot be bested, he posts a new example that raises the bar to yet an even higher level. And yet, he still remains very much a mystery especially in that I have no earthly idea from where his nom de plume/moniker derives... mtpeak? I just assume it's where he lives like those other guys and gals from Mt. Olympus. Paul doesn't hang out here in the forum all that often these days but he's highly talented as well. His early work compositing animated characters over live action plates in A:M really caught and kept my attention (His flour sack running around his back yard being chased by a dog (Sack Attack)... no spoiler alert here... an instant classic). What those that have joined the A:M Community more recently may not know is that Paul was the project manager behind the A:M Extras CD. This guy is the example of organized productivity that I could only dream of attaining. Paul is also an outstanding mentor and teacher. Happy Birthday!