Rodney

I'll look into that and see if I can remedy that. I've forgotten as well! Now you've got me curious.

This sounds like a winner to me. Although I would think it would crash on every attempt... not just on v13 files... I'll add (and Robert's video suggests this) not to render out to AVI or MOV but rather to a sequence of images. This saves so much trouble in the end (i.e. what if the power goes out while rendering? What if you need to rerender 3 frames of the 5242 frame sequence? What if you want to remove frames (easily) without rerendering? etc. etc. etc) It's generally very good practice to render out to individual frames and then zap them into the final video format via A:M or any available software tool optimized for converting images to video. An added benefit... you can remove this unnecessarily wasted time from your workflow by shifting it well outside the area of immediate concern. And perhaps best of all you can even automate it. In Robert's video he demonstrates the easy way to convert a sequence of images to MOV or AVI and it takes a lot less time than rerendering. There are a few things to watch out for of course (i.e. frames in the sequence of differing resolution or missing frames within a sequence (that'll stop the process immediately). For what it is worth I will suggest that unless targeting the web for display of images the PNG format should be avoided as well. I realize I might have to defend this position and am more than willing to do that for those interested. For heavy lifting with images that need to have any transparency I would recommend Targa and EXR... Targa being the old standby that rarely fails and EXR being the most modern image format available. If those images are needed for use on the internet then they can easily be converted as well.

Here's the part where I think I get lost. Are you saying that your Named Groups and (basic) Surface properties are retained in the exported model? I've always had trouble 'creating' groups in .obj files (they might be there in the model but the external program doesn't suggest they are there) so that would be a very handy thing to learn.

Ah, I think I'm following you here. Yes indeed that is very interesting... and (more importantly) useful!

Hi Philip! I'm not sure what is going on in your case because without something to test against there are too many variables. Just in case you aren't doing this... here's a simple way to reduce those variations: Immediately after opening an older project (model, action, etc) in a current release it is good practice to save the file again. Under a new name of course as you don't want to overwrite the original. What this does is update all the various bits and bytes that have been optimized or changed. It would be good to resolve what is happening in your specific case of course but you may not have the time or inclination to resolve problems that technically no longer exist. Projects from v13 should have no problem rendering in v18. So the first things I would do after opening the v13 project in v18 would be to save it back out again under a new name (example: 'thisoldproject(v18update).prj) If that doesn't get it to render then at least it narrows down the possibilities to more specific areas.

Lumion has some very nice aspects to it. I suppose it all depends on the purpose it is to be used for and it certainly excels at that architectural flavor of rendering. As such I can see it being used to create/populate backgrounds which in turn could be used with A:M. It does implement some things that would save a lot of time if setup in A:M (creating a Chor setup or Project that allows the user to set a time of day and have the lighting adjust accordingly). That's more about optimizing settings and sharing them with the community than anything else however. The HDR assets are readily available and waiting to be exploited. We (collectively) just don't use them as often as we should. There is a free version for non-commercial use so everyone can use Lumion to some extent. The free version contains a watermark. The next tiers cost $299, $1499 and $2999 respectively. http://lumion3d.com/free/ Note: The free version is 3.2 but 4.0 is about to be released. I'm not sure if the free version lags behind or if both free and paid releases stay in sync. At this point I assume they stay in sync. Disclaimer: Lumion doesn't run on my current system. It fails to pass the initial benchmark test that runs when first loading. I'm not sure if this is a hardware issue, a RAM issue or perhaps both but some sort of graceful exit would be ideal. After all that's the whole point of running the benchmark. Here's the minimum requirements: My current system fails in at least two areas.

A whole lot of folks celebrating their big day today! Mr. Jaqe(25), Newbert_Zero(25), mschoenhals(46), Davoid(56), jason1025(35), Shelton(52), AZ3(42) Happy Birthday one and all! And here's a special shout out to Steve Shelton who is making great progress on his short awhile keeping us updated via the "Cupid's Sick Day" special topic: Cupid's Sick Day (I always enjoy those looks behind the scenes) Have a very happy birthday!

One of the neat things mentioned in the interview was how the artist was able to see the cycling even while creating the art. This has direct implications for the creation of animated art today beyond the element of color cycling. By this I mean to say that one could create a 3D mask (a shape in 3D space) where things either move or do not move (i.e. toggle the mask to be either negative or positive). Outside of this mask the assigned effect would not apply. In other words, the cycling of data would be defined to allow movement/animation of objects (or surfaces of objects) to be visible (or not visible) anywhere in 3D space in realtime. Shades of Boolean cutters anyone? Why would this would work better now than in the past? Because technology such as deep pixels didn't exist back then and the cycling of pixel states is no longer confined to the pixels stored on 2D planes (i.e. linear). This surely must be related in some bit-wise way to the tech that is coming online that allows objects to be removed from video without effecting other content. Seam Carving itself follows the general outline expressed by the artist when he describes how he used a template to limit his view when drawing the path of rain or snow in his color cycling drawings. Okay... I had better stop there before I hurt myself.

While very impressive its still a bit sad in a way because the underlying imagery requires 30 year old software no longer available. According to the write up those image where still created by Deluxe Paint although translated for use in modern day browsers. The orginal imagery being translated to JSON for use in HTML. Very impressive though. Added: It's interesting to note that the author has improved on the original technology by producing what he terms BlendShift Cycling. He explains it thusly: This in my estimation is why old tech needs to be revisited often because things can always be improved upon later.

I was commenting the other day to someone offline that there are many little things from back in the DOS days that current programs don't take advantage of. Color cycling is certainly one of them. It may be that these methods are used but mostly used behind the scenes and not through the interface by current users. Color cycling surely must be leveraged in game engines for instance. This may be one of the downsides of the overpowering (and useful) technologies introduced such as the Alpha Channel. When those came along there wasn't much use for the tricks/workarounds used to overcome the limits of 8bit graphics.

An alternative program with similar licensing is WWise. Tutorials from one application are largely transferrable to the other. Audiokinetic Wwise

For those into game development... which is the primary purpose of FMod... you may find this video tutorial of interest, especially with regard to integrating with Unity 3D: ImTzouwFC4w

One of the interesting aspects of FMod Studio is the 3D Panner which you can quickly adjust to position of sound within your 3D scene. Here's a video tutorial that discusses some of the thought, theory and application of 3D sound: CJ3rpZGrHh0 Note that many of the video tutorials in the FMod series discuss the concepts behind the tools which will be useful even if not using FMod.

The realtime looping and editing capabilities are pretty sweet. I didn't see a direct export to .wav or .midi but there is an 'open in external audio editor' option which opened a copy of edited sounds in Audacity. Various Tutorials can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/user/FMODTV

For both PC and Mac... I don't know a lot about this so wont comment much except to say I'll put in a recommendation to check this out. (translation: Go get it!) Especially for those of you included toward music, foley and audio effects. What's the skinny? Unless your budget is $100K or more you can now use these tools for free. If over $100K then you'll need to license. Note: FMod was free for non-commericial projects before but now it is officially free for independent commercial projects. http://www.fmod.org http://www.fmod.org/download/ The pitch here is more toward realtime audio for development of games but this can be leveraged by the small studio and independent animator. I don't know the details but also note that due to this release several other audio software/services have expanded their services to independent artists. Added: The software comes with example music and sound effects that will be well worth your time to download as well.

Okay, who is this Robcat guy and who authorized him to have a birthday? Robert, What can be said... you are an inspiration. Happy Birthday!

You are a success story if I ever saw one Teresa. The school certainly helped but your relentless and continual drive to be an animator was surely the critical element that brought about your success. It was easy to see that you had what it took to reach the goal even before I met you at the Hash Bash way back when. I must say though that your Dad played a pivotal role as well. As I recall he was your greatest ally in the effort. *Sniff* (pardon me while I get emotional here) We are very proud of you.

I like it!

That appears to be your ground plane. Perhaps it, or your snow model are animated to move up or down somewhere in the animation? Otherwise I'd say perhaps you have another model in the scene that you haven't accounted for.

I agree with your assessment of the look of current CG films. Very astute. (I can't view your new shot at present but will soon!)

Yes, a bit unfortunately there is too much information to sift through these days. But I sure wouldn't change that, I clearly recall when I couldn't find any information about animation, spent time looking for it, and still came up short. And if you could find it it was rare and expensive... so I couldn't afford to know.

Haha! Very nice!

Outstanding episode Robert. You cover a whole lot of territory in this one! There are so many areas of interest you cover in this video that it's hard to refer to just one but EVERYONE should watch it. The intro to A:M Composite alone will be enlightening because that feature is so seldom invoked. You explored one thing I have never even glanced at before... because I didn't think I had a use for it... but you have expertly demonstrated how shortsighted my thinking was. That was your use of the Repeat Interpolation. Whoa... why haven't I been using THAT one! You delved deeply into some other areas that I've only scratched at as well and it's always good to see that exploration validated. One of the things I note is that you run into the problem of the default color of the ground plane being white. If it were a mid grey I believe you wouldn't have had to intially adjust your light because the ground plane was too bright. Turning down the illumination was a proper solution but darkening the ground plane would work well also, especially if only wanting to change the effect of the light on the ground. When you move into the arena of glow there is one area that will pay off big dividends and that is Lens Flares There are some attribute of Lens flares that have not yet been leveraged to good effect in Animation:Master but are there to be exploited by anyone with sufficient time and curiosity. (Tip: When in doubt get rid of everything except the part of the Flare you want). ThankyouThankyouThankyouThankyou for this series of video tutorials. A W E S O M E !

Whoa Mark, that's awesome. Very nice. That is going to be one happy girl on her birthday.

I am assuming Sebastian's version might be a progression and as such be the one going forward... if not... please redirect. Three things things I note that need to be addressed on Sebastian's version: 1 The right mascot (anteater) on the front of the flyer is out of porportion (on the other card he's in better proportion) if you make the image slightly shorter I believe he'll be closer. 2. The back of the flyer doesn't appear to follow the guide for placement. I don't know that this is an issue because folks shouldn't be mailing this as they do a standard postcard but then again most postcards don't have full color on the front and back. I get the sense that the back is suppose to be grayscale (as indicated on the guide layer. Silly freelancers... check the specs first. Jason has clarified the spec. 3. Color correction (as mentioned before) some of the color is clashing a bit which is why I suggested ghosted imagery (This allows some of the background color to influence the images/text. The images could also bleed off the page rather than be isolated on islands although that is obviously just one approach and the isolated imagery works. More specifically I'd say to have the pink colors of the A:M Logo shift move more toward the red spectrum. I do like the movement toward more simple design and less text... it can never be simple enough. Razzledazzle them with more complex imagery and subject matter once they get to www.hash.com but even then keep them pointed toward the store. If they don't bite and purchase they can't... and won't... get the chance to enjoy A:M. Rock on A:M gurus!