Rodney

You've brought back to memory one of many reasons why I've always preferred Corel Photopaint over Adobe Photoshop. Assuming you are creating images from scratch, one thing you can do to fix many an image formatting issue is begin with a target image/format in place from the beginning. For instance, since you know what type of image you want to use in A:M (Targa of a specific size etc.) you can create an 'empty canvas' by rendering out a file from A:M to draw upon in Photoshop or other program. With a Targa image that already has the Alpha Channel/Transparency just as you need it Photoshop simply reads what is there and turns the process back over to you. Then you don't have to be concerned with such things as, "Should this be 16bit image... 32bit?" etc. etc. Just use the 'empty canvas' and you'll be starting from a known working point. I've attached an 'empty' targa image that was rendered out of A:M. If you import that into Photoshop and draw on it, then save it out as targa (and don't flatten the image in the process!) then the transparency of the Alpha Channel should work perfectly for you. The whole idea of 'flattening' was strange to me as I was use to different terminology coming from Corel where they use the term 'combine'. Ultimately it's the same thing with different words... but in the end if you wish to have parts of your image transparent you do not want to combine/flatten the images channels/layers if that will remove the transparency of the image. Corel lets the user specify how to save targa files using 'normal' and 'enhanced' formats. When desiring classic transparency for use in A:M that generally requires the file to be saved in 'enhanced' format. Choosing the non-enhanced option will flatten/combine the Alpha Channel of the RGBA format into the alpha-channel-less (RGB) world. emptytarga.tga

This subject has come up from time to time as it relates to how Photoshop deals with the Alpha Channel. I don't recall the specific answer as I'm mostly a Corel Photopaint user but I've recently taken to diving deeper into Photoshop as well. Here's the specific 'problem' photoshop has historically had related to this: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/detail.jsp?ftpID=1543 In essence what we have here is three channels: Red Green Blue And a fourth channel that is stored in file formats such as TGA and PNG as the Alpha Channel. This gives us: Red Green Blue Alpha Some of us tend to use the term 'tranparency' instead of Alpha but there is something of a problem with this. Circa version 7, Photoshop actually changed the way this Alpha channel was stored in that it saved the channel as transparency. In effect this gives us five 'layers/channels': Red Green Blue Alpha Transparency The difference is that the last two can be the same but aren't the same depending on the implementation. Note that there is a plugin at the linked site above that changes Photoshops behavior to that of how it handled Alpha Channels before. Robert Holmen has a video tutorial that goes into some detail about the.... truly strange... way that Photoshop deals with Alpha *and* Transparency. As it is a long lost tutorial, it is well worth reviewing: http://www.hash.com/two/RCHolmen/decalmakingMP4.mov Doh! Robert just beat me to posting a link to his movie while I was preparing this response.

hehe. That's great Mark. Too much fun.

That's been the standard approach.

And the trend continues as more animation legends offer video lessons. These are of personal interest to me because they focus on hand drawn animation. Of course the classic concepts can not only be transferred to 3D... they must! Instructors: John Pomeroy Tony Bancroft Tom Bancroft Michel Gagne At $10 a pop... affordable. http://taughtbyapro.com/courses/all/ Added: At 24 minutes they appear bitesized enough to assimilate quickly and incorporate into one's workflow. (I assume all lessons are roughly the same length)

I love it when you animate. Very nice.

Much smoother. Looking good!

Hehe! It's amazing to see he's still smarter than you after all the accumulative years.

One reference the article points to is this behind-the-scenes interview with Brad Bird and Mark Andrews. This is from the Incredibles DVD but is well worth watching or reviewing again: (Keep in mind of course that these scenes were cut because for one reason or another they didn't work) x1qZYxAJkYk

The Cinematography of the Incredibles Part 3 has been posted. Note: This third part is huge (as in long/large) so reserve some quality time to read through it.

Here's something to put on your radar. Not long ago I said, "The time is coming and now is that rendering (as we know it) will be obsolete." or something to that effect. This site is an example of the moving in that direction. Although this is not a renderer as we know it the site does purport to encode media with a hands off approach. What does that mean to you? If you've already rendered a file and need it converted to another format you don't have to spend time rerendering or searching for proper programs and codecs if you can drag and drop the file and get the conversion done while you do other (more important) work. Concerns about security? You shouldn't be too concerned if all you want to do is share your media with the world. What is the worst they might do with your media? View it? Duplicate it? Distribute it? You could only wish you had that kind of pull. Encoding.com does have an API and is being used by some up and comers in the digital art realm. RGB Notes (currently in Beta) is using it to convert uploaded media seamlessly behind the scenes for online viewing. While there are paid plans, there is a free 1GB plan that allows 50 simultaneous uploads and 50 encodes. Perhaps not for everyone but well worth putting on your rainy day radar: http://www.encoding.com

Yes, a visual programming language with drag and drop will take away a lot of the pain. Python can be excruciatingly difficult to debug. I spent over three hours one day debugging code I'd typed in directly from an example only to find I'd made, on average, at least one mistake in typing per line of code (out of several hundred lines of code). The error was often a comma instead of a period or an incorrect indentation. As I recall that one was a version of 'Break out' and I never did figure out the bug that prevented the player from dying so... the player remained immortal throughout the game. The fun part for me has been playing with image sprites and image sprite sheets. Things like that I can use even outside of python gaming. I'll have to look into some of the games development tools you mention as well as some I looked at in the past. Back then I had absolutely no clue as to how to put together a game. ... not that I have much of a clue now either. I am thrilled to see you working on a game. More power to you!

Nice one Dan! I'm going to guess that's more than Python going on there. Pygame is mostly old news but that's what I've been experimenting with lately. Looking very good! Great character and smooth animation.

I may have solved the mystery. The Shortcut Key listing (in German) in both 32bit and 64bit directories is dated 7/7/13. When I renamed them and Exported again I get the Listings in English. Apparently the Listings were there already and didn't get written over when I hit Export? At any rate, this appears to be a false alarm regarding the German shortcuts being spit out of the Exporter.

Hmmm. So if you were going to use the word 'void' in German you could use the word 'leer'?

ooo.... Mark... I like those special characters for keys on the Mac listing!

And here is what I was after in the first place... a two page listing of currently assigned keyboard shortcuts. The text size is a bit small but I really wanted to get them onto a two page spread. Keep in mind that if you (or I) have changed any shortcut keys or added to them, A:M will export that customization in the listing. KeyboardShortcuts__Assigned_Keys__2_pages.pdf

Edit: Apparently a false alarm with regard to A:M spitting out German shortcut key listings. However, you may have a German Shortcut Key listing in your installation directory. Now here is a learning opportunity. If you want to learn some snippets of the German language, v18 is currently spitting out the german words for A:M shortcut keys. In the attached I've translated all but one which I think is 'SPACE'. For those in the know what say you all... does "LEER" translate to "SPACE"? At any rate, if you wish to get a shortcut key listing in German go to Tools/Customize and on the Keyboard tab click the Export button. The shortcut key listing will be saved in the A:M installation folder (ex: C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\v18.0) as an html file named KeyboardShortcuts Added: PDF version Disclaimer: A:M spits out better formatted html than MS Word so don't use the attached for html purposes. KeyboardShortcuts.html KeyboardShortcuts.pdf

This isn't really snapshot related but I figured I would use the imagery created with it to make a banner. My all-A:M pipeline for the Special Projects area is almost complete.

I heartily agree. One thing we can also do is use A:M's own ability to layer in imagery (multiple decals stamps, layered patch images, etc.). The last rendering really only consisted of three 'layers' (a color, a displacement and an ambiance image). And while I did use another program to put them together they could almost as easily have been created in A:M. Layering is really the key to any detailed rendering whether that layering be surface, lighting or other contributing influence. Awhile back I developed a methodology for drawing and painting over models in A:M while still using another program (any program really) but it's something of a hack. Now that A:M has these new tools (providing a round trip from capturing an image of a model to pasting it back onto the model again) I may have to dust that off and see if there is still anything worth pursuing.

More random texturing, lighting and rendering...

If it does it is too well hidden. Back in the v11 timeframe it had quite a few other options (and it was easier to save custom colors) but the color picker hasn't been the same since.

More messing...

And here is a shot from inside the Decal Editor/Viewer. Note that the grid lines (or rather the spaces within the grids) are saved by the snapshot tool as part of the alpha channel transparency and it probably would have been wise for me to flatten the image before painting. Another alternative would be to turn off the gridlines within A:M.

Then going in and painting on that decal/snapshot takes it to the next stage: (Example here is with only the front snapshot applied)