Rodney

Sebastian, I'm not sure what to say. I can't help but think you were already moving that direction. It seems for the present a few doom and gloomers have once again convinced someone to put A:M on the shelf (for invalid reasons). Way to convince Steffen maintaining A:M on the Mac isn't going to be worth the effort Mac heads! A minor history lesson: Five to six years ago a group of A:M Users decided it was the end of the world because Ken Baer had left and there was no more hope for A:M on the Mac. Despite their dire predictions both Mac and PC versions have consistently improved since then. The tragedy of this... if they had continued to support A:M, we might not be at this 'Mavericks' debacle today. How can we learn from the errors (all errors) of the past? Perhaps those who prefer A:M can learn a new software to allay their fears while still supporting and using A:M? Now, that'd be a novel concept. By all means learn new software but save a few bucks and stick with A:M as well. You'll have the best of all worlds for a few more dollars a year.

Back in the day, Hash Inc had to develop code (custom libraries, etc.) that didn't exist in the Mac world from scratch to support A:M on the Mac. Apple didn't have the tools for it yet (probably still doesn't) and certainly weren't going to build cross compilers to help push code toward their PC competitors. So Hash Inc had to go the hard route to support their Mac users. Which BTW, they gladly did. In hindsight it's easy to surmise what should've been done where reality dictated it couldn't. The real lesson learned here: Do not make major upgrades to your operating system in the middle of a production cycle. This is especially true for those who are oft tempted to be early adopters. The results: predictable.

Mark, I had just visited that site and was debating whether to post a link to it. Thanks for saving me some typing. libstdc++... libc++... it's all libGreek to me.

Ouch. Sorry to hear that David. Hope everyone is okay. I hope things return to normalcy soon. Back up the Backup as soon as you possibly can!

I was checking Shotgun and it's related programs out when it was first being promoted and there wasn't much to show. It looks like they've come a long way since then. Most of the tools in Shotgun are available in various programs but aren't as fully integrated and automated. That integration, automation and the additional service is what folks are willing to pay for. If moving into full production its certainly nice to have the option. Especially when some similar solutions are tens of thousands of dollars. There are quite a few folks that are leaning into the project management arena for filmmaking (Tactic* is one I've been following closely but I haven't seen a lot of movement from them since their initial product announcement. Tactic has a much broader scope than Shotgun and is therefore inherently more open to customization... which can also equate to being more difficult to maintain and manage). The future continues to look bright for filmmakers and animators but there are still some rough spots to smooth over. *Tactic does have the advantage of being fully integrated with Python (mix with HTML, CSS and Javascript and stir well). Tactic is free...and I see they've recently released some plugins.

It seems more than a few companies got caught unawares by Apples latest release. This came into my email box a few hours ago: Toon Boom is the maker of the industry standard 2D animation program's Animate/Animate Pro/Harmony, Toon Boom Studio, Storyboard Pro, Pencil Check Pro and some other well received programs. Similarly to reports here, Animate Pro users report that earlier versions (Animate Pro 2.0) still work on Mavericks. In other news: Apple reportedly included a last minute patch in the final release that didn't get publicly tested. It broke some things that companies are now scrambling to resolve. It remains to be seen if problems stemming from that patch are related to issues reported here (or above).

Impressive stats! That is a heck of a lot of eyeballs watching a video.

As I resubscribed recently myself this might be a good place to note that those that want to purchase via credit card can still do so even though the initial page states "Paypal only". Hash put a message there saying, in effect, "Proceed as if you are going to use Paypal but then change to credit card at the appropriate opportunity".

Too much fun! I have a new favorite quote of the day... "You pitiful fool." MORE PLEASE!

There are some fairly easy means of ensuring files don't get overwritten. One hack on a PC would be to create a batchfile (text file that executes instructions) that simply copies the current files into a new place. I'm tempted to try to write a utility that does something like this but it'd only be for PC users as I haven't a clue how to proceed on a Mac. What success might look like would be a program that would be added to the Tools drop down menu. When launched it would go on a find and seek (duplicate/increment) mission. One does have to consider that incrementing could be a detriment in several ways. The primary one I can think of would be files that are referenced to earlier increments. In other words you are working on a production and save with files with a 023 increment... You open one or more of the files (such as a model and an action) and save them out as the 024 increment... Now when you open the original Project or Chor it will still refer to the original increment. How could it not... as it hasn't been touched/updated to refer to the newer increment. So now we are looking at yet another future feature request which might be to have A:M determine what the latest and greatest increment for any given file currently is. i.e. when A:M opens a file it would notify the user that newer file increments exist that are not currently being referenced. Fun stuff that coding/debugging is.

I like this idea too but I don't see any reason to grey out 'Save Increment' if there are no padded numbers on the end. Save Increment could increment by 1 if an trailing number exists *and* if not it could add that padding in... perhaps beginning with 000, _000 or optimally a user stored variable. This would not only help us increment our files it would echo optimal workflow in A:M's renderer... and train people to use that feature as well. Save Increment Psuedocode: 'Assume the user wants to increment over a file that already exists but... Check to see if the file exists If the file exists get the last character of the filename If LastChar is an Integer loop to get all integers Add 1 to the existing increment Else : Append _000 to the filename Else : File does not exist so treat as a regular Save operation querying user for file location 'As this is a Save Increment routine it could be programmed to never overwrite a file but instead display error message stating "If you wish to overwrite a file please Save or Save As." Note that because of the way Project files work (as has been mentioned already), unless very carefully written, even using the File Increment routine would not guarantee no file gets replaced. This is one of the reasons I tend to embed Projects because then I know for a fact that no files external to the project will be replaced.

Hehe. I was wondering where that guy went to...

Where's the kaboom. There was suppose to be an earth shattering kaboom. Very nice Robert! I'd say that all you'd need for the 'boom' would be to cut to another shot/scene and insert a nice sound to go with the transition. This must have been close to the same timeframe as when you were creating rope (i.e. Shaggy the rope charmer from 'Bus Stop')?

I have no idea why but when I open video via vimeo these days it displays with the sound off and no sound icon to adjust. Strange. I don't have this problem with video on other sites. Congrats on the update to 'Trapeze'! Later today I'll try via a different browser (I"m using Chrome now)

I wish I was smart enough to convey some of my thoughts with regard to nondestructive file creation. (This relates to something I have long desired in A:M's rendering system... something folks always misunderstand whenever I try to explain... entirely and eternally my failure) While there is a Backup plugin for A:M, what we've historically advised people to do is to "Save often and incrementally." This is because even backups will tend to fail. What that entails is saving updated files with different filenames (in this way we get out of the habit of copying over files that we might need): CoolModel1 CoolModel1a CoolModel2 As this is up to the user to specify other custom filenaming schemes work just as well: I like to follow the same pattern as A:M's renderer: CoolModel000 CoolModel001 ... with the occasional suffix affixed: CoolModel001 (rigged) etc. Hopefully it is apparent why this method is better than a simple straightforward backup of a file with the same name; it not only conveys more information by always renaming there are files it will never replace. There are other schemes as well: CoolModel20130102v1 (a filename followed by a date and version) Note that in this case I start with the year so that all files will be easily sortable filename and date (for actual creation date we could use the operating system to sort by date) This would be ideal if you know for a fact you will be going back to use earlier versions from specific dates. Of course there are problems with this approach if we aren't paying attention. If a Project file is looking for CoolModel1a and can't find it it is up to the user to point it in the right direction. Does A:M use CoolModel1... does it use CoolModel2... or some other iteration? Not to go too much farther down this rabbit hole but the way A:M works with files both aides and abets our ability to safely recall files when we make the inevitable and fateful mistake. One of the reasons embedding of files came along is surely that when they are maintained separately there is a chance we might unintentionally lose or update them. This is something you should check because if your files were separate (unembedded) for awhile and then later you embedded them into your project you still would have those unaffected model on your drive somewhere. They may just be named something you have since forgotten or forgot to search for This might be a good time to reiterate: "Save often and incrementally" But this doesn't cover all bases as evidenced by my current situation which has all my older files on a laptop that doesn't want to get past the Windows boot screen. To cover that aspect of recalling older files we have to store them (or share them so that they can be stored) in an alternate/remote location.

Will said: The process is straightforward (Lloyd Moore and I setup Tortoise/SVN when he initially launched 'Woke Up Dead'). For my part I just treated it as part of the file management system. The hardest part is setting up the server so that local repositories have something to sync with. I would love to use SVN as an A:M Exchange repository so that folks could add and retrieve assets from it. Perhaps there would be a way to setup such a thing where private assets as well as public assets could be maintained. I've long seen the A:M Exchange arena a a means to recover lost files because... if there are duplicate files in existence... if a file is lost it can easily be replaced. Using SVN would be even better because users could choose which version of any given file as the replacement. On the local machine it would look like this: Create a Folder/repository where you save all your A:M assets and have Tortoise/SVN keep it in sync. Saving files locally doesn't share it with the online/server repository unless/until you Right Click and submit it. Right Clicking and Submitting entire folders rather than individual files is a better way make sure the server is in sync. Right Clicking and Updating the local folders via an 'Update' keeps the local and server repositories in sync. On the server it might look like this: Public and Private folders are setup with permissions set. Everyone has access to the public and is free to download and even update the asset. (its safe because changes can be rolled back) On the private side a way to release access to specific parties (for collaboration purposes) would need to be worked out. Of course the ultimate privacy would be to add your files to Tortoise/SVN locally (without ever syncing with an online repository) as Tortoise/SVN can be run entirely on the local machine. Unless backed up elsewhere however this defeats the purpose of having a repository somewhere else so that files may always be retrieved.

There is no requirement to use Tortoise (or SVN) with A:M as it is completely independent. I'll guess the same thing that caused your truck to come up missing might happen if you used Tortoise/SVN. A:M doesn't automatically save versions of files just because you've installed SVN. It has more to do with checking in files to the repository so that the program knows to do that. I'm really surprised that modern day operating systems haven't leveraged tech as SVN to instantly recall any saved version of a file. I understand that many do in the sense of backups and such but what I'm talking about is more along the lines of a file system that is fully transparent to the user and iteratively recallable/redactible/roll-backable. I also understand the security issues implicit therein that and the general fears that could go with that. To get back to your question, I have used Tortoise/SVN as a method for storing files but I often tend to fail to remember to do that. I believe you can setup SVN or similar programs to version entire folders and there might be some promise in that; save your project files, models, etc. there and SVN would maintain versions of that. I have yet to install Tortoise/SVN on my current system. Thanks for reminding me to do that! Regarding your lost file. I still think you should be able to get that back. Without knowing more about your file setup and workflow I'm just not sure how to approach getting it back. Not that I do it but it's good to perform, at a minimum, at least one daily backup. Is your computer set to do a automatic or periodic back up?

Not sure about any Turn Constraints... (Perhaps you mean Turn On All the Constraints because that's exactly what it does) After experiencing the issue myself I empathized with the numerous people who queried about why they couldn't animate a TSM rigged character... i.e. after downloading a character rigged with TSM the bones didn't appear to be connected to the character. Generally this was a short lived problem because after being told most users never had the problem again. Or at least when the did they remembered they needed to activate the rig. Now granted, this was mostly experienced by folks that did not use TSM themselves. They likely would have known what was going on if they had.

A bit off topic: I have always wondered why that constraint/pose wasn't set to On by default. I asked that in public once and the response was that I was an alien from another planet. I suppose there are many times when you would not want to animate but I don't need more excuses for that...

That had a nice Warners feel to it (without the dramatic exaggeration of course). Perhaps it was the duck (errr... fox hunting villain in duck costume that is). Nice job! The timing and sound sync were spot on. Looking forward to seeing more. We need a close up of Super Mega Fox... perhaps the next shot cuts to her face?

It IS done! LINK

I had seen the site a long time ago but it's much improved since those days. I will note that the current version does not allow any import/export of models (in a convensional sense) so that's why I recommend Alice 2.3. If anyone wants to know more about how to get an A:M model converted for use with Alice 2.3 let me know. Nice! As if it wasn't already too much fun to be a kid!

I'll add my system into the mix: A:M v17g 32bit Render time: 4:33 Update: With most other programs turned off render time dropped to 4:05. Intel Pentium CPU G2020@2.90GHZ 1 core 4GB memory (3.88 useable) Win 8 With less than 4GB of memory I was surprised to see it render that fast. As I don't consider this a fast computer I'm pleased with that result. I had quite a number of other programs running while rendering so I suppose I should close all of those and try again with 64bit. I need to update to Win8.1 too... and sure wish I had Steffen's 32GB of memory!

Here is an example with the mouth sphere cutting the mouth shape out of the head sphere. Note that the color inside the mouth comes from the Surface color of the sphere that has been assigned as a Boolean Cutter. Patch images, materials... and yes, even decals... can also be applied. (Example: You can have a cube (or cubes) cut out space for a set of windows and simultaneously decal all the views those windows provide)

One plus to John's technique... no 5 point patches or hooks needed! It's also a great method for prototyping new characters and props. Also: While not ideal in all situations, when using 4 Patch spheres we don't have to worry about closing the ends of the mesh for use with Boolean Cutters (we know they are already closed). So the mouth shape can be cut out of the face shape to animate the opening cut into the mouth.