Rodney

As he was always fond of saying... He wrote the book an Animation:Master. Happy Birthday David!

May Soulcage rock forever. Happy Birthday!

You've got to specify the file type to output to. As of some earlier version of A:M you can get the file type going just by typing in the extension (A:M therefore knows that you want that type so you don't have to set it in the options). The compression type (if any) you would have to set there however. Make sure you use a filename of this type (assuming you want to 'save as animation' to a .mov file): mymovie.mov Make sure you know where it is going to save the file also. Troubleshooting tip: If A:M appears not to 'Save As Animation' for an entire sequence, the majority of the time users have accidentally imported only a single frame of the animation into the PWS. Make sure when importing you use the option to import the whole sequence. You can easily (visually) tell if you've imported a sequence by looking at the channel view next to the PWS. There you should see what looks like a movie strip.

Awesome. Divide and conquer! Looking forward to more awesomeness. Did you end up testing any negative lights?

That is amazing Matt. Very nice all around. When you do unplug from this please post it to either A:M Films or the Show me! forum so others can stand in awe. As far as the flame casting shadows you should be able to turn that off via Cast Shadows=Off... hmm.... but that is just per model. I suppose for a quick fix you could have two copies of the same model in place and hide everything except the flame in one and only the flame in the other. Then set the flame to not cast shadows. Perhaps you could make the main flame just more transparent? or mess with the falloff and ambiance blend in the surface properties? (That last one wouldn't do much for the shadow but would blend the flame in a little more at the source.

Woo hoo! Congrats on you move to Mountain Lion and v17.0a! Just so I'm not misunderstanding, are you saying that the finder issue of old is gone with the combo of v17 and Mountain Lion? (That'd be great news for Mac Users)

I've been toying with the idea of giving him a slight burned look or scar protruding out from his mask but I'm trying to resist the urge to do that. There is a reason he hides his face and to put any kind of blemish on his face will work against the contrast of the big reveal at the end of the story. To all appearances, he's (suppose to look like) just a cute cartoony outlaw riding the mystic trails. I just slapped a skin-like color on this model to indicate what the eventual color may be. No lighting or texturing that would approach the final look is intended. As far as color goes this is all coloring-book stage. I'm debating working in grayscale alone at these early stages but I've got to admit that I enjoy seeing some color. Regarding your neighbor... look out buddy! I've done similar fire starting many times but a series of events make this one cross the threshold of safety. I'd gladly go into that sequence of events but I'd want to make sure I took the time to note all safety precautions as well so that others don't follow my lead. It's interesting to note that there are some parallels to my burning within 'The Mystr'y Rider' but none of them were consciously created. There is a reason that he's wearing that mask (besides just being an outlaw) and for now on that subject, that's all I've got to say.

At this point I don't think I've got any characters that are animation-ready. I am still very much at the earliest stages of research and development. I may make myself a subject for the purpose of testing The Gauntlet, but I'd actually have to start producing stuff to get there. This guy... The Mystr'y Rider... would be really fun to animate. I'm looking forward to animating a classic western shoot out with serious yet cartoony charters. Added: One of the pluses of his design is that I wouldn't have to worry a lot about lipsync!

Looking very good Willi!

Here's a character I came up while recovering from my burns (I had a lot of time to sit and draw). As I doodled more and more characters formed and slowly a story came together about an outlaw cowboy who awakens in the middle of a misty desert with no memory of how he arrived save one, that he must track down a man and kill him; the unsuspecting Sheriff of a peaceful town. On the trail to his prey the Mystr'y Rider discovers a companion; a horse that when the mists decend upon the high desert planes into the valleys can speak into the rider's mind. As he follows the trail even stranger things begin to happen as skeletons arise from their graves to follow after him (some secretly plotting to end his life). Two skeletons break away from their posse and befriend the rider; an unhappy preacher and a orphaned child (you'd be unhappy too if you were suppose to be in heaven and got stuck taking care of a skeleton child. The tale chronicles how these unlikely companions finally track down the Sheriff and learn the real secret of the Mystr'y Rider. Below is one of the initial drawings of the Mystr'y Rider (drawn in Coreldraw). After my last post I thought I'd try to recreate the rider in 3D tonight and this is what came out. Hopefully I'm heading in the right direction.

The jury is still out on whether the broken leg was more painful than the burns. Both flukes... both could have/should have been avoided. What's funny (in a tragic kind of way) is that in both instances I had gone out of my way to help someone and shouldn't have been there to have the accident in the first place. Now THAT is irony. A good friend of mine might call it a 'moronic sense of responsibility'. As far as the explanation on igniting myself on fire. I had spent the better part of three months cutting down trees and burning brush at the place I lived at before entering the USAF and just before I made the move to go back to Japan to retrieve my family I agreed to help with some last minute cleanup. In the process I made a series of errors (shortcuts!) that in my haste caused a bottle's worth of gasoline to get exploded back into my chest and face. For a moment it got kidda hot. I did the ol' panick, drop and roll and (apparently) managed to get the fire out before it did extensive damage. The burns were bad enough that I got a trip to the Iowa Burn Center where they did more painful things to me than either the broken leg or the burn. By my estimation, my saving grace (besides God himself) was that while the fuel itself was burning...I wasn't directly burning and I (mostly) managed to get the flames out before the fire ran out of fuel and started using me as it's fuel. The heat damage was then what I spent the majority of the last three months recovering from. People I meet that don't know the tale are surprised because they say they would have never guessed that I'd ever been burned. I've got a pretty graphic photo that was taken by my sister about an hour after the accident if'n you ever want to see the full effects. I looked like a poorly splined model with bad displacement maps fer sure. If I hadn't been so miserable I might have taken daily pics so that I could put together an animation of the healing process. Hint: It is really really slow process and just when you think your 'healed', new wounds appear out of nowhere and the healing process seems to start over. The doctor knew her stuff though. She said I would fully recover and shouldn't have any scars to show for the adventure. I have a few as of this moment and my chest looks seriously sunburned but I can easily live with that. I have a lot to be thankful for. Thanks Gene! I'm working on it. I'm hoping to get that style translating into the computer one of these days and almost feel like I am on approach to getting that going. I've long said that 2020 was going to be my year and way back then I thought that'd give me a good cushion of time to ramp up to it. 2020 is going to be here soon so I need to get movin'! I should say though that while I do have a style I try to morph my style to fit the particular project I'm working on.

More unrelated stuff but I did move forward in a couple areas. This image is a very loose attempt to bring the principles of squash and stretch and straights vs curves a little closer into how I animate in Animation:Master. The real trick for me is in how to maintain the sense that I am 'drawing' while animating computer characters. It's not an easy thing to do but little by little I'm getting closer. Sorry for the lame graphics. This is largely just a note to myself so I don't forget the gains of today... tomorrow.

Thanks Jost! I've only just barely looked into Unity but everything I see look really great. There are some folks who know the ins and outs of Unity and you all can further educate the rest of us some day. I recently visited a Unity site (I don't think it was the main one) and really liked what I saw. I'm a long way away from creating games or game assets but I know Unity will be of use to me someday. I do regret that our effort to create a TWO game didn't get off the ground. I was really looking forward to that. It would have been fun.

All of what I've written above is not really what I wanted to say. That's just a piddly observation. I am super impressed by how well you animated to the beats and music in this video. I think fast beat music is your forte! Very impressive.

Nancy beat me to the commentary on adding a little blue to the flame. That would be nice. Now you've got me wondering if negative lights (a white light or two or three with negative intensity) set around the candle would intensify the effect of the SSS.

Says you. He eventually will... and if not her someone else. Humor-wise the video begs to have some kind of reveal at the end that shows everyone who was really in charge of that game. She could pull out a huge gun and smile at at end and she could motion with the camera to 'walk this way'. The audience may understand 'he never catches her' but: 1) It's not explicitly stated. 2) There is always going to be the question out there about 'what's it gonna be like when he catches her' and the some in the audience will imagine that whether you give that to them or not. As it is now you've basically left the audience to consider that question which (to me) lacks something needed to sell 'he never catches her'. In other words, something to reveal that she was never in any jeopardy to begin with. At least there wasn't blood all over the place to indicate that he's caught someone else before. There is that. Maybe you can revisit this guy/gal in a sequel to show that she is still alive. (She might even develop an extended following besides this guy) There is a limited range of visuals one can get when we hear the words 'chop you up' and it's not related to motorcycles. My mind races to think that perhaps both guy and gal could have chased each other back and forth with progressively enlarging instruments of death. If wanting to just resolve this one after the music is over (as you've ended it now) you could have the girl turn and smile and then ride off on a motorcycle. A more complex extension would be to have her riding off casually and him running exaggeratedly after her. The reason I like this as a solution is because it wouldn't effect your current music video at all. Just saw that you added this. Hmmm... okay, you are stretching now but at least now I'm following you. That brings to mind other options. For one, it makes me think you could adjust the color (desaturate?) and/or put an overlay over the top of the whole thing that would give it a Halloween feel. You could rescue the whole thing if you color correct and set the mood with an eye for Halloween. That darker coloring contrasted with the lively beat should help sell the humor in the video. Do you have time to do a whole video edition of this video? Having the girl hiding in a coffin (maybe she goes in and then when he opens it she's not there) and other Halloween props all around would really plus this up. The colors and the beat as they are now lean more to the idea that it's fun to chop people up. What can I say other than I don't quite identify with that. Making the connection with Halloween explicit to where no one can miss it... now that would be a very good idea. All this is purely my initial thoughts that arrived upon seeing the video and your revelation that it is set for a Halloween release. It's great animation and a lively beat so there is a lot going for it regardless. Taking one half a month more to bring the Halloween theme into it would make it superb IMO. Adding a taste of Halloween would at least flavor it. You wouldn't even have to rerender what you've got here. Just adjust it in post.

Unfortunate lyrics but impressive animation! The beat is really there and you've hit your mark time and time again throughout. Very impressive. You are making this animation thing look easy. And those flame effects are pretty sweet too! Regarding the lyrics... what can I say... as a policeman I've seen too much of real violence to even entertain that part as humorous. I'm trying to imagine what might make that work for me (and any others who might also be put off by the idea of a guy chasing a girl with sharp objects) but short of 'Wile E Coyote and Roadrunner' that's a tough one to visualize. We are living in a very strange 'Dexter-ized' society. Congrats Gene!

Making excellent progress!

Thanks! You just made me realize that this will help in many way more than originally anticipated. For those interested in the process of benchmarking itself it's important to note that there is a Point of View (POV)... or perspective if you prefer... in every test. This is the bias that we need to account for in every single benchmarking test. It's also one that is extremely hard to get. But... this is where it gets really cool! There are two primary POVs on any given benchmark (three really but bear with me here). Your POV (Local) Others POVs (Global) Ultimately, the only benchmark you are personally interested in is your benchmark, the one that radiates outward from your POV. When we continually compare our benchmark with other peoples benchmarks we are getting a skewed picture that does not (cannot) fully apply to our own effort. It's good to keep both in mind but we need to focus on those variables that we can control at our production level. To step out of the local arena is to assume a different level of responsibility. Where frustration really starts to form and conflicts arise is where the level of access is not appropriate matched to the level responsibility. In short, if you do not have access to the global resource how can that possibly help you locally? Therefore, proper benchmarks at the local level must focus on variables at the local level. All others may be informative but they may or may not relate. Where they relate is at the crossroads of where the global and local levels meet. That was a long way to get to this: Given this, anyone can post a benchmark from the local level and someone else can test it at the global level. The only thing remaining then is to loop in feedback so that the differences can be compared and contrasted. But that's a bit broad for the present. The goal is to reduce variation within a specified control. Where possible that control should be user specified with optimal and suboptimal results recorded and shared globally. But how does one determine what is optimal? For that we need some kind of control. The point of the global benchmarking then is to demonstratively show others what (optimally) works. The feedback loop can then confirm the optimization and the production cycle can begin anew. Note: A project file need not move from the local level to the global unless/until it is seen to be out of control or if highly optimal. The concerns inbetween can (usually) be simply monitored as they satisfactorily move forward on schedule. Trivial matters then enter the realm of Research and Development where people purposefully break things in order to explore and innovate. But what is accepted as being in or out of control? I submit to you that in cases where things fall out of control the first comparison to use would be that of a running tests at the 0.0 Default level of Benchmarking. This compares the current results to that of the Norm and endeavoring to turn toward the default to the maximum extent possible . This can then also be compared and confirmed with the 2.0 Technical level of benchmarking to ensure the production is operating at peak capacity while ever seeking higher levels of optimization by thinking through the process. At level 0.0 there is no thinking, just do the default and require everyone else to do it too. This is how 'global reality' works. How closely does your 'local reality' align with it? At level 1.0 Something new is produced. Variables are added to the default that can be compared and contrasted with the default. The product isn't optimized at this stage it is produced. At level 2.0 Further optimization is secured with an eye toward the future. Things get seriously broken. Learning is afoot.

Every installation of A:M has a default chor. Just render a two minute movie with it. For a first variable I would suggest: Removing the default Ground Plane There are two (primary) ways to remove the default ground plane 1 ) Select the Ground Plane from under the Choreography and delete it (Delete key on keyboard) 2 ) Inactivate the Ground Plane by opening the Ground Plane and setting the Active attribute to 'Off'. After any changes are made the Project should be saved (to an approriate benchmark name) to ensure the setting are locked down. The resulting file can be shared with others who wish to test the same benchmark on their system. Added information that few will be interested in: Products: The products this benchmark will produce are of the following nature: 1) Backgrounds 2) Placemarks (Proxies) Backgrounds Rendered backgrounds can be reutilized and should be saved for reuse. Re-rendering the same background over and over again with no changes is an example of poor optimization. Placemarks Rendered backgrounds can be reused and replaced in other scenes. They can also serve as proxy frames pending replacement (Ref: Animatics) The placemarks can be rendered to 1x2 with alpha channel on to be completely transparent (A faster method would simply duplicate the original frame to the desire time length) When rendering to PNG format (or other format with transparency) the placemark can remain in place or be replaced as the subsequent/improved renderings arrive to fill in that space. PNG is currently optimal for use with HTML overlays. TGA is optimal for legacy compositing and interoperability. EXR is optimal for single image data (and with EXR 2.0 depth information is stored in the file as well).

Trust me, low impact is the goal here. The whole point being to make it the lowest impact possible to promote optimization. All that I am suggesting is that a smart benchmark can produce something that is useful beyond the benchmark itself (a reuse methodology). If the benchmark is successful then it could then be incorporated into workflow and a new benchmark replacing that one. I understand the old way of Benchmarks enough to know that they target the technical. As such my proposal has three core series: 0.0 Default Benchmarks 1.0 Production Benchmarks 2.0 Technical Benchmarks Of course it could have more but three areas would not only be optimal in and of itself but would mesh well with the whole idea of Preproduction, Production and Post Production. Specifically, in Preproduction we establish (or reestablish) the defaults. A strong foundation to build upon. In Production we execute the plan. Where there is no production plan we will fail or falter in reaching our production goal(s) In Post Production we refine our products, improve our presentations and thoroughly establish new benchmarking based on successful standards that have proven to work. Then the cycle can start anew. In the Default Benchmarks anyone with A:M can test things out just by opening A:M and executing a task and recording the results. This is primarily useful at the programmers level (Steffen certainly has his own benchmarks) In the Technical Benchmarks (which I believe to be the purpose you ascribe to in benchmarking) that tends to focus on hardware optimization. This is the hard and cold facts that only technical minds enjoy. It's focus is also on those who have the best and most optimized equipment. As these benchmarks identify optimized hardware the vast majority of A:M Users cannot fully take advantage of them without considerable expense. What I propose attempts to bring the user, the production and corporate knowledge of A:M fully to the fore in order to get into the production process itself. This is an area of analytics that is often misunderstood and undocumented. It directly effects the user who otherwise unknowingly may be working against themselves and forms a framework for establishing realistic expectations, production schedules and time management. It also provides a method of optimizing through recycling and waste management. Somewhere along the way computers rested benchmarking away from other areas of interest. The goal in even hardware-centric technical benchmarks is to measure productivity. It does little good to optimize the hardware only to see that optimization neglected (or bypassed entirely) due to random user defined production criteria that can only be optimized through training. I base this on a belief that A:M Users want to produce animated products more than they want to optimize their hardware. Because there are no benchmarks that measure productivity I have little evidence to support or to suspend that belief.

My first foray into benchmark produced: Title: Background Plate Benchmark (Default Cho) Mini Frames: 601 (equivalent to a 20+ second 'mini' movie) Render Time: 1 minute 37 seconds Lots of things not yet ideal nor optimized. What I believe this benchmark to show: The results suggest that (unless further optimized) it will can take no less than 1 minute and 37 seconds to render a 2 minute 'mini' movie on my computer. Added: Results from the second run of this particular benchmark but scaled to VGA are in. Interestingly, A:M produced the same number of frames at the larger VGA size in less time (10 seconds less). Title: Background Plate Benchmark (Default Cho) VGA Frames: 601 Time: 1 minute 27 seconds Conjecture: Decrease in rendering time possibly due to more memory being available to A:M at that time.

By way of establishing a useful and effective benchmark that helps A:M Users produce a short film or movie I submit the following for consideration: Any benchmark undertaken should help to advance an A:M User toward the creation of their image, short film, series or feature. Any benchmark in the 1.0 series should be A:M-centric. (Comparing A:M to other programs is not the goal but comparing A:M to itself on various systems will reveal useful information that can be adjusted and optimized). The fewer variable in a benchmark the better. With these considerations in mind we can move toward a proposal for the first 'official' A:M benchmark. Note that this would be the second series of benchmarks because the first would use only default settings found in A:M as determined by selecting "Reset Settings" in the A:M Help menu then performing and measuring a stated task. The default benchmarks (right out of the box) would likely be termed Benchmark 0.0. Through effective benchmarking that progresses the A:M User toward their goal all variables can be known, their effects measured and altered to suit the needs of the user. Any subsequent benchmarks beyond the default should be meticulously documented with all variable identified to the maximum extent possible (an unknown variation may still be within control limits but effectively out of the user's control). Where possible a default file should be shared with the those who will conduct the benchmark and for testing purposes it would replace the default in A:M (example: replacing the default.cho file). Assets required for a particular benchmark can be narrowed in scope to a Project file, Choreography, Model, Action, Material, etc. to benchmark each of those areas. It is hoped the best benchmarks would then be incorporated into A:M as optimized procedures which when run automatically (at installation or other time specified by user) establish a realistic foundation from which to project the user's production schedule. Note: Wherever possible the introduction of variables within the Benchmark should be used as an opportunity to learn. (Example: Telling A:M what file format to render to, where on the user's harddrive or network to render to and then padding the filename with zeros in order to optimize the sequential order of images produced) These represent three user specified variables that will have an effect on the user's production schedule. A proposal for the first 'useful benchmark' beyond default settings tests would be to render a two minute movie (from a project file provided). Assets rendered from this benchmark would be used to assist in the creation of the user's own two minute movie. (This setup can then be easily altered to target still image (single frame), 30 minute short, 90 minute movie, etc.)