Rodney

Great news Gerry. It's great to see your work getting out there where more folks can see it. Congratulations!

Hey... wait a second... it seems like I was just wishing you a happy birthday. Time sure does fly quickly these days. Happy (belated) Birthday!

Congratulations on your success with kickstarter Mark! I still plan to throw a few dollars at you but I hope you'll forgive me if I can't get it done this time around. If I can't I'll plan to support a future project of yours. Best of everything to you in this effort.

Interesting... I see Michael Sporn has a kickstarter going for an animated film about... Edgar Allan Poe. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1706789719/poe-project (As of this writing they've achieved just over $5K of their $21,500 goal) Keep this project on the fast track because if the patterns hold there will be a lot more being released related to good ol' Edgar.

Outstanding news. 'Garrett' deserves to get more attention... and a sequel... and a remake... and a live action adaption... and a TV series... and merchandising... and... Congratulations!

Looking good! Glad to see you are still making good progress on this. All of your characters look like they belong in the same world... a very good thing IMO. Looking forward to the next updates!

Just a note to say that today I resubscribed and reactivated. This wouldn't be worthy of noting except that reactivation couldn't have fallen at a worse time for me (I had expected to be able to reactivate before my internet connectivity was cut off). On the positive side, the timing served as something of a test from the perspective of a disconnect user who has trouble gaining access to the internet. Results: From time of purchase to activation of both 32bit and 64bit took less than 15 minutes. The time included reinstallation of both versions. Although I didn't need to do that, I tend to like clean/full installations to clear out any old cobwebs. All I would have had to do is move the old master.lic file somewhere else and I estimate full reactivation (including purchase) could have been easily accomplished in less than 5 minutes without reinstallation. General observations: - I am so looking forward to the days when internet connectivity is freely available everywhere without seeking out local 'hotspots'. - We don't have to reinstall A:M to reactivate... just move the master.lic file (see above) - Don't have Netrender Messenger running in the background or some files will not be able to reinstall until you close Netrender down (files in use cannot be replaced while in use by the Windows OS). - Um... let's see... what else? Oh, yeah. Hash Rocks! Keep on keepin' on!

Arriving at the party late as usual... Hope it's been a happy one Jason!

That's looking really impressive Fuchur. Love the colors! It looks backward (sideways?) to me. If it is just the angle we are seeing it from then I would suggest sticking that 'arm' straight out and then bending the bear's left elbow backward. This would serve several purposes one of which is to place a little weight down on the left front leg. Right now it doesn't seem to me that any of his weight is bearing down on his legs. (pun intended!) (I'll be glad to draw it if I'm not being clear) Right now it seems there is a hint of this polar bear being a toy and I can only guess that it's the leg that is creating that perception. Impressive hair Robert.

I just got a chance to see Robert's video. Not only is it a great explanation of spline continuity (very important) iIt's also a great example of what posting part or all of a model can reveal when someone can look at it up close and personal. From the images alone I wouldn't have guessed that the continuity of the spline wrapped all the way around the table like it did. Excellent demonstration Robert!

What a difference a few years make! I've always imagined that you set all of these up like the railroad hobbyists do and send their trains down the tracks in endless circling. Do you set these up in a similar a way as the scale railroads virtually or do you keep them separated for the purpose of rendering the individual scenes and/or to facilitate the creation of products for real world railroad sets? (I'm not looking for you to reveal any trade secrets here but have always been curious)

I agree with your assessment Walter. Even if freely available elsewhere having a collection of Robert's video tutorials available for purchase would be a great way to financially support his effort and get the information out there. I would imagine the real trick (difficulty) would be to set it up in such a way that most of the funds actually get to Robert rather than disbursed to a distributor/middleman. Someday, someone will crack this whole distribution thing and people will be able to deal directly with the creators without the pain of current distribution methods. The middleman will still be there but the technology will only require a nominal maintenance fee to be paid (micropennies on the dollar). That will certainly be better than a fifty percent distribution fee off the top before a deal is even made.

Glad to see you are still plugging away at this David. Just a few hours ago I saw a bouncing ball exercise and it made me think of you. Downloading your latest but don't know when I'll be able to get a chance to look at them.

Yes, something ain't right. Now we've got to find out exactly what that something is. I just installed with 32bit and 64bit versions and reactivated without any issues. Assuming you have the rights on your computer, when you install are you Right Clicking and selecting 'Run As Administrator'? While not always necessary I've gotten use to doing that with every installation I want to make sure sinks all the way in. Also, still not sure if you are on a Mac or PC as your profile says you use both. ...and make sure you have downloaded (the latest version (v16b))

If your negative reviews are reading like that... you are definitely on the right track. I can almost see a silly ad that uses these quotes (although one could wish they applied to 'Wannabe Pirates' because it'd fit Flemm perfectly). I can even see a show where Paunk is reading and reacting to the reviews. (This is comedy...make those 'negative' reviews work for you too!) I could only hope to receive such reviews.

Can you give us a little more information on where you are having problems? Have you got to the point where you have entered your activation code yet? I'm about to resubscribe myself as my sub is expiring and I'm planning to record the process and turn it into a small tutorial (that way people can point to a location and say... this is where I get stuck... but that video won't be made for another few days. The basic steps: Download and Install current version. Grab activation code from your email or the Hash Inc store and enter that into A:M when it prompts you for code. (my memory says I always Control C/Copy and Control V/Paste the activation code as that prevents accidental mistakes in typing it in manually. Not all programs allow this.) Make sure you are connected to the internet so that the subscription can be activated. A:M should notify you that your subscription has been activated. There is another step most people perform and that is make a backup copy of the 'master0.lic' in your Hash Inc directory. I confess that while I now copy it out of habit but as far as I can tell I have never used it. I just install and activate. I've only had one glitch in the whole time I've been installing and activating and in that case I just started again from scratch and I installed. At a guess I'd say that was due to a faulty internet connection but I'm not sure about that. Please let us know where you are in the process of installation as that'll help us know where you are at. Forgive my ignorance here but I assume that avast has something to do with antivirus or Macs? When you say: I assume you mean that you haven't heard back from them? Support will always help you. It's possible they haven't seen your distress call yet.

You just did. Usually, if your profile settings are correct you can edit the title of a post by editing your first post in a topic. The title should be up near the top of the page.

Did Holmes have another birthday already??? (Hope this one was even greater than the one yesterday)

That's pretty slick. It certainly makes me look forward to what lies ahead. Note: I can't seem to get the trailer to play here in the forum but it plays upon clicking through.

How does one go about declaring an international holiday? With all of this illustrious people celebrating on this date it would be most fitting. Hope you all have a wonderful birthday!

When it's your movie, the only vision you must remain true to is yours. For what it's worth, in looking at this glowing window I find myself immediately thinking of a (potentially) stylistic echo in the latter part of the movie with the glowing eyes of a certain creature. I like this sense of scale a lot better.

As Mark suggested if you just join the splines at the top the hole will be filled in. I don't see that as an optimal solution however. Some form of bevel would be better. There are a lot of ways you can approach a corner. Attached is an image that show four ways to use three point patches to get it done. The example on the upper right could be extended in a way to avoid all three point patches by adding another CP as the spline rounds the corner. The upper left might work best for a more organic shape. The lower left for more control over the shape of the beveled edges. (This is just like your example but with more splines. If you connect your top splines it should look a lot like this one) The three pointers extending across the top surface and the middle spline connecting at the back in the way it does (lower right corner example) make that one the least desirable solution but in some cases it will also work. There are many more variations but these are a few to get the ideas flowing. As far as your other image goes (the one where you say you were careful to create four point patches) you've got invalid patches there. Look closer at the number of Control Points and where they are in relationship to one another. I'd say you probably just need to attach the CPs together to make then renderable patches.

There are occasionally some days where you feel like there some justice in this world... case in point... when Gary returns to Bella Bear after refining his animation skills at Animation Mentor. That animation is looking very smooth Gary!

The new addition that is grabbing everyone's attention is the "Spline to Surface" feature that was being called "Retopology" for awhile. What this does is allow you to bring in models and use them as 3D canvases to draw your splines on... and around. Of course it goes beyond simply importing polygonal models and any surface you can put in front of the mouse pointer can be used in a Modeling window or Choreography as an aide to modeling geometry. This speeds up the process of modeling considerably and should lead to a lot of very interesting and optimal workflows for modeling. As a way to picture this in your mind, imagine five spheres roughly in the configuration of Mickey Mouse (one head, two ears, one snout and one nose). Via Spline to Surface every time you place a Control Point it will be applied on the surface of the appropriate sphere under the cursor, and you can adjust that CPs location as you turn the model around. When you are done modeling just delete the underlying geometry/spheres, refine your mesh as necessary and out of a couple of spheres you have built yourself a mouse. This should go a long way in getting us from primitive shapes to highly detailed and complex geometry faster and more efficiently than ever. Knowing your modeling talent, I figure this is going to be the primary feature in v17 you'll be interested in. A significant new addition for new users and those who want to explore A:M deeply is A:M Answers which gives everyone the ability to learn all about the Properties of almost anything in A:M via a simple Right Click of the mouse. While not technically a v17 feature, I would be remiss not to add the new Render Nodes that can be purchased to extend A:M's rendering power. Where this dovetails into v17 is A:M's new command line rendering API which I don't know enough to offer an informed opinion about except to say.... it's good stuff!

Marcos, There aren't two different contests so you've got me scratching my head here. The Mascot and the Splash Screen are one and the same thing. The only difference being that the image that wins the Mascot contest hasn't always been placed on the splash screen/CD for one reason or another (I assume for copyright restrictions, etc.). As for it not being a character/mascot? Nothing precludes entering non-character entries but you should understand that if entering a castle, car, tree, ship, spaceship it will be judged at least partially by many on how well it fits into the contest theme (i.e. Mascot). I know in the past I didn't vote for some really nice images because they weren't mascots and the objective was to pick a new mascot for the splash screen. I might have missed something but this seems pretty straightforward to me. One way this has been attacked before in previous contests is that if you've got a great non-mascot scene consider adding a character into it (or teaming up with someone else in the community to provide that mascot). Now, if you are suggesting that a new contest needs to be created besides the Mascot/Splash Screen contest... by all means make the suggestion.