Rodney

There are a few questions I have relative to this technology. Perhaps this might be expressed by the game of 20 Questions where a series of questions is used to narrow the scope of possibilities to (inevitably) arrive at a (truthful) conclusion. Those two variables (inevitable) and (truthful) are moving targets that deal with time and proximity. In other words, given enough time an increasingly accurate proximity to a specified set of criteria can be deduced. The first question might not count so we'll call that question zero. Are you off or are you on? As a signal is received by the sensor (that reflected or absorbed a given signal) it's state can be deduced. Ah. I see you are on. Let us proceed. Question 1: Are you animal, vegetable or mineral? Etc. Etc. What is described in the video shouldn't take 3D printing so there are some missing pieces of information here. The 3D printing is simply a means of automating manufacturing, mass production/replication and of quality control. This should be possible with paper. It would seem to me the piece(s) of metal added to the object must store the capability to absorb or reflect the signal in much the same way as a tag on clothes that will sound the alarm if shoplifters try to depart a store without it being removed or deactivated.

Cute. I like him! By that design... forward leaning stance... it looks like he's an adventurer. By the indication of eyes... a wary adventurer.

Can 3D printed objects (plastic or otherwise) without batteries and electronics be connected to the internet? Apparently so although that may depend on what you define as electronics. The approach uses ambient wifi to absorb or reflect signals and communicate in a binary (on/off) manner. With this method buttons, knobs and sliders can 'talk' to each other and other devices via wireless connection. So basically, anything that can move or rotate can relay it's current state. Obviously power is present somewhere in loop of the greater system (via smartphone, router etc.) but no power is required in the sensor itself thus suggesting almost any object can become a sensor using the ambient signals already present in the air. Those signals can then be absorbed or reflected to communicate their current state. Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU6-o9SIkMQ

Yes indeed. Although... I recall a recent post by Robert that suggested displacement didn't work as well as desired. I just did a quick test of an image sequence to make sure I wasn't imagining being able to directly link the Frames to a Pose Slider. Yep. It works! It might be time to request a few updates to the Pose Sliders so that we can get at some 'defined' settings. In other words we can do quite a bit now with Pose Sliders (set them to negative etc.) but it'd be nice to have some descriptive tags or such that would assist in finding specific settings. I suppose that's where we divide and conquer by making additional Pose Sliders to handle each of those areas. Then we just drill down deeper until we get to the Pose Slider that stores our desired setting.

Tore, While Xtas's method certainly will work there are other approaches that will work too and if it meets your needs... The easiest way I know to use different images to change facial expressions or textures is to: 1. Number the images sequentially 2. Crack open the Decal's properties and adjust the Frame setting Some care might have to be taken to make sure that still frames don't get interpreted as animated frames. For instance, you might have a face go from frame 1 to 5 to 3 to 8 of a period of several seconds and you wouldn't (necessarily) want that to play out sequentially (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) or whatever over that same period of time. Therefore you might want to set the Frame's key interpolation to "Hold" to get that snappy movement from one change to the next (1...5....3.... 8). The reason the images need to be named sequentially is so that A:M will recognize and import them together. As such it's the naming and numbering that is the most important thing. You can change what appears in those images (i.e. alter the sequence) via another program. Or animate that sequence in another program and then have it play directly in A:M as a Decal, Patch Image, Layer, etc. For ease of re-use set up a Pose Slider that adjust that Frame setting to the ideal frames. There can be a few other gotchas but those apply to any image sequence. An example would be that sequences should be the same size/resolution or it will likely break the sequence. As for Xtas's tutorial... 'tis gone. But Robert Holmen created another one almost just like it.

That is definitely odd. Others may be able to assist that know more about your specific hardware. The only thing that comes to mind is that it sounds like a graphics card issue (toolbars disappearing, etc.) There are a few settings in Tools options that you can test to at least eliminate those variables.. As always, double check the driver for your graphics card to see if it is the best (not necessarily the latest) available. If you aren't running the latest release v19c (topic title says, "v19bc") then make sure you are running that (the 64bit release... although you could also download and run the 32bit release for general performance comparison. The links to the installers can be found here: https://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=48392 Another thing you could try is to go back a few versions and test that/those releases. All you need to do to run those is copy your license file over into the installation directory. Most of the links to various installers can be found in the Latest Info forum.

My first guess would be that the elements that are not rendering where dropped into the Chor at some other frame than the one you are rendering. To test that theory you could: - Check to see what frame(s) you are rendering - Check to see if that (missing) model isn't present/active on those frames. My second guess is that the model is present but (accidentally) animated in such a way that it has moved out of position on the desired frame(s).

Yes, most definitely! I think I'd add just a little secondary action on the part of the boy riding the horse to sell the effect of the horse's movement. It wouldn't have to be much. Just enough to convey that the boy is reacting to the movement of the horse. Note that this is basically the principle of squash and stretch but it's enough for the bones of the boy to simply react. I like! Yes, looks dangerous! At first I was thinking that a lower angle looking upward might be better but in thinking more... no... I don't think so. It has been said before that humorous scene setups often work best if squared off (or horizontal) with the camera so you've found a good angle for that. Perhaps best of all you've left plenty of space for the horse to pause and react to the situation. I"m tempted to suggest a little camera movement (similar to your other video "horse5") so that the delay will be further emphasized. The camera could be pulled in closer at the beginning and zoom out even as the horse is galloping off the cliff. The camera then begins to track/follow the horse again after the horse has changed direction and motivates back toward the path. Fun stuff. More please!

Outstanding! Well done Robert... love the narrative parts of the entries as well as the interviews with the winners. Congratulations to everyone... especially the winners! Well deserved recognition!

Wow. And to think... I knew you BEFORE you were famous! Congratulations!

RE: Matcap It would be wild conjecture on my part to guess but yes, as for now the plugins must be copied forward. That conjecture would relate to the licensing of any plugin bearing the name 'matcap' which might be trademarked or such. This isn't to say that A:M can't have something termed 'matcap' in the interface but distribution of such might not be clear. A (perhaps) similar situation exists with FFMPEG... which I'm hoping to submit a feature request to A:M Reports to have included in A:M. FFMPEG can be added to other programs but many companies don't care to distribute it because of licensing considerations. Users can however download and add the programs/plugins themselves as that licensing and distribution is granted to individuals. Companies may need to clear legal hurdles prior to incorporating such in their own programs. In the case of FFMPEG, the interface would have a place to point to the FFMPEG directory after the user downloaded that program separately. This resolves any issue related to distribution.

Something that should certainly assist with the project will be satellite views from above. Case in point... the exact location of the pond in question that at the beginning of the story didn't exist at that location. Arrow points to location of tree mound at base of dam.

Now THAT is the way to do it. Good on ya! AND... thanks for the well wishes everyone. You all make coming to the forum well worth the trip every day just to see what you've all been creating. As of today you guys and gals are stuck with me for another year. Sub purchased and activated. Yay! I do have some projects waiting in the wings that I want to work on and I think I will use this 'subscription cycle' as a means to work toward getting some of that fleshed out at least to the point of where I can determine whether or not they might be for public consumption (as opposed to just satisfying my personal curiosity). This particular project is primarily a hand drawn endeavor but I want to use A:M extensively for set and environment as well as prop creation (for consistency etc.). Other projects are many and varied but I'm quite curious if I can pull it off There is something... a thing... that I probably could use some advice on creating that I would imagine will require the use of Sweeper but I'm not entirely sure what the ideal approach will be. Think... a huge pile of trees and branches forming a dark and foreboding mound with a cave-like entry near the front and center. This might be a useful test for the new Bullet Physics feature in A:M after a bunch of branches are created. There is also the Treeez Wizard that might get at least part of the job done. This image isn't large and foreboding enough but is the closest I could find with a quick google search: http://www.livingwild.org/livingwild/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/wood-rats-nest.jpg In reality this mound of branches and limbs was what was cleared off of the top of a hill and pushed over the banks of a dam while creating a pond. All of the trees that were once covering the plane at the top are down at the bottom of the dam blocking the former path up the hill. At any rate, I don't think I want to draw this same environment over and over again from several different angles so it seems a likely candidate for 3D. The entire setting of the story will likely be created in 3D as well if for no other reason than for reference. Since the location is real I might do an on site survey but while a lot of the surrounding area might not have changed much I doubt the mound of trees is still there... it's been over 30 years! If you've read this far... thanks for sticking with me.

That little notification window thingy is now appearing to suggest I have a few more days on my current subscription and it's always a good time to reflect on where I've been in the past year and where I might focus my attention in the future. It's been a great journey thus far and yet I remain confident the best is still ahead concerning the potential for creativity with Animation:Master. What a great 'little' program A:M continues to be. Lots of shiny stuff out there but even after all these years nothing compares. I guess what I'm trying to say is that while I'm at that cross roads of recommitting to another year of A:M I still don't have a solid plan to produce 'X' and at times that makes me ponder. Once upon a time I stated that I would 'arrive' in 2020 and that should sober me up a little as that particular milestone isn't far away. It seemed so very far away back then. One day at a time. A:M is certainly up to the challenge. Disclaimer: I hereby reserve the right to arrive at the end of 2020 as that theoretically will give me 364 more days.

Yes indeed, I was lazy enough to request a Duplicate option and Steffen was gracious enough to implement it. It should work with Models, Cameras and Lights. There are some object types such as Layers where the Duplicate option appears but it doesn't process the Layer for duplication. Duplicate does not work with multiple items selected (the duplicate option should be grayed out). One of the primary reasons for the request was I felt we needed to be able to exactly duplicate some things such as Cameras and Lights which then could be altered slightly from the original in useful ways. For instance, I had several projects where I wanted different lighting effects from the same location but at different times in the sequence. Turning them on/off as required worked well but it wasn't always easy to isolate a few small settings... duplicate allowed for this. Another example might be that of duplicating a Camera in the exact same position but having the first set to render out to png and the second (duplicate) set to render to jpg. Another option, would be to have a duplicated camera 'filming' the exact same scene but with a tighter focus on specific elements in a scene. Or perhaps have one camera render lines, a duplicate camera record colors/shapes and then composite the two renderings later after post processing of the separately rendered streams... this works quite well in achieving different styles from the same renderings without having to re-render them again in A:M. The duplication of Cameras also works well with other features added to v19 such as moving back and forward between shots via Undo/Redo methodologies. Credit were credit is due: It was Robert (Holmen) via Live Answer Time who pointed out that we could easily duplicate objects in other ways but prior to that I guess I hadn't made proper use of that approach and I'm glad I didn't know that because now we have a useful 'Duplicate' option. Duplicate is but one of many small but very useful changes to v19 that make A:M even more of a joy to work in. Disclaimer: I haven't leveraged the use of duplicate Camera setups with Netrender and I really should be doing that. Offline all we might have to do is rename a Camera and Netrender would think it was still rendering using the same camera. Netrender shouldn't care as long as the name of the 'active' camera hasn't changed.

Yay! A very welcome edition.

NIce one Serg!

That is a great demonstration of how it's done.

Yes indeed. Very nice.

I just tested Robert's project in the HAMR viewer (it still works on Win10) and... The project does work but the viewer does not immediately refresh which for most would equate to 'doesn't work'. I resaved the project as a v17 project file and it works a little better although still considerable lag in display refresh. If resaving (or recreating) yet again via a release closer to that of HAMR (better than 15 years ago!) I'll guess might play smoothly. Edit: I'll have to retest this because I'm currently having display refresh issues with quite a few different programs so that issue might not relate to the HAMR viewer at all. Update: Still delays with the HAMR viewer but... no delays in A:M itself which is of course the important thing here.

The A:M Films site has been fairly mothballed for some time now so it isn't too surprising the site is further broken. Perhaps as a community we can look into what other options are available although those might be more unofficial. In the meantime... There are some other locations (primarily youtube) where product created with Animation:Master can be found although submitting new work has historically always been something of a bottleneck. I believe Martin Hash himself may have uploaded the collection at Hash CG History: : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClx0zURG5-KTOzQewFRpASg/videos

Yikes. That is both good and bad. Bugs or otherwise, what you've got here on display is quite impressive. Love the economy of spline too!

I think I'd follow the suggestion to animate the individual entities separately and then swap them for another combined model when they act as one entity. The cool thing being that by dropping all of the separate models into a Choreography we can then save the combination out as a new consolidated model. The one thing to watch out for (as I recall) would be bones and such that have the same names... at one point we had to avoid that... and perhaps may still need to name those differently. The benefit to this approach is that repositioning and reorienting the separate models in a Chor is easy. Once they are in place them save out the new consolidated model. Other approaches are valid too such as dropping all of the models into an empty model as Action Objects but there are sometimes gotchas and such that might not work well with Action Objects. BTW Nice models... and fun project!

My memory is that there is something wrong with the original blob.tga image. Beyond that my memory rapidly fades...

That is a very thorough video. Thanks Robert!. I learned something there... and I thought I knew everything there was to know about that area of A:M. I don't think I've ever used the image properties 'Speed' value.