Rodney

Philip, You've definitely got me confused with someone else! I haven't really used the SWF plugin so I won't be of any help. Marcel Bricman, the guy who brought us the BitMapPlus plugin (!) is AM2SWF's creator. As far as the old Help files/Tech Ref are concerned... I see they are now located here: http://www.hash.com/2007web/reference.htm

Did you purchase your copy of A:M through Hash Inc?

If your light is in your model it shouldn't move unless you move the model itself. If you have followed instructions by others above and made the light a child of another bone then the light will move when that other bone moves. Making it independent of the other bone will keep it from moving. What are you seeing on your end?

While I've always liked lights in models I've become a fan of adding lights in an Action for several reasons. One. You can easily add the action with however many lights you've added to a model in the choreography. (An empty model works fine) Two. You can reuse the Light setup easily. Create a whole Library of Action Lights. Three. Its easy to create lights in an action. Just drag and drop them in. (In a model lights are created at 0,0,0 and have to be moved manually. In an action they are created via the current view -I think... I'll have to retest this-) Four. Its easy to move/animate the lights. Not as easy in a model. (...and yes, its easy to turn them on and off) Five, Six, Seven and Eight. Other reasons I've forgot. Nine. Painting with light is fun. (Try a negative value!) Ten. Its another way to get the job done. If you are just adding a light to a lamp however it would seem that adding it via the model would work well. When in doubt... keep it simple.

The primary way A:M saves keyframes is through Actions. There are two types of Actions. You have the standard Actions and Choreography Actions. Writing them down sure seems like a lot of work but... if you already do something similar to traditional animation by writing out a Dope Sheet/XSheet it might work. The question I would ask though would be why write them down at all when, as others have stated, you can save them out for later use. Save often and incrementally (and on another medium/computer from what you normally work on). Then when you lose the data you just have to open it again from that back up. Recreating it again from scratch (from what you've written down) would be a whole lot of work! Not good enough you say!? Get a decent screen capture program (try Wink at www.debugmode.com... its free!) and get in the habit of capturing your work as you go. Then back THAT up too! As an added bonus the captures later will be a historical... educational... and valuable record of your work in A:M as well.

Yes indeed. That worked. Upping the rez makes quite a difference.Very nice. Did you change the toon line from your original pass at this? It looks cleaner/crisper. (perhaps the resolution?) Edit: I went back a few posts and found this. For those interested:

I seem to be blocked from your download. I'll attempt it again later. At any rate its good see see your update... backdate... you know what I mean. Its great to see you posting new Ebon shots!

Many people aren't but stick with us and you'll be glad you did. You are bound to make some good friends and learn a lot in the process too. I know I have. After purchasing A:M back in '98 (after waiting 4 incredibly stupid years!) I lurked in the background of the old animaster email list. That was the worst mistake I could have ever made. I can never recover that lost time. I should have gotten involved! But... that's cool. Life happens. I had other priorities. I learned a lot by lurking. Here in the A:M Forum you are among others of like mind and interests. Like you they are here mastering computer animation and telling their stories. One spline at a time. Animation is tough... its frustrating... at times its utterly and ridiculously impossible. But mostly its fun! Its even more fun when you are on the journey with others.

cough. cough. I think we have that Comdex in common Camillo. Thats where I first met the fine folks at Hash Inc myself. It was... cough... November or December of 1994 as I recall. A bit more than 5 years. You aren't alone here my friend. Join in the fun. Edit: You are probably talking about a later Comdex of course if it was v8.5. Perhaps 1998?

There are several tutorials about creating toon eyes on the internet, on the Extra DVD and linked here in the forum. I don't think any are focused on that particular kind of toon eye though. You could always just open Keekat at copy his eyes over to your model right? In the Keekat model use Control C (Copy) on the selected eyes Switch to your model Paste the eyes in via Control V (Paste). When it comes to rigging now... you'll want to investigate further.

It sounds a little like you may have your model resolution toggled down a bit. Whack the Page Up/Page Down keys a few times and see if that is it.

Christmas snail eh? This oughta be good.

I ran into a 'reset' problem in v13 that may be related. It had to do with animating images/decals/rotoscopes over time. But it wasn't resetting things to 'None'. It reset images to the first image in a sequence as I recall. Worse... when I set an image to a specific part of the sequence it worked great UNTIL I saved, closed and then reopened the project. Opening the project again I found no image settings had been saved. The fix for me was to crack open the Image shortcut in the PWS of the Choreography. Then change the setting to 'Timed'. From there I set the image over time (using the timeline) and saved. (Assuming this is related to your problem you would key the same frame over time) From then on it opened and worked fine. I suspect this may be related to Windows Vista issues. I never had the problem with XP. As always Your Mileage May Vary (YMMV). Rodney

I've informally worked with several (illegit) users of v11 and earlier versions over the years to encourage them to become true users of Animation:Master. There are many good reasons to pursue this as a goal. Hopefully all who have followed the recommendation can attest to that fact and feel rewarded for the effort. The needs you mention (design work, illustration and education) all fit perfectly with Hash Inc's philosophy and focus. Personally, I think this makes A:M perfect for you too. The interaction with Hash Inc and others in the A:M Community will help keep the short and longer term learning curves smooth. If you've looked around the forum you can see what others are working on and have accomplished with A:M. Some of our individual abilities aren't always up to the tools capabilities but we are learning! I'm constantly amazed by the talent on display in the A:M Forum. Without knowing more about your specific interests, requirements and capabilities I would say you obviously will need to have a strong 2D program as well. A:M will serve you well there too. ...and v14 has rock solid stability and more tools than v11! (Sorry for my english too!) Rodney

Reza, I don't think you've exhausted all your possibilities here. If you can share a project file and demonstrate the process you are using I think you'll get either the solution or the satisifaction of knowing you've reached the edge of the features capabilities. I understand you may not be able to share the exact files that you are having problems but even there others means exist to isolate the problems. I recommend using a program like Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/) to capture the process you are using. Share your experience with the forum. It will be well worth the effort. At the very least you won't be the only one experiencing the problem. You may even find a solution to this particular problem. Best, Rodney

I thought I recently saw a post from you. Welcome back!!!

Check out Satyajit's blog for the answer and a great demo of the voice actor delivering his lines. ( The Revenge of Red Riding Hood Blog ) 'Tis great stuff!

Wow! Very nice translation from 2D drawings to 3D model. You've captured a lot of personality in her. She looks wonderful Satyajit!

Ken has hit on a good method. It is perhaps the most simple means to get the job done. For more control you may want to constrain the Camera to a path. Use constraints in similar fashion as you would in the manual's exercise "Take a Walk". Steps Create your scene Create a path Constrain your camera to the path with a "Path" constraint. Add an "Aim At" constraint to have the camera always point where you want it. For this last part you might want to create a Null and then move the Null to the places you want the camera to look at as it moves through the scene. Having the Camera "Aim At" the Null will allow you to direct the camera independently of objects in the scene. (Edit: I think Ken may have edited his post as I see he has mentioned paths too)

A considerable savings in time (relatively). Looks like you are on your way.

Welcome to the A:M Forum Kristin and Payton! Make yourselves right at home.

Kelly and Dave are in.

Sure. You can even call me 'Fred' if that's what you want. I think the only way you won't get that redundancy is with 'real time' applications. WebHAMR is about as close as you'll get there with A:M but that won't help you much now. Yes, cheats like grids, rotoscopes and such will still rerender images but with less redundancy. Excellent.

Hi Dave! Welcome to the A:M Community. From one guy in dusty uniform to another much respect goes out to you for your service. It sounds like you've got quite a project ahead of you. Good luck and let us know if there is anything you need. There are several pilots running around this forum (I'm NOT one of them). But Martin Hash certainly is. Again... welcome! Rodney (A belated welcome to Spitts and El Wire too!)

20 seconds per frame is pretty good! The terms Preproduction, Compositing and Planning immediately spring to mind. In traditional (feature film) and even limited animation (classic TV shows) they have historically approached the problem from the same angle. The emphasis is usually in diffferent places however. What you are trying to set up (your final results) would dictate what approach you would need to take. The following might provide a starting point: - Isolate* those elements in your shots that don't move at all. - Isolate* those elements in your shots that move very little. - Isolate* those elements in your shots that move a lot. *Isolate them on paper first. Write it out... Sketch it out... stick figure it out... Keep it simple. Once you have a workable plan you can investigate techniques that can help you put the plan together in A:M. Because your resolution is fairly low you might be able to get away with some tricks to make your rendering go faster. Some off the wall suggestions follow: Option 1 (you'll need to remove those areas that you don't want in another program) Place a rotoscope of those areas that will never change on the camera and switch it to 'On Top'. This will create a mask through which the camera should be able to see through to changes below/behind and therefore not render the elements in front/above. Option 2 (this assumes you are using images made outside of A:M, which you are) Create 2 or 3 grids - Create 1 grid you'll apply the image sequence to as a decal. It hold the image that never changes. - Create 1 grid will hold the image sequence with elements that rarely change via decal. - Optionally, create 1 grid that will hold those elements that will change a lot. Remove those grid areas where no change occurs or make them transparent. There are several ways to do this part... Option 3 Something else Again... 20 seconds per frame... pretty good. I can't help but here Yves Poissant's voice in my head saying, "Just render it and save yourself some time". Unless you are in it for the education just rendering it will probably be easier.