Rodney

Now that was fun! It looked like everyone was having a great time. Some nice character for your characters are in those voices too. When I closed my eyes and imagined the voices coming from onscreen characters... a chill ran up my spine. (Thats a very good thing I think) A very nice sampler. Keep it up!

Please send my congratulations to Nephtali ‘Nep’ Leal for assuming the role of Artist and Art Director for 'The Revenge of Red Riding Hood'. It looks like you've made a great choice. ...and I look forward to seeing more of his work!

You really left us in suspense on that last one Satyajit. I hope the final auditions turn out great for you. Its interesting that you just posted your update. I had just plugged Celtx in the Off Topic forum. I hope to check it out again as I find time. Thanks for keeping us up to date on your project. Do you have preliminary sketches/concept sketches yet?

Its great to see you here again Pengy. You've been missed!

I agree with Fuchur here. Sweeper is what you are after. The Duplicator Wizard is great for instances where you can plot trajectories via pitch, roll etc. Sweeper can be used to do the same thing but follow along a spline path of your choosing. If you already have the rope Eric's suggestion is a great one. This would allow you to animate it too if that is ever needed.

hehe... I said some would make a million $. I didn't say who would get to keep the majority of all that $ though. Making money is a good thing... it pays the bills, puts food on the table and lets us buy new and fancy things. But I've heard there are much more important things than these. All this could be just rumor though. If only life were as simple as TaoA:M Exercise 1.

You are in Bob!

We have to create it first but "Yes" I think it will. I have a similar experience with moving my computer to the front room from a few years ago from the guest bedroom. I think my family forgot who I was. Now... they seem to have gotten over that and they just send me to the basement. I have learned a lot along the way though. For instance, "Papa, Mama says come to dinner" means "Right now...or you won't eat anything!" I have very little interest in being a starving animator ya' know.

Thats exactly what I mean. Its more as an introduction to the possibilities than anything... a break from the work if you will. If you ever get stuck... ever get frustrated... break away and explore A:M a bit. Right Click on everything... break stuff! Then you'll be ready to come back to 'the work' again. The same applies outside A:M as well of course. Keep friends and family close. Engage yourself in other non-A:M related activities. Explore the outside world. But... you knew all this stuff already right? I'm the one thats still learning. Added: There is a sub-exercise I'd like to add to Exercise 1 that introduces some simple lighting and textures manipulation. Its not so much about setting these up as exploring all the buttons, bells and whistles that are already there! There is a whole lot to discover in A:M.

Your topic certainly wasn't terrible. Not by any means. I do reword topic titles from time to time in the Newbies forum. I try not to take too much liberty with the poster's words and my additions can usually be found in the subtitle in brackets "( )". Where there is already a subtitle I try to incorporate it into the title first. For those interested in why I bother to do this in the Newbies forum read on (apologies to all others for straying off topic) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Everyone's time is valuable and where the Topic Title tells the reader at a glance what can be found once a topic is open less time is wasted and (more importantly) answers to questions can be found. When searching the forum it also helps target key words. I have a few informal rules for editing topic titles; when and when not to edit. Here is a 'golden rule': If the original poster acknowledges a solution I consider placing the solution in the topic subtitle to signal closure to other viewers. The original poster getting an appropriate answer (customer's satisfaction with the solution) is the rule. Where the original poster fails to acknowledge the solution there is little anyone can do. So... my appreciation goes out to all those take the time to thank those who offer advice, suggest solutions and spend their valueable time answering questions. Accurate topic titles help others help you. Lest anyone think I wish to complain about topic titles... quite the contrary. Someone may not know enough about a particular subject to formulate the questions accurately... they are the ones looking for answers after all. But... once a solution is known and the original author of the post satisfied with that solution... its time to share that solution with others and see exactly what we've learned. Editing the topic title is my attempt to close the loop and highlight solutions. Hopefully the information can then be more easily accessed by others via forum search or even when just wandering through. So.. all this to say... Keep on asking and answering those questions! I'll try not to take too many liberties with your words. Where I do we'll make the appropriate adjustments. P.S. Others are always welcome to post examples of what they've learned to extend the discussion even more!

gnarayan, Welcome to the A:M forum and Animation:Master! Let the fun begin. Yours is an interesting situation. If you apply the end state of your recent experience in Maya toward A:M you'll easily excell with A:M. The good news... you should make the transition easily. As you already know (you bought the program after all) A:M is an all-in-one animation solution. Apply what you've learned and chart your goals and make yourself at home here in the forum. The bad news... A:M isn't like other programs (this is good news if you gain mastery of the difference). If you try to use it like other programs you'll find frustration at every turn. Set yourself up for success from the beginning and don't wander too far off course. Remember the goal... stick to it! One of the surest ways to set yourself up for success is to learn A:M's optimal workflow. The best way to do that is to work through the TaoA:M manual. After working with Maya this will seem TOO EASY... but stay with it. You'll be glad you did and you're work will quickly show it. Again... welcome! You've definitely come to the right place. Apologies for where my words sound more like advertisement/preaching to the choir. I don't know much about your experience and goals up to this point. Its meant to be encouragement.

Please do. If you skip one we get all confused. My suggestion for additional credit/experience with Exercise 1 is to experiment and explore the various rendering settings. While you'll get into these later in the TaoA:M manual there it'll help to know what to look for. Don't be afraid to test out the possibilities! (but... um... keep focused) Most of all... have fun. Animation may be work but fun is what this is all about. Whether you make a million $ working at Pixar or stick to your own creations, don't ever...Ever...EVER... forget that.

As others have suggested you'll get lots of good info simply by posting your work in progress here in the forum. Do that! As others suggested as well... I highly recommend Barry Zundel's DVDs too. Barry takes you from CP and spline to patch on to animation friendly character model and he points out the pitfalls and important stuff as you do. While there are other great resources out there, as far as I know there is no other resource available covering modeling in A:M as thoroughly. I also recommend complementing the "Modeling" DVD with the other two DVDs in the series; "Rigging" and "Animation" too. So... you can do what many of us do and forage for the freestuff. Or... you can get off and running quickly. If I had to do it all over again I know what I would do. (Both!)

Closing down the Aero aspects of Vista seems to be the interim fix for most people. The older the program the more oddness I seem to find in a variety of programs I use on Vista. One of the oddest things I've encountered in Vista with A:M is where A:M rendered or saved files to a specific directory but Vista refused to acknowledge they were there. This could be a very bad problem if Vista doesn't really write them to disk. I haven't seen that specific problem again but refreshing file folders to get accurate file listings for me is still the norm. If I had Windows XP on the road I'd probably use that. But... Vista works. I still need to turn all the bloat-ware off. All the programs HP installed at the factory take entirely too much memory. I keep searching for updated drivers for my graphics card as I find the time but the best has yet to be found. I'm using an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950. The driver for 945 works better. When refresh problems persist a switch from OpenGL to Direct3D and back or vice versa (Within TOOLS/OPTIONS on the Global tab) generally works. Of possible interest also: Vista was placing A:M and the ~E5000* file in what is termed 'virtualization' mode automatically. When I removed that setting I got better performance. You can find this setting by going to the processes (Ctrl/Alt/Delete) and right clicking on the process. Note: ~E5000* is not the name of that process but should be fairly close (I can't recall the proper name right now). Its a process that keep A:M running stable. If you terminate the process A:M immediately will go *POOF*. Good to know if you ever need to terminate A:M immediately I suppose.

You must realise... this makes you A:M royalty by bloodline alone? Any cousin of PF_Mark (or aspiring animator for that matter) is most welcome here. Let the fun (and animation!) begin! Welcome!

Go Dhar! He's really looking great. He'll be a lot of fun to animate.

Yup. Dat link no workie. There be a copy o' them there A:M Features pages on de ol' Extra DVD ifn you be'a hav'n dat.

I'll be looking forward to that. (My daughters are quite artistic too but I think they get that more from their Mom)

Hehe... too bad I don't know your address. But... James you are in... and Mr. 'Fae Alba' too. The next raffle (whenever it happens to be raffled) will include 'old users' too. So... anyone can win the last prize. For those still interested, since the title says, "2007", it'll probably be NLT 31 Dec.

Paul Harris! I thought I had seen your name popping up again in the forum. Its great to see you attacking animation again. Very cool that your daughter has aspirations in animation too BTW. Shhh... don't tell anybody but there is still time to get involved in 'Tin Woodman of Oz'! It would be perfect for a father/daughter team. Working on TWO would also let her know if that's really the path she wants to pursue in the future. (but you didn't hear any of that from me... Shhh.) Edit: I changed 'attack A:M' to 'attack animation'. Didn't want you to get accused of anything illegal.

If you think that hurts... just imagine being a guy who spends thousands of dollars when he could buy A:M for a whole lot cheaper to do the work. I still feel a little bit like I'm opening the A:M box all over again for the first time every time someone posts here for the first time as a new user. Thanks to you guys and gals I get to remember what it was like all over again! Welcome to the A:M Community James. Its great to have you here.

J, (sorry I don't know your real name) Rather than let you down easy... Veggie Tales was created by one of those competing software programs although it would have looked as good with A:M too. Truth is that several of the animators at Big Idea at the time were A:M users and prefer it for personal use. If they could have used A:M at Big Idea I'll bet they'd have loved that too. As Big Idea couldn't keep up with the demand for Veggie programs, there was an attempt by at least one company to get into Veggie Tales production of offshoot programming with A:M created content. Unfortunately, this was just before Big Idea's bankruptcy. There are some animation tests and a short music video made with A:M still floating around out there on the internet. Several can be seen via A:M Films too. The good news is that you'll find A:M to be quite up to the challenge of creating your commercials. A:M is all that and more. Good luck with your projects, welcome to the A:M Community and get your kids ready to watch TWO!

Satyajit, Your enthusiasm alone is inspirational enough. That you back that with your talent and networking skill makes your effort appear as if you are refining gold. It may take time but thats to be expected. For those interested in the process and production of short film Satyajit has been providing some great insight into the process. Follow the link above to his second blog for instance to see how the open source program Celtx is incorporated into the workflow in Red Riding Hood preproduction. Great stuff Satyajit. Keep it up.

I've been running v13/v14 and now v15 on Vista with very few problems. The issues you'll want to look out for are related to graphics cards (some drivers aren't or won't be updated by the manufacturer) and RAM (the more the better) I recommend 2 Gigabytes but only have 1GB. I've been quite happy with A:M with Vista but for maximum stability and performance Windows XP still has Vista beat. Time will tell how long this will remain the case especially as new drivers for graphics cards are released. My 2 cents.

Justin, As John said, No it Enhance A:M doesn't ship with A:M. Its a separate product. The last I knew it was PC only. Sorry. They are very nice materials. I believe Darktree Simbiont materials can be used on a Mac now so that might be worth looking into if you don't use them already.