Rodney

Welcome to the A:M Forum! I'm Rodney, your host as moderator of the Newbies Forum. I'm a user of A:M too! The priorities I've set for myself in the forum are as follows: - Help New Users transition into Animation:Master as smoothly as possible. - Assist A:M Users as they work through The Art of Animation:Master (TaoA:M) - Encourage everyone to learn while doing through participation in a full length feature film! (For an example see Hash Inc Film projects such as 'Tin Woodman of Oz') For over 20 years Hash Inc has been producing the best in software, service and assistance to computer artists. They know the heart of the animator and have provided us with very powerful software solutions in Animation:Master. Now we just have to use it! Start with simple, realistic and attainable goals. Add more goals as you make progress. Pace yourself and you will find your goals achievable. For the absolute best chance of success with A:M start off by working through the manual; TaoA:M! Understand that questions do sometimes take a little time to answer here in the forum. Be patient. Someone will be there for you. We are in this learning process together. Your input is important too. If there is a question you'd like to ask or some insights into your progress you'd like to share we'd love to hear from you. Again, Welcome to the A:M Forum. It's great to have you here.

Roger, I did see your other post but hadn't yet taken the time to respond. For that I offer my apology. I wanted to reply at length rather than just say... "Hello". Once I put something down though its hard to say when I'll get back to it. I wanted to say first how much I am impressed that your friend took the time to point you to A:M. He's obviously someone that knows his software. That a professional in the industry... an Oscar award winner even... would recommend Animation:Master is really saying something. But to be honest I'm not at all surprised anyone would recommend A:M. After 20 years its still the best deal going. ...and now the fun begins! Welcome to the Animation:Master Forum Roger!

...and... Have you tried opening your movie directly into the Project Workspace first, then add it to the Rotoscope? Some larger files don't make it through directly. Test first with some 'fake' movies rendered out from A:M. If they come into A:M in the format you think you are using that might help you narrow the problem down. If there are strange compressions or sound files attached that could cause problems as well.

Lex and Lambrina should be on earlier A:M CDs too. Upgrade for the latest and greatest in A:M or else you will surely be disappointed. I certainly wouldn't upgrade for the Extra DVD! There is a reason the 'Extra' DVD is thusly named. But you are guaranteed to get more than what you pay for.

They are indeed on the 2007 Extra DVD: (sorry to quibble but that's over 3 Gigabytes of difference) \ExtrasData\Models\Actors\Realistic\Lambrina \ExtrasData\Models\Actors\Realistic\Dex I present proof!

Glad we can help. I haven't used Illustrator in ages. I'm going to guess that you need to save your AI files in an earlier format. I -always- use version 7 -but- I believe most people use version 8. I don't know what form of raster to vector conversion you may have with Illustrator. CorelDraw has a program called CorelTrace... AMAZING! You can download the entire CorelDraw suite with a 15 day fully functioning trial. For those of you that don't have it... plan... plan... plan your projects first. Download. Test. CorelDraw isn't cheap but its well worth the investment. (and it works great with A:M in many ways!) Whoops. Didn't answer your question. Yes. I used the AI Wizard to import the outlined shapes of the letters. It should be noted that ungrouping everything helped tremendously. You can have say... the holes cut out of the letters but the AI Wizard interprets the shapes better just by being in the right place. (That last part won't make a bit of sense to most people. Sorry. I could put a mini-tute together.)

Sure could! The biggest requirement there is in needing a program that saves out to AI format. If you already have Illustrator you'd be set though. I use and prefer Coreldraw. Attached is an example I just ran to see how well the example text from the Adobe website coverted to AI format. Not bad... but a Font would get through better. There are obvious errors some of which could have easily been fixed. The model was created using default settings. There are also programs (some really great shareware ones) that will convert images to fonts.

I believe the problem here is that the Font Wizard does not open OpenType fonts. For that you'll need to use TrueType.

Average price for the Minion Pro font seems to be $24 but i see $30+ as well. If you have illustrator you can recreate the fonts... but don't sell them! If using them in commercial work I'd suggest purchasing, then adding the charge to your client's bill.* There are probably a lot of similar fonts out there but if Adobe owns the font... Not sure if this'll be anything new (found on the web): Minion Pro - This font is a wonderful professional font that used to cost $100 but is now available free with Acrobat Reader version 7. To get the font, install Acrobat Reader version 7 then look in the resource folder where acrobat reader was installed. I will probably be at this address on your computer: C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 7.0\Resource\Font. You will see the Minon files. You still must install the fonts so your system will recognize them. For windows users, open control panel, switch to classic view, scroll down to fonts, and then copy the minion fonts into your fonts folder. *Get it approved first of course!

Oh oh... could this mean I'm going to be rigging my own characters? Must resist temptation... I've got TWO animating to do! Thanks Mark! I don't fully understand the action install part of this yet but I look forward to finding out.

Thanks for understanding and taking my response in the right way. Trust me when I say that no one meant to put broken tutorials on your Extra DVD. Well... if you don't count one or two little gremlins. The Extra DVD was dangerously close to never happening. Collecting resources like these (and testing them!) is just too much work. If smarter minds had prevailed I don't think it would have been produced. That we have an Extra DVD is a testiment to the hard work and contributions of Steve Sappington, all the talented contributors and those working behind the scenes. Thanks guys and gals! Now... If you find a resource that is broken don't give up! That resource is probably still available online. The Extra DVD is mostly a means of collection, preservation and distribution. Ask about the resource here in the forum and someone will probably know right where to find it.

Definitely spline heavy but impressive anyway. Jolly good!

With a name like Rod you've got to be welcomed. There were at least 4 Rodney's in my school as I grew up. I think they all preferred to go by Rod. So I tried my best to stay with Rodney. Great to have you with us Rod. 'Bout time you stopped Lurking!

One of the easiest ways to explore EXR is to just render out to it and experiment. I recommend rendering out a simple (but lighted!) animation to a sequential set of EXRs. Bring those back into A:M via Right Clicking on Images container in the Project Workspace. Once in A:M Right Click again and select Build Composit. This still won't be quite enough to see many results. For that you'll want to add a Post Effect or two... three... four. Go under a subcontainer that is identified with Mix for instance. Right Click and add a Exposure Post Effect Then change the Exposure over time. You should get a simple example of the that effect. I would review the tutorial and information at the previous Feature Focus link before diving in too deep. It'll help tremendously. Please share what you find out with us!

Here is a pretty good intro via the Light Buffers Feature Focus. Hats off to Noel for all his hard work in bringing Composting via EXR to A:M. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=26740 Direct link to project file and information: http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=19458

I can agree with that. If you like we can start now! There was no test phase for the DVD as no one stepped up to the job. Last minute changes broke a lot so what you see on the DVD is a lot different than what you almost had. What a difference a few months makes. Seriously, I'm not complaining back at you, but the Extra DVD is what you and I make it. Hash Inc mostly just distributes what we give them.

I'm the only one still wanting to explore? Let's not forget the A:M CD shall we. There are a lot of resources there too. Most easily accessible via your Library window. Stian's McLaren is still there. Don't know about you but I think its cool. Stian also has other projects on the CD and Extra DVD. Alligators, Cars and more... in a word... gofindthem!

Starting from scratch isn't always a bad idea. Sometimes its the best idea. That way you get to start fresh. I'd suggest a look at some of the female models on the Extra CD (2006), Extra DVD (2007) and the A:M CD (any year). You could correct what you have by laying in new/additional splines too but first you need to study -where- to put them. You are getting close. Just need some more refinement. Keep at it!

Take good notes and sell us a 'Behind the Scenes' DVD. You are living the dream Dusan... living the dream. It would be quite cool to be a fly on your studio's wall. I should mention... I posted your image in the Renderosity forum gallery. Not a lot of traffic over there but so far a very supportive (and unanimous) response from non-A:M Users. They want to know when 'Chicory and Coffee' is released so I'll keep them advised. Your work speaks for itself!

Geoff, If someone gave you A:M for Christmas... wow. What can I say? Thats such a great idea. I may have to follow up on that myself. Push yourself (at your own pace of course) into the TaoA:M manual. Download and view the videos from the TaoA:M course (http://www.hash.com/vm) Post your exercises, ask questions and you'll get a lot of help. Welcome to the A:M Community!

Could Brent's endeavor be a sign that the time is right for the 'new studio' concept? Stay tuned to find out! If you fully absorb the concepts and call to animators found in TaoA:M I think you are assured of success. Well that and the business side of things will have to be ironed out. You could do a whole lot worse than follow the lead of Avalanche and Momentum! Go Brent!

I need to commit that one to memory.

Ken, I'm not sure why your post got deleted. It may be for any number of reasons. One thing to consider is how many things that are already going on in the forum. There's TaoA:M, ABC, monthly image contests, periodic animation contests and more. Forum member projects currently being championed include Mini Movie, the Calavera Hotel and Lost Worlds. On the tutorials side there is Feature Focus, Tech Talks, the Tutorials Forum and more. Of course there is also TWO which pretty much includes them all. There are a lot things people can get involved in. At this point its not enough to just have an idea. We need to demonstrate rather than suggest. We must syncronize our ideas with what we've already got. Thats not always easy. Great ideas never go away. They just get reformed and refitted. As you get them, keep them and look for opportunity. Focus on what is already available, merge your ideas with them, and demonstrate everything your ideas fit in. I'm where you are right now pretty regularly. I have a whole lot of great ideas if I do say so myself. Few are implementable.

Another option: Point the model to external materials (i.e. not embedded in the model) Then have two sets of materials; the one you want for final and a simple or empty one. Yet another option that I didn't think of before but can be quite useful to keep render times down: Don't use materials at all in the final. Instead render the materials out on a plane/patch and use them as decals. As you can't turn decals off either... not sure how this would help.

You know I thought there was a Active element in materials but I don't see it there now. Strange. The good news is that materials are easily dragged and dropped onto models so you could do that. Delete and/or drop it back on as necessary . Another option would be to save another version of your model without the material and swap the shortcuts to the model out in the Choreography. Yet another option (which works in most cases but not all) would be to make the material 100% transparent. You should be able to do this simulateously on multiple materials. Submitted as possible workarounds until we locate that elusive 'Activate' option!