Rodney

Paul, If an image is worth a thousand words your animations are worth visiting the bank. Nice!

Noah is a really talented guy. Different people learn at different rates, use differing methodologies and have varying time to devote. If you feel comfortable collaborating and communicating with others that will help. Be willing to make a lot of mistakes and learn from them is valuable too. No one learns in a vacuum so the sooner you get into the thick of things the better. The absolute easiest way to get to the Noah Brewer level is to hire him to work for you.

Welcome Mr. C! (I know I've said that before elsewhere but happy to say it again) I admire the fact that you are aspiring not only to animation but programming too. More power to you. Great to have you with us.

Very curious. Do these people even use A:M? Patently false information there. If it wasn't stable I certainly wouldn't use it (and as a minimum I'd ask for a refund).

Pip, I can't see how it could hinder. It should be a solid foundation from which to build on. If you have any experience in live action film then you'll have an edge when it comes to setting up choreographies and cameras. Thats certainly a good thing. It would seem to me that your most immediate hurdle might be the interface. Great news here... thats really easy to learn! Definitely work your way through TaoA:M... take your time and dig as deep as your interest will take you. Follow the lessons... but experiment too. Click those icons... ask those questions.. break stuff if thats what you want to do. Have fun with this initial learning stage and you'll enjoy it even more. Make some memories to take with you. 'Cause you are only a newbie once. Grrr... now go get 'em tiger!

Welcome to the A:M Community Pip! As of this exact moment your chances of winning this raffle are impressive; a 1 in 3 chance! Subtract any non-2007 users and you might as well claim your prize. A few more days to go on this one though.

Heck... I wish TaoA:M was around when I started out. I still can't rig a model like that! Learning isn't a race... its a journey. What you put into TaoA:M (or any effort) determines what you get out. I'm confident Caroline will put the same effort into all her projects and the results speak for themselves. But enough with this already. We want to see more Jabberwocky!

Very nice and ambitious! Go get 'em!

Good luck Tribber! (Sounds like Trevor... with the Ta) Boy are you about to embark on a journey! Take advantage of this forum. Here more than anywhere on the net you can find information on Animation:Master, meet others with similar (and diversified) interests and thoroughly learn the ropes. Every time someone new posts here I get excited again. This is where we get to animating!

I was wondering when someone might model DW. Cool! While I would usually be a fan of the toon look in the image you've provided I like the 3D shaded look. Experimenting in line width and toon shade mgiht easily convince me otherwise though.

A:M is certainly good for game creation but there are many aspects to the process. Like most projects there is the research and development, design, preproduction, production and post production phases. There is some discussion still mostly in the research and development stage you can find in the TWO Game section. Look for information in the old games and development forums too. There are tools available to help transfer models and props and animation to gaming engines. Folks like Greg Schumsky and Dennis Burroso have recent experience porting A:M to game engines and the most recent SIGGRAPH DVD spotlights some of Dennis's efforts. His 'Froggy Boxing' is simple yet fun example of what can be done. For cut scenes you'd be hard pressed to find anything better than A:M. As A:M is first and foremost a character-centric animation program its well suited to the task. I don't know your experience with game creation so its hard to speculate any more. Understand you'll want to add some additional utilities and programs to create any game. Those may range from free to *yikes* expensive.

Very cool. I like!

I haven't had a chance yet to explore your links Wolfram. I've made it a point to do just that as I find time. Your projects sound intriguing. I appreciate question like yours. It may seem like we're being a bit short in the answer. The perfect answer would probably be that creators should always tag their creations with a visible note outlining proper usage. This is simply not practical in all situations and is complicated even further when some have no interest in doing it. In general copyright protects the creator from the moment of creation. As such the presense of the copyright notice is mostly moot. On the other hand, affixing a copyright or notice does help inform the viewer. An interesting point here is raised in that I would imagine that just about anybody that contributed (I use that word as opposed to donated on purpose) would be glad to allow use of their resource, modify it for a fee or create something new for anyone interested. First and foremost I think people contributed resources to the DVD because they wanted them to be shared and used by others. As such you can rest easy. So get to it!

Thats a wonderful idea. Please feel free to do that. The legal decision process is really a lot easier than you are making it. Read again about the sets above and you'll realize there is only the one that most people have to deal with. Those with a need for commericial use should get to know the creators of resources they use anyway. Seriously, just keep the process as simple as possible. For my part Creative Commons will definitely be considered for projects on this scale in the future.

Memory will be your primary problem with decals. One way of overcoming that is to use proxy images that take the place of the larger images until final render time. One way to do this with fairly good workflow might be to have three image folders: 1) Hi Rez images 2) Low Rez images 3) Working image folder Point A:M to the Working image folder and drag and drop images into it from the Hi and Low Rez folders as necessary.

Martin is the lawyer so he can point you in the right direction. Meanwhile... here is my take. Think of this by way of sets of resources. ALL resources on the DVD are provided for your personal use and for learning. Some resources can be used commercially. A few resources have restricted use applied. How do you know the difference? The first set of resources is easy. All of them can be freely used for personal use in learning A:M. The second set of resources can be determined by text files within the folder or notes added to the resources themselves. A statement such as "For personal use only. Please credit the author if used" is an example of this. The third set of resources should be clearly labeled (and I believe few will be found on the DVD) and usage should be rather self explanatory. "Personal Use Only. Do Not Use Commerically." would be an example of that. Here are some additional things to consider: - Resources should only be considered in the Public Domain if expressly put there by the author - Only the author/creator can grant and release rights. - Distribution rights have been granted to Hash Inc but may or may not be granted to you. - None of the resources may be used to generate profit or sold without permission - Resources that are modified and significantly different so as not to infringe on the original are fine - Fair use applies Creative Commons Licensing is something I had hoped to pursue with this DVD but time did not allow. Having said that, you should see a few resources with CC applied. The links or files should be with the resource. When in doubt contact the creator who is quite likely to grant you permission. Those who have donated would be glad to hear of your interest. Oh... and if you makes million$ somewhere in this process don't forget who these creators are. Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor does my Mom play one on TV. Rodney Edit: I forgot one. Some resources may have a copyright or trademark which prohibits commercial use. These resources will be easily identified. Fair use (and common sense) still applies.

Phil, I'm falling behind... but I'll try to catch up. I O U:

Maybe we'll adjust the second raffle to include all A:M Users. (I'm an inclusive kind of guy) How'd that be?

I take it you are a proud owner of Animation:Master? If you are then you are definitely in the right place. You said the magic words. I'm a 'hobbyist' myself. Hobbyist seems to have taken on the form of a curse word in some circles but its much more than that my friend. The Hobbyists of today are the New Studios of tomorrow and we have yet to be reckoned with! So make yourself at home. Welcome to the Animation:Master Community!

Daniel, Oh yeah... I understand now. Creating the semi-perfect sphere! Here's a version of that that I created many years ago! http://home.comcast.net/~rodney.baker/amscreen/screen.htm or just the animation without the screen: http://home.comcast.net/~rodney.baker/amto...ectspherev1.gif What is being done there is moving the splines away from the Y axis to make sure the lathing is smooth. You can just select the spline and use your arrow key (on your keyboard) to move the spline one position over.

My email is linked in my signature: rodney . baker @ gmail . com (no spaces) You'll want to consider any copyright on the video before posting and size limitations apply on uploading in the forum. If you can grab a screenshot (Print Screen Key) from the video that might be enough to clue us in.

Phil, I'm easily distracted so keep reignin' me in! Here are some words of wisdom related to the rendering issues we've been discussing. From the Tech Ref (everybody reads that right?): Next up: A word or two on Filters

Daniel, Alignment can take on different forms depending on where you are in A:M. For instance, in the Modeling window you can Right Click > Snap to Grid any Control Points you have selected. In a Choreography Window you can Align things by typing in coordinates etc. I'll try to drum up a good example of newer alignment controls (since v11) to demonstrate this in the Chor. Added: Within the Chor one type of alignment people don't often consider is alignment with respect to the camera. A great way to align things there is to group them (you can name the groups and set the pivots for later reuse) and align on the fly. Hold the 1, 2 or 3 keys down and that will restict movement on the various axis. Good question! Rodney

Colin is right. A:M definitely has Booleans. In a way A:M's Booleans are more restrictive but in other ways they are more powerful. A:M's treatment of Boolean cutters is know as Specified Booleans which effect geometry only at render time. The 'specified' means that you can identify parts of models to be cut while leaving other parts whole. It gives you a lot of flexibility within the process. For more information see the Tech Ref write up on: Specified Booleans This is a considerable departure from polygonal boolean cutters and it helps tremendously to approach it from the perspective of splines. If you think in terms of polygons you'll find yourself frustrated.