Rodney

I'm liking where this is going!

Of note... the images projected must be reversed because when viewed the audience sees the mirror image in the reflection which corrects it. You can get away with a lot when the projection is images but this is especially important for text which won't be very readable. Flames interacting with real objects tend to catch people's attention: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2obmilh7170

I'm thinking something like this: http://diyhacking.com/diy-hologram/ Looks like fun. Here's a video of it in action: (Disclaimer: The sound was a bit loud on this one for me so consider turning your sound down) xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXsxj9OUvpI And here's a pretty impressive example at larger scale: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZhjEQuR_fo

It's great to have you back Tyson. For a brief second I was picturing you doing all of those things... at the same time. The scary thing is that I *almost* saw it in my imagination and let me tell you it looked like quite a show! I wish I could program. Dance? What's that??? And, I wish I'd stuck with playing the piano when I was 10 years old. I sure could use that now. Best of luck to you in all the above as well as with your projects with A:M. Keep us posted!

Thanks Jason. At least that will keep a few folks from avoiding the hash inc site altogether. If we can't get a decent resolution to the A:M Films upload perhaps we can work it where one or two people (curators?) have access and everyone simply posts a link to their resource and those curators then upload them. Not unlike the old (classic) A:M Films site use to work.

Nicely done. Congratulations on another lego production being aired on your channel!

This is primarily for Jason... I was notified by someone via another forum that videos are still sending folks to porn sites and the first video I clicked on via A:M films just sent me to one. In my estimation it'd be better to shut down A:M Films entirely than to have folks interested in checking out A:M entertained thusly. It appears that any video image clicked on is effected. Not just comments/links.

And with the deadline being extended... you've got plenty of time to do it.

That's awesome. Interestingly... my first version also (after delaying purchase for entirely too long!). That meltdown character by avalanche surely helped to win me over because I wanted to create worlds for my own superheroes to live in and didn't want to have to constantly draw them. I've attached the contents of that Manual addendum as I'm not sure if it's on the ftp. I'm sure I had that manual but I must have lost it in moving soon after purchase because I'm pretty sure I no longer have it. I do recall there were some issues with mailing overseas to PO boxes (Hash Inc didn't do that) and perhaps that was part of the resolution... Hash Inc would ship the CD but without the manual? (my memory is foggy here) I remember that every time I upgraded I had to go through the process of reminding someone at Hash Inc that they did in fact ship to PO boxes because we had previously been able to do that. AM98 addendum.PDF

Well done. The dynamics of moving plants and such in sync with the sound of the breeze really adds a lot to the scene. I can think of only one suggestion and it might seem odd... I'd either lower the brightness/contrast of the guys blue pants or adjust the pants in some way so they blend a bit more into the scene. I believe its the difference between that and the realistic backgrounds that is catching my attention. If the pants were darker (even black) I don't think that would be the case. If this is intentional styling (red flag, yellow disc and target... blue pants) please disregard. One trick to vary that up a bit and make those larger shapes of color blend into the background more is to add a little roughness (at small scale) say... 2 percent roughness at 5 percent scale) to break up those solids. It's like using film grain to add noise to a cg rendered scene that is composited into a live film plate to mask the differences. I can picture a whole series of these as he (and I presume others) play through. Are you planning more in the series? I also want to add that the sound sync appears spot on and that really helps the flow of the animation and sense that this character is really in the scene and performing the activity. Nice pacing as well... the breathing... all contribute to that illusion of life that is so sought after. I'd ask question about your motion capture, dyncamics and such but don't even know what questions to ask! It looks like you are well on your way to mastering them.

I see that in A:M the setting for 1280x720 resolution is HD 720p. That's easy enough to change as a default. We just set the desired settings and save the Choreography as Default.cho in the A:M installation directory. Customizing things like resolution changes and making them stick would make for a nice introductory lesson in a 'Hacking A:M' series. These topics would cover things that generally we might not want to have installed by default for everyone that uses A:M but might want to be able to do ourselves. To keep this somewhat on topic... Perhaps one of the requirements of this contest could be altered a little in light of a minor obstacle rendering directly out of A:M. The thought being that entries for this contest should be (optimally and designed to be) rendered straight out of A:M. The issue would be that of resolution... in that the target resolution is "1440 x 1920 and keep the 3:4 aspect ratio" This bit of technicalese is a barrier to entering the contest in that it is a custom setting that can't be found in A:M's list of default resolutions. Now of course, A:M can render to any resolution needed... just adjust as needed... but my point here is that if this requirement is routinely needed (i.e. for every contest) then it would be nice to see that option available as a resolution in A:M. This is an example a 'story driven' need. The story is set as the contest where the actors (users) bring their performances (characters) to the stage. The second part of the contest's requirement is easy enough: "the winner must summit a rendered image with no background of 480 x 640" That's the setting VGA out of A:M although... technically that'd be 640 x 480... which I assume is why Robert asked the question about portrait vs landscape (height vs width). Here we run into an obstacle when faced with available render settings out of A:M. There is a default option for landscape but not for portrait. So some customization of render settings is needed. I suppose what I'm saying is that recurring contests should very likely target easy to access resolutions rendered directly out of A:M with no customization. The alternative would be to make a requirment of the contest be 'Entrants must include the full project file' which I must assume would also be an obstacle against some folks entering. I must say in the case of the mascot contest though that sharing of mascots with the community would very likely be a good thing. I do recognize that some folks cannot share their characters for many different reasons. The example of this could be that of the contest rule being amended to state: "Entries should be rendered out to at least DV 720p and scaled x2 (or at a minimum 1440 x 1920 and keep the 3:4 aspect ratio) along with a second render at VGA resolution (640x480) with no background for potential use as A:M's splash screen."* All of this should underline the fact that while A:M is capable of highly technical things most of that tech isn't required to be known or even considered by A:M users. Of course, this all assumes that being able to figure out custom resolutions isn't loosely designed to raise the technical bar of quality for all entries. *Can we see the difficultly in the requirement for rendering entries to 1440x1920 with 3:4 aspect ratio? I might be the only one but I really don't know what all of that means. The first time that requirement appeared I was a little confused and apparently after many years I'm still looking for that setting in A:M. Sorry for the wall of text that will make this post harder to read!

I've tried to figure out how it could be but all in all the process usually works quite well. Unfortunately, as you've experienced, a few people slip through the cracks and encounter frustration. There are a few things I would advise users of A:M to keep on their radar to reduce the chance of less than optimal experience in updating their license or transferring activation to a new computer. 1) Keep track of when/if any licenses or subscriptions expire. Don't get caught short trying to update a subscription in the middle of a deadline or crunch time. 2) To the greatest extent possible plan ahead for any changes to computers or hardware/harddrives to avoid unnecessary delay in transferring a license/activation to the new setup. If updates of hardware can coincide with updates to subscriptions/licenses so much the better. I don't have experience (good or otherwise) with render nodes so I can't really troubleshoot or make suggestions in that area of interest other than to suggest going direct to the source of the guy who can get the problem fixed... and it is my understanding/experience that 99% of the time that'll be Jason. Launching an email to support@hash.com seems like a good idea but it's not the most direct route to success. I'll guess there are several reasons for that, one of which is that Jason checks his email more often and support is likely more of a spam catcher in that it gets a lot more than just requests for updating activation codes/licenses. One additional thing.. in case it's not obvious... when contacting Jason... he's a real person. Don't rant at him or express frustration... that won't expedite the process. Just let him know who you are (he's going to have to verify that and that you actually have a license), what the issue is and then if he doesn't respond in a timely manner or progress isn't made in a few days time launch additional email(s) periodically to remind him.

Adam, From one user to another... Hash Inc doesn't have a large staff. It does have a jason however. Recommend contacting him directly at: jason@hash.com While I'm sure it is appreciated I wouldn't be overzealous about supporting any company or product. Expectations will always outpace reality and that never ends well. As far as licenses go, I believe fellow user Fuchur may be able to assist with that also although that may just be gaining access to the trial. Hash Inc isn't ignoring your issue. Jason likely just doesn't know about it. For fastest results contact him directly. Hang in there!

Nice update and nice detailing! I need to develop your level of patience.

Here's a quick hack to demonstrate the process of launching A:M with a batchfile. What the (current) batch file does is: Launch the animated splash* Launch A:M with a specific Project file as a target (in this case one named Default.prj) *I've used a random sequence of images from a recent doodle for the splash animation. Nothing related to A:M Splash screens but I needed to grab something to splash. This might almost as easily display the images that were recently rendered out of A:M or the images from a specific folder or all the images on a specific drive or those listed in a text file... A few other notes: In windows we can't assign a custom icon to a batch file but we can assign one to a shortcut so... after the batch file is created a shortcut is created from that and given a custom icon. This allows for easy launching and easy editing of the batch file. For instance, customizing the dimensions of the splash animation. There is a lag between splash animation and launching of A:M while A:M loads all of the various plugins. At one time I had a second installation of A:M that didn't have any plugins installed and that launched almost immediately. (The downside being that those plugins might actually be needed... but if not...rock on.) Here's the entire contents of the batch file (all of which is not necessary): @echo off cls SplashScreen.exe "C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\V18.0p plus\Master_64.exe" "C:\Program Files\Hash Inc\V18.0p plus\Default.prj" cls EXIT Ha. I just (almost accidentally) created an installer for the program... and it works. This might warrant some additional investigation Example.mp4

We should make a list in a User Development forum of those things that can be changed cosmetically to enhance A:M. This would free up Steffen to continue to work the bigger issues but would allow users to recognize that A:M has been updated in subtle yet useful ways. Examples of this are many but one would be the change Robert made several years ago to the default Choreography (specifically the ground plane). He made the update but then had Steffen include that in the source. The tutorials splash that Fuchur created is another example. The image of Stian's cathedral model is awesome of course but could be easily replaced with another... signaling a change to users. Most of these would be cosmetic but a few could delve deeper by considering the default resources that are available to users. Things like the render animations and splash screen certainly fall into the cosmetic (look development) category. Not long ago I brought back the default Welcome Choreography that use to accompany A:M all those many years ago. That was fun time and despite that particular Chor being unnecessary to advanced users it was nice to feel welcome in the A:M Community every time we opened a new default Chor in A:M. I'm not suggesting that return... just using that as an example of creative changes that easily fall into our purview. I should note that if we go to far afield in this we might as well be talking third party enhancements to A:M which basically would mean having a product that customizes A:M in various ways as desired by users willing to support that effort. This falls into the realm of what the Hash Fellows were originally chartered for as well as a latter suggestion to provide a 'special edition' of A:M enhanced and customized in one or more flavors. This is very doable but there has never been enough interest to sustain such an effort.

Hmmm... how bad do you want these. There is how I would approach this and there is what Steffen would have to code. The issue at hand might be... do we want Steffen to set aside his current efforts toward v19 to bring these visual enhancements to the fore. Of note: The replacement of the render animation is pretty straightforward. We just need folks to provide that animation. I posted all of the current animated sequences elsewhere in hope that someone might take the bait on that one and produce some cool animation fit for watching as A:M launches a render. Until now no one has produced any animation at that scale (mini resolution out of A:M). BUT... that request is easily accomplished. A customized splash screen is already possible. (Don't ask... I've been sworn to secrecy. And don't tell Marcos! He thinks we all see his anteater every time A:M launches!) Unless there is an option I am unaware of... an animated splash sequence is a bit more complicated. If you just want to make yourself happy though we can splash anything we want up in front of us as A:M launches. On windows you could do the following: Create a text file (batch file) that runs things prior to launching A:M and then use that shortcut instead of the one that directly launches A:M. An example of this would be a batch file that basically states: @echo off C:\splashscreen.exe C:\> This is where splashscreen.exe is a imagesequence/slideshow (an image or sequence of images in executable format). You can make one of those easily with a program like Irfanview. The issue with this batchfile method is that we have to update the batch file with any new paths if and we ever install A:M to another location. But you don't want any of that. Put in a request via A:M Reports.... that's how new features get identified for inclusion and prioritized! Some of this easy stuff might be a good change of pace from the more in depth coding Steffen does. Edit: I was thinking the render animation was .gif but they are actually .AVI (sorry, faulty memory!) This makes sense because at the time the .gif format would not have been ideal due to licensing/patent issues. (But note that those issue no longer apply) If we render straight out of A:M at mini resolution to AVI format *I think* this is the same format as what Steffen will require to update the various render animations.

Fun stuff! You've put a lot of work into this. Ouch. That'd definitely put you behind schedule.

Great video Robert!

I'm refreshing my memory but here's a little bit of a stab at this... The pivot (for materials) relies on the translation settings of the material. Example: Set up a simple project with your matterial assigned to an object While looking at that model in the Chor or wherever... Go to the main material node and crack open the Translate settings. Note how the colors changed based on that translate setting. I may be missing something but I think the word pivot in the tech ref might refer to an older implementation where the material relied on a Named Group's pivot setting (which is one of the few places we can set a pivot that is actually referred to as a pivot in the interface). The notable exception to this is to create/adjust a pivot via use of one of the object manipulators (Translate, Scale... although I wouldn't think that'd change the pivot, and Rotate). This latter might effect the material placement in some way but I'll have to check. Edit: I don't think it can directly effect the material... there is (at least initially) no way for the material to 'see' that pivot. So my take is that the translate settings of the material are the pivot for the material. It can be center (and should be by default) but it can also be anywhere else in 3D space) P.S. Thanks for asking the question. I learned a few things here.

Now see... if you had said 'in addition to' rather than 'instead'... I believe what we (and by 'we' I mainly mean 'you') need to do is demonstrate the power of the alpha channel with the mask that cuts into the splash image. Almost all splash images for A:M have had a black and white mask (either 100% transparent or 100% opaque) but splash images can really get interesting when that mask is greyscale allowing for shades of transparency. And it'd definitely be overkill but it wouldn't be impossible to have the splash screen be customize-able (and even animated). One way to get that (an animated splash screen) fielded might be to have the splash screen launcher display an image as a spritesheet. This would also allow for folks that need to turn the splash screen image off.

You should try to time your next Squetchy Sam release for the same time as the Mascot contest. Just sayin'. (Assuming you won't be launching another entry)

Impressive!

I just rendered my initial (backup) entry.although I'm about to markup a copy with suggestions for a few additions and fixes. If I don't get anything else put together I'll enter it. But... I plan to work several other ideas before the deadline hits.

We are right at the 4 week point folks! I really need to get my act together and get a mascot done. Once again I've started several and set aside each as not being what I want to enter. Each time the mascot contest rolls around I have good intentions but need to get to the final stage of completing the thing. I am definitely not a good finisher. (Working on that!) Perhaps I need to sketch out my idea on paper first and work until I capture that equivalent in A:M. I will enter something!