Rodney

I don't know. I know a lot of folks that won't use either Adobe or Autodesk products. It is true that the primary reason they don't is price (use is costly) but still, these folks have little or no interest in using their programs. I occassionally fit into that mold myself, especially when having to open my wallet. If you mean folks that constantly blog and chat and rally against the companies I'd say few do that regularly although there are some pretty vocal users of both that constantly and very publicly question every move they make and generally ascribe intent of their decision making as evil and/or incompetent. Not too hard to see... you may be looking at this from a single user perspective. One must remember that the primary customers of Adobe and Autodesk (probably moreso Autodesk) are companies and not individuals. Their business models for individuals follow a path that maximizes volume sales in such a way that they can classify those as business users too. I'm not privy to how that might roll out in the bean counters conference rooms but we could easily imagine that when modeling their sales they might consider individual cities as businesses and when sales slump in a particular city focus can turn to that 'client' and their marketing machine gets to work. Consider also that when selling a high priced product you might have to work a bit harder to sell that product but if you can make one sale at the high end that might equate to thousands (hundreds?) of sales at the low end. This is why companies have volume discounts. This fits in to Ken's observation that people haven't rallied against the machine in order to see better behavior from them. Storytime I come from a very small town next to a bunch of other small and very small towns; sparsely populated by farmers and their farm lands. Every now and again the subject of Walmart moving into the area arises and these small towns resist the idea. I'm a bit torn myself. On the one side I'd like to see Walmart move into the area because jobs are scarce and the area needs to keep young folks from moving away. There is little opportunity nor incentive to stay short of piece of mind and freedom from joining the rat race. But I also know that Wally World moving into the area would be devastating for the small businesses (at least in the short term) and many would go out of business. Ha! We're moving forward Grandad... with or wit'outcha!!! There are some really tough decision to be made on those small city counsels. I don't live near my hometown currently because, while I think they would thrive, my family (wife and daughters) would very likely leave me and move back to Japan. So what to do about all this corporate progress and providing for the common good of the individual? Is it inevitable that the little guy will be crushed under the weight and force of the massive behometh? I confess I don't have the answers. Maybe we should ask Martin.

Darrin, I should have added a disclaimer stating that the heat I'm talking about would be completely simulated. This is almost accomplished already via light and shade in any given scene but types of light and surfaces/material conductivity aren't currently considered/ Most dynamic systems in A:M such as Newton Physics and SimCloth do have settings for friction and that setting might be a likely candidate for establishing baselines or multipliers for heat.

Wow! That's great news! An impressive turnaround of production. Don't forget to footstomp THAT in your PR. Looking forward to it.

Thanks for the info Nancy! It's always educational to see how creative minds work. I love your current take (the one first posted) but I also love the color of the fox and skunks in your last post (the original concept). That fox's pose and the color... exquisite. I"m glad the pose made it through to the final version. Ah, if only the fox was sill red and the bear was the one that was pink. hehe! I wasn't quite sure so I didn't guess. All I know is that someone needs to hire you to illustrate their stories but I must admit that it would have to be a very good writer to capture your level of imagination. If presented with options such as the two illustrations you've posted I certainly wouldn't envy the editors that had to decide on which stylistic path to take... Oh.. and... before I hit submit... The addition of the spray can... and your alteration of the story for that part... adds so much more to the mix. Inspired thinking. (The scaring away for the bears with the skunks is funny though!)

I just posted on Blackmagic's Davinci Resolve Beta release where more of Blackmagic's way forward is being revealed. I thought I should also provide more info related to Fusion because it's part of their long term plan too. If you look at the pricing model for Fusion Studio you'll see the studio version of Fusion runs $995 per unit. Their website now has added discounts for volume purchases to include the following: So what is the takeaway here? The takeaway is that there is considerable value to be found in the free release of Fusion. Blackmagic obviously hopes that users of their free release will graduate to paid use. If you do move to the studio tier due to collaborative project requirements, especially commercial work, it is likely your project will be able to establish a budget for it. In the meantime, those in the free tier will be mastering the Fusion workflow that enables them to take on commercial work.

Nice! Your unique style continues to shine. Someone needs to put you to work on illustrating an entire book (or series of books!) P.S. I can imagine more than a few folks wondering... how did she draw/paint all that hair... And added: You know I can't leave without adding my 2 cents. I think you could have gotten away with turning the bear around so he/she's facing us/the camera as the positioning of characters appears to allow for that. If looking at her back (I presume this is Lucy) then you could position her a lot closer to the camera (about where the stack of plates are located). The primary reason I'd turn her around however would be that if it is in fact Lucy then she is a primary consideration of the story cue. As such we want to see her. If Lucy is the character holding the skunks then i'd just try to add something to suggest that she and not some other character is Lucy. As it is there are two likely characters for that role... the pink one is currently getting my vote but the cue related to the magic box and presence of the hat in hand suggests that might be otherwise. An example of that might be to make the bear more masculine and the pink character more... um... Lucy. The hat in hand of the bear contributes to my sense that this character is Lucy but the brown color works against this (?). Ohoh... I'm falling into stereotypical mode here so I'll move on. In a series of images, as opposed to a single frame, this character identification wouldn't be an issue because we'd either already know without a doubt or very soon see who is who. Ill add one more. Initially I thought the bear was spraying the picture frame on the wall. It might be ideal to move that to the right to leave an open space and to help direct the eye of the viewer (clearly to the character's target... the skunk with minimal distraction). Anything that would help pop the skunks a little more into focus would help also as they are the BIG problem that is being resolved. As always, keep up the awesome work!

Disclaimer: I haven't warmed up to using Blackmagic Davinci Resolve mostly because I haven't taken the time to explore optimal workflow. It does appear to be well worth a look, especially for those that don't have a dedicated video editor. Blackmagic has recently released the latest Beta for Davinci Resolve which is now a full fledged video editor. The Beta reportedly contains over 250 new features. As with their other software (Fusion) the full studio release contains many features not available in the free release to include collaboration features and stereoscopic workflows. Blackmagic's strategic approach is finally getting to the field in that as a hardware maker they are packaging their software with their cameras. Cameras over the $2000 price range will have a copy of the studio release of Davinci Resolve included (with a dongle) while cameras of lower price will include the free release software. Their goal being to allow those that use their cameras to go from shooting film to editing to special effects and color correction all within their product ecosystem. The studio release is priced at $995. For those purchasing a Blackmagic camera the free software bundling should be taken into consideration. It goes without saying that I recommend Blackmagic's Fusion for compositing. I currently consider it my #2 software after Animation:Master. I don't have a dedicated video editor... still searching for the optimal one. Premiere is the most likely at this point but that's a long way from being locked down and I'm always on the look for software everyone can access. If you don't have a dedicated video editor then Resolve is well worth investigating. My primary critique would be that as with many video editors ingestion of footage it's not very intuitive to new users. I recommend shutting other programs down while using most video editors to free up resources as well. Davinci's new Beta lagged considerably when I had my usual stack of dozens of programs open at the same time. Check it out here: Davinci Resolve (a video should open on the website outlining new features but note that some of those on display are only in the studio release)

That sounds to me like it would fall into the realm of parody which will allow for usage. Not to mention the long line of uses prior that follow the same basic usage (sans hamster presumably). A troubling aspect of fair use for me appears to be that if we are making fun of something (i.e. combining the resource in question with some element of comedy) it may be considered fair use but a more serious use might run afoul of copyright law. This is one of those downward spirals that leads to a place we don't want to be. One aspect of copyright law should very likely consider what the usage has contributed to the resource so that if sued for infringement a portion or all of that sum would be due the new contributor at the expense of the copyright holder. In other words, if something I create is made more marketable by someone else's use I should have incentive to allow that use rather than to sue. This would still allow my right as original copyright owner to request the use be discontinued or the usage be removed. In cases where value diminishes and the parties do not compensate me for that loss I would retain my right to sue for the damage incurred. The first part of this we have seen repeated over and over on properties that have been set aside, mothballed, abandoned or even intentionally halted where fans have rallied and brought new life to the property. An open question then becomes how much of the profit is the copyright holder entitled to from revenues generated by the unsanctioned use. In the case of Spider-man on a Times Square screen that might equate to $5.... $10... $100... nothing... all depending on how much that element contributed to revenue in the usage. There are always going to be elements of 'proper' use to consider. One might be that of a basic test of whether the average person at that time and place would also have incorporated the resource. Advertisements in public spaces (in my estimation) are automatically fair use and in a perfect world companies that sue for trivial usage should be fined for being stupid. They can't have it both ways... in your face advertisement that cannot be avoided along with the ability to removed the same from the public record. Exceptions will always exist of course, especially in cases where established law prohibits use. And this is where the mess begins and ends. New laws are often based on established precedence and yet not all laws are valid for use as precedence.

My apology if the following linked resource has been posted before. There is a lot of misinformation about copyright and fair use out in the wild and I recently read an article that attempted to shed some light on the subject. I haven't vetted the article itself nor examined it for links more appropriate for 3D animation but the article did reference some publications that can and do speak for themselves. One of those publications primarily concerns itself with the plight of the documentary filmmaker, who navigates an increasingly difficult arena of copyright laws and limitations but many aspects of fair usage they claim as self evident cross pollinates into common areas of interest to us as well. Here's that primary reference: DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS' STATEMENT OF BEST PRACTICES IN FAIR USE (2005) The case of a 3D animator/filmmaker is a little different especially in that we don't tend to capture 'live' events that might inadvertently contain copyrighted material. Most if not all of what is seen in our product is placed there intentionally. This then is a key to understanding our own fair use within the realm of 3D animation; our intention.

I mentioned this briefly in the plugins topic but want to separate it because I think it is one of those 'features' anyone with time and patience can create. There also could be potential benefits in the realm of plausible/physical based rendering/lighting, etc. Furthering the initial questions I find myself wondering if a variant of the spinning light trick, used for global illumination might be shoehorned in such a way as as to create environmental data used for positioning, lighting and... more esoterically... heat. (This even harkens back to a very old posit on albedos... not taken seriously... which interestingly is now at the fore in physically based rendering. Who would have guessed.) But the first stage of this foray would logically be that of positioning. I won't go into detail here on what my initial thoughts are on setup because frankly I'd like to see A:M be the first program to have this feature set but as it can be set up in any program it might not be best to talk of specific implementations yet. For R&D purposes: The key to understanding VPS would likely follow that of the US GPS system in that measurements of time and spacing are critical to establishing reliable data on any position (in relative time and space). The trick (for me) would be to accomplish this more visually than mathematically and I believe my approach would cover that angle. That isn't to say that everything would all be drag/drop. Math certainly would be needed to optimize the system. I'd be interested in what others have seen or experienced related to positioning in virtual (read: imaginary) spaces. Any links to prior explorations would also be appreciated. For the brave and bold: An initial foray into this arena might be to set up a virtual replica of GPS satellites in A:M's virtual space, assuming A:M doesn't intrinsically have the equivalent of that under the hood already.

The take away for me appears to be that the program has not yet been created that can save me from myself. Although... technology is approaching that capability with versioning and such. But there is a trade off there as well. In a world were everything is 'versioned' even those things you don't care to see return can be recalled to the present. If and when we make a mistake it will always be there. A small consolation: at least we (and others) will be able to learn from it.

Point taken. But how deeply do we want to explore this? As the one to call BS you have certain responsibilities.

There is an interesting trend going on in business these days and it appears to consist in large part of targeting the human element at it's weakest point to make the sale. (In a way there is nothing new here however. It's just being done on a global scale) The recent (I think classic) example of this might be of Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm. Lucas was recently reremarried... considering the path he should take with young child in the nest... where to focus in his old age... considering his mortality... his legacy. Disney strategically moved in and took full advantage of this and gave Lucas a timely solution to all of these needs. On a lesser scale the sale of Arnold to Autodesk echos a similar sale. (According to the article) The owners father was working well into his retirement. The owner was overworked and distracted by the business side of things... no time for his beloved R&D. The human element... mortality... waiting in the wings. Autodesk strategists stepped in with a solution that answered all of those needs. It's not hard to see where things are going based on current trajectories but considerably more difficult to chart paths that constantly change. The danger of corporations is that they don't (corporately) have the flaw of mortality flowing through their veins. As such those that aren't similarly incorporated eventually find they aren't playing at the same game. And it's all a bit like animation itself where timing is everything.

You may want to consider the source of that information as suspect. Somethings doesn't sound right. According to the guy in charge himself (from the article): Perhaps your source just stated Arnold wasn't sold publicly. There is that a lot of the high dollar products in the animation industry that have no set price (more in the past... still a few nowadays). With those all prices are negotiated on a case by case basis with the company deriving a majority of their income from consultation (service and support) fees. When we see 'contact us for a quote' as the only price listed we can be reasonably sure that the price is out of range from the average person of interest. But this isn't true across the board because the company gets to determine what that person can bring to the table. That quote might consist of a trial phase an educational offering a contract to demo the product... to wear a tshirt... whatever. But the purpose behind the process is clear... the company is in business and has to manage their products and services to stay in business. (If free) It would be a lot easier (for them) to say 'Arnold is still free but by invitation only' or whatever if that was the case. But instead they mention (without detailing specifics) about sales. This may be true to a large extent. Businesses can be ruthless but most strategic plans don't involve removing all competitors entirely from the field as that leads to an environment/industry that cant even sustain them. There is little doubt that they want to have freedom of movement in any domain they wish to reign. The bottom line here would be that Autodesk operates at the strategic level. They are in it to win it. Companies that don't have such strategic plans may find themselves in for the short gains. Not clueless but definitely biased. Mike Seymour does a good job of trying to look outward into the industry but one must remember that fxguide (and therefore Mike Seymour) has close ties with The Foundry. Most of what is reported there will come through that perspective. This is why Arnold's top dog takes extra time to reassure the articles's readers that 'nothing has changed' and that Arnold will still support other products to include Katana which is a premium product of The Foundry. In all cases bias must be considered. We tend to be biased toward A:M around here... we focus on the positive rather than the negative... same/same. Personal aside: I think Mike does an excellent job reporting for fxguide and Wired magazine online about the animation industry. He may be biased but he's also a smart guy. But regarding any real or potential PR BS... well, yeah... Mike Seymour is an industry spokesman; the consummate PR man. But clueless? I'd have a hard time buying that. (Disclaimer: I don't know what laws exist in the land down under concerning publicly traded companies but it might relate to 'insider information' that lets a select few individuals (usually those with shares) in on financial deals before the public gets access... thereby raking in the profits that would otherwise go to everyone... or mitigating/transferring losses by leaving everyone else holding the bag while getting out of the game. There are certainly laws against such in the United States). I'll note that that is not a law or anything, that's just some absurd PR BS the clueless reporter swallowed.

The first thing we might do is compare current import/export plugins with those of import/export available in FBX for other programs. It's a lot like animation itself... in point... out point... break it all down in the middle. Then refine the performance. I'm afraid I don't see a lot of folks lining up to take this on however.

I'm wondering what difference there might be between an averaging wizard and a circularize wizard. I would guess the circularize wizard would use all of the CPs center as the origin from which to average the spacing of CPs around the splne from the average distance away from that point. Whereas a simple averaging wizard would attempt to maintain the same spline but space the CPs out along that spline at the same distance (like the plugin Resample Spline does). This makes me wonder if the Resample Spline plugin (or at least some of it's code) could be used in furtherance of a Circularize plugin. Similarly, if the Resample Spline plugin could be enhanced so that it could leave a spline in place but move the CPs to a new location (average distance along the spline) that might work also. Regarding FBX import/export... I don't think we'll find anyone that doesn't want an FBX plugin so I'll third that one. Question is... how do we get it done? Who do we hire/kidnap/invoke? What does success look like? (I think I've asked this before) If moving in stages from success to success... as an initial FBX plugin, will import of a mesh (without textures) be sufficient? I ask this because if someone tries to tackle this that has to learn from scratch that would be a logical milestone. The next milestone being to reverse the process and export to FBX (also without textures and animation most likely). Milestone 3 then would be to get the import of textures to work. Milestone 4; textures exported. MIlestone 5, basic motion transfer (translate, scale and rotate) Milestone 6, complex motion from a known origin* etc. All of this assumes that an indirect path to FBX (i.e. OBJ and MDD to FBX and vice versa) might not be easier to code. Currently I'm not sure A:M can even reimport the MDD files it exports.... so that might be a logical first step to conquer. For reference here is some basic best practice FBX info from Unreal Engine to consider: https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/Engine/Content/FBX/BestPractices/index.html and here's a link to the 2017 FBX SDK: This contains sample import export programs for Visual Studio. For someone well versed in Python it may be that the FBX Python bindings will prove useful. *The issue here being that FBX has only recently began to solidify rigging standards and so those are still evolving. We might therefore assume a basic motion capture format such as BVH as the norm although I see some standardization on HumanIK 2016.5.

I'm moving this topic up to the main Animation:Master forum because it's buried down deep in the SDK forum. We'll have to look at what other truly A:M-related forums are buried too deep and move them appropriately also. And to add another plugin idea... one that might relate more to being a feature... It could be useful to use GPS data to position objects/images in 3D space. I'm not sure how this would work relative to virtual space as well as imaginary spaces such as the city of Zarz on the planet Xeomopline. Perhaps there might be a variable preceding the lat/long values that are used to provide an origin, scale, or to suggest if the object is within a set of visible ranges from other UPS (Universal Positioning System) coordinates. How exactly does one use GPS in space or on Jupiter?

Autodesk has gobbled up yet another company. This time the makers of the Arnold renderer, Solid Angle. Here's an interview delving into the decision to sell to Autodesk (the owner and originator of the Arnold renderer) courtesy of MIke Seymour at FXguide: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/autodesk-buys-arnold-2/ Two primary takeaways: - This will be the first time Autodesk has an in house high end renderer (other renderers have been licensed. Ex: Mental Ray/NVidia) - According to the article "Rendering is certainly one of the hottest areas in 3D right now". This no doubt ties in with Autodesk's longer term plans for render in the cloud. Recent deals like the one with Google and ZYNC underscore this.

It'll take a bit of imagination to consider the potential but the following video tutorial by Greg Smith demonstrates some useful workflow in OpenToonz. It can help to think of images rendered in A:M in the place of the hill he draws and the ball he animates. Of specific interest is the path he draws that is then used to direct the animation. This same basic workflow can be accomplished in A:M but it can help to prototype that workflow elsewhere and then tailor the workflow to fit more perfectly in A:M. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIIMh2PVc2A This should also demonstrate how a program such as OpenToonz can be quickly used to storyboard and plan projects that will be modeled, textured, animated and lit in A:M.

Times are certainly a-changing... It's worth noting that by at least one account, not long ago Toonz would set you back about $30,000 per seat. (or rented seats on a monthly basis for about $600 each as of Toonz 5.0 timeframe) Now here we are in 2016 with OpenToonz available for free. OpenToonz now has nightly builds for Windows and Mac as well as access to source (not sure about Linux). This can be useful if staring at something that doesn't appear to be working but has been tagged for fixing. It may have been fixed but is just awaiting the next official release. Someone with a talent for programming can also examine the source to shed more light on outstanding issues. For those with the time and interest, I recommend the current nightly build over the initial v1 release and the subsequent v1.01 update as it replaces a lot of code that was set aside by Studio Ghibli, which formed the majority of the initial release of OpenToonz. The reason for this is that Ghibli worked mainly from paper with a team of animators, inkers/painters that each had customized 'rooms' to work in that didn't distract them from their task at hand. The elements not needed were still in the code but hidden. Now the initial set of those features has been replaced. So creating and storing customized rooms can easily be accomplished from within the OpenToonz interface. Don't like the general layout or workflow... change it. If previously installed you'll need to uninstall OpenToonz first before installing the nightly build. Installing over the top of previous setup will likely not work. There have been three releases to date (if you count the nightly builds as one): https://github.com/opentoonz/opentoonz/releases

This is something I'd like to delve into at some point but I currently don't have enough data to present. The realities of filmmaking are increasingly making it difficult for everything to pour out of a renderer fully formed. This relates to some of the recent changes at Disney where the Hyperion renderer was built from scratch in short order which was then used in 'Big Hero Six', 'Zootopia', etc. rather than Renderman, etc. What this makes me wonder about even more is how the dynamics work between PIXAR and DISNEY... not to mention other production houses (Dreamworks, Weta, etc.) who are in competition (or riding the coat tails of) the Disney juggernaut. Specifically with Disney/PIXAR though is the question about Research and Development and how elements of one inform those of the other. And with Disney's purchase of Lucas Films a ton of technology and experience has rolled in house that wasn't accessible before. And... we haven't even seen the next wave of films that propose to advance filmmaking more such as the next four Avatar movies... and how they've taken root with Disney too (in a way taking on the place of Lucas Film's Star Tours attraction after all that moved under the Disney umbrella). I don't know enough at this point to know what I don't know. PIXAR is certainly trying to project that they are fully invested in Game A. I've seen relatively little behind the scenes evidence released to suggest the contrary. I do think they shifted some significant focus near the release of 'Wall-e' and this was accented by their (rather odd IMO) decision to include live action characters in that movie. Their need to connect the audience with reality appears to have compelled them into Game B territory in order to make the common-humanity-gone-to-excess throughline of the story work. This sounds to me like you are attempting to be in Game B environment but with a Game A approach. Game B by it's very nature needs to be modular, scalable... open. Game A is, by comparison, modular, scaleable and (mostly) closed. What's the difference? I'd say mostly of inputs and outputs. The example of this in A:M would be that of textures. Textures certainly can be created in A:M and in fact they could all be created in A:M but that might be costly so A:M allows importing of external images for that purpose. Here then is a logical entry point in a Game A scenario. Textures of all kinds can be photographed, drawn, painted, created in almost any form for use as images in A:M's native environment. As is often the case... garbage in/garbage out... it's important to consider what foreign matter is being introduced into the ecosystem. The same can be said doubly (triply?) for meshes made in other programs as A:M is not optimized for use as a Game B platform. A slight caveat should be inserted at this point because A:M does work well with other programs but only as well as the differences between these programs inputs and outputs are understood. This is the same with every program. I like both Game A and Game B approaches. The one I tend to prefer is that which is currently (or optimally) working.

Whoa. Grandma needs to settle down and consider who is watching her! That's a very nice shot Simon. I like. There is always some finessing that can be done. Little things that might please an audience...even if only subconsciously... upon subsequent viewings. My thought would be to get some added emphasis on the bike to suggest weight. This might include any/all of the following: - A noticeable drop of the bike while the wheels either don't move or squash and stretch. I'm not sure if the bike is rigged for that. - A sharper movement at the very end where the bike drops would be nice and perhaps suggest the squash/stretch/impact even if it isn't there. In other words, the ride into the scene is nice and smooth.... as is the movement across the screen... as is the final landing... as is the stop. A little texture in the movement would aid in suggesting the reality and weight and forces at work. In reviewing the shot I can see some slight indication of this momentum shift but perhaps it could be exaggerated. Which leads me to... - Some anticipation and follow through on the part of Granny would be nice. For instance, Granny could be up just a bit more on the pegs of the bike (straighter) as she rides into the scene but then her knees bend down as she sits and lands. This movement would also assist in selling the element of weight that squash and stretch is often used for. I realize that this might require drawing Granny again... very not good... so the standing vs sitting as she rides in may not be an option. - Either some slight movement up/down or right/left to suggest Granny is controlling/resisting the bike's movement. Aside: What you are doing here relates to why I got into 3D in the first place. I knew it was going to be difficult if not impossible to draw things like motorcyles over and over again from altering views and 3D modeling and animation could most definitely do that. Bottom line: The point of the shot appears to be clear. Grandma has arrived at her destination. Well done!

The current forum banner (over the Latest Info forum) is a single frame from a 500 frame sequence rendered straight out of A:M with one exception; it was resized (to a lower resolution) in an image utility called Irfanview. Where I have the option I prefer to use images rendered directly out of A:M; this is something of a 'purist' view. I would relate this to what most would assume is the approach of PIXAR which is to forego any compositing, post production etc.; what comes directly out of the renderer is what will be used. This is the A game of animation. The ideal environment in which to produce. The B game is what most of us tend to use if for no other reason than practicality. I'll call it the new-Disney approach. It might better be called the Hollywood approach or Summer Blockbuster... everyone is doing it. And we enjoy this power of tweaking and adjusting, cropping and recoloring, recombining and generally re-purposing our resources. This is what I tend to use other programs for; initial setup (if needed) and finalizing for presentation. The attached is a rendering out of the newly open sourced program OpenToonz. Technically, it could be called a re-rendering. All of the imagery is still that which was rendered directly out of A:M but only five frames are used from the 500 frame sequence. The closed egg being exposed for the entire duration of the animation (almost as if it was a background) with the other four images superimposed. There are a few settings that didn't get adjusted correctly; the width of the camera's view is slightly too wide. I re-rendered in OpenToonz with a slightly smaller camera view to get all of the banner into view. The timing is not optimized; frames were exposed where I thought they might work and for as long as I thought necessary to be viewed. No optimizations or post processing to smooth or ease in/out. No multiplane camera moves. No recoloring. No film grain. No bells. No whistles. Just the retiming of five images rendered out of Animation:Master in OpenToonz via it's exposure sheet. Certainly, this could have played out in another fashion; the various elements of font, egg, duck, and ground could have been rendered out separately and composited together. This can be a very useful approach if you know particular elements of a scene will change or need to be re-purposed. Perhaps the show might play again but this time with some other character/animal emerging from the egg. Perhaps the logo might change or fade in/out... and on and on and on. I am always in a constant state of conflict between A and B; rendering everything directly out of A:M versus tweaking everything in post. It's not one of those conflicts like warfare though. It's an effort to render better imagery and perhaps even learn. It's like animation itself; working from Pose A to Pose B seeking the perfect breakdown position that will yield the absolute best performance in support of our stories. out000 shrink 4.mov

I don't really need one of these but I WANT ONE. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pl7xM6atCQ I don't see an anticipated price yet. Sold only through resellers a this point. 96TB of capacity on the desktop up to 2600MB/s speeds RAID 5/6 Specifically designed for use with data from 4/5/6K cameras. For those with the need you can sign up to win a free one here: http://textseagate.com/nab/signup/

One example of a Pose that you would typically want ON by default is a Pose the contains the constraints that make the rig work. Ha! Now we've gone full circle. Yes, exactly. That was the source of great confusion with The Setup Machine all those many years ago which was my introduction to the underlying problem in the first place. I could not understand why folks would want to continually answer newbie questions about why a TSM rig wasn't working with the same answer over and over again, "Turn on the rig's constraint to turn the rig on first." Say what???