Rodney

Thanks for that Elm, very insightful. I was playing with animated displacement a few months ago in order to try to get an effect like that seen in PIXAR's 'Inside Out' which they call 'effervescence' or something like that. The main difference being that I was trying to add it to the end of strands of particle hair. Your method might aid in achieving that effect.

For those likely to use Adobe Premiere for their video editing, Frame.io is becoming an even more useful project management tool. Here's an overview of recent improvements to Frame.io: https://frame.io/premiere Disclaimer: I have not yet attempted to use Premiere with Frame.io. Mostly because I don't currently have any content/projects ideal for testing in that environment.

On the very odd chance... Make sure the images don't have .jpeg as the extension. The extension should be .jpg I can't even recall if Macs even use extensions but I figure they have to be able to handle them when encountered and some folks manually type the extensions which if incorrect will not open in many programs. Wow. I hope you've discovered some magical optimization that can be exploited! Glad to hear you are animating (even if in over your head). Living the dream!

Decided to explore your eye rig and incorporate it into a character (of sorts). For some reason (probably because I've been watching the movie) the eyes made me think of Maz Kanata from 'Star Wars: The Force Awakens'. I make no claim as to accuracy here as I am modeling from memory but hey... I'm amazed to see that at this stage the eye rig still works and I didn't break anything. I was happy to see that the rig automagically squetched both eyes after importing two eyes into a new model. I thought for sure that wasn't going to work. Thanks for sharing the rig Kevin!

Hi Adamn, You likely want to visit the Hitfilm forum to get instructions on resolving issues with their software. The first thing I'd do is start Hitfilm with the Shift key pressed down as that may (or may not) start the program with default settings. Animation:Master works this way. As for the update you might acknowledge the initial upgrade but then cancel after that to get back to your screen. Other than that I'm not sure. Another option would be to reinstall from scratch. That way you know you've got the basic settings set and can adjust from that.

TED Talks presents a talk with PIXAR's Danielle Feinberg on Lighting in PIXAR films. Well worth the watch (especially for those that had their dreams of being artists crushed as young children): LINK Note that is you see a download link that allows subtitles don't opt for the subtitles as the download appears to fail. Download without subtitles instead or simply stream the playback.

Hi Stephane, Good to see you again. The process is the same as before. You have to contact Hash Inc. to transfer licenses. Send an email to Jason at hash dot com and he can get you set up.

More warrior-type found object. Predator by takeby over at Thingiverse: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1094038 Brush in the background courtesy of the vine generator posted by Ruscular. This is not unlike putting together and painting one of those plastic model-kits. The skulls on his belt definitely need to be white...

A quick and odd lighting setup using another STL file from Thingiverse: (Here's the creator's post)

Anyone tried out the newly released Vivaldi 1.0 browser? It has some nice features: https://vivaldi.com/features/ I've just now downloaded but not spend much time looking into it. So far so good. The webpanels and moving back and forth in time should be quite useful.

I've been testing out various aspects of A:M that I don't use much and this is one. It's interesting that Chuck Gram mentioned 'Arnold' in another topic and I was wondering if he was watching what I was rendering while he posted! Here's a random STL file downloaded from Thingverse (I had visited there due to Paul Harris's post about 3D printing an animatronic eye setup). The background image (and environment map) is also a random image from the internet. It's from an abandoned theme park (one of Disney's as I recall). Initial chrome Material is from the A:M Library. About the only things that are my own are the lighting and the red eyes which is a little lathed shape duplicated in the Chor and placed over the eye's of the STL terminator. I like that the red reflects on the chrome that way. The facets from the STL are very obvious in the render. I'll have to look into ways to reduce this. One of the things I was re-testing was the use of Composites instead of directly using images (for environment maps and rotoscopes). In this way additional effects can be added such as Blur, etc. as seen in the background. To grab the composite image just select it from the dropdown menu where you normally grab the regular image. I'm guessing I should have added a bit of post processing ala filmgrain to blend the background a bit more and give it all a film look. I'm thinking of making this a series of posts with 'found objects' from the internet but modified and rendered in A:M. Feel free to join in and post a few of your findings as well.

Here's a site that let you play back youtube video frame by frame and at various speeds. I'm guessing there are some other sites that do the same or similar but this one caught my attention. I'll link with a video to one of Robert Holmen's animations because it's well worth reviewing. Note that linking into the video with frame and timing set is by the parameters added at the end of the link. In this case Time (t) and Speed (s) added as &t=0&s=0.25. http://rowvid.com/?v=pDqKABYtDB0&t=0&s=0.25

Thanks! Great model. Here's your baby buggy trying to escape...

Here's a 45 minute documentary on the making of Zootopia. Well worth the watch! xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3pF9owYlRI Some take aways: - Research is important - ideas (stories, plots, characters, etc.) continuously change - It's good to continuously reinvent and accept feedback before the actual production process begins. Not stated but apparent is that production is the execution of those firmed up ideas. Lots more than that but... watch the documentary and see for yourself. I think it should be readily apparent that the major changes made to the movie resulted in a much better movie.

That may be the case and even if so can be quite useful. Someone looking at a screen (or text file) might logically relate CPs #45 and #47 together but might not consider CPs #45 and #65536 as related. Again, we'd have to look at what the code of the Renumber plugin actually produces. Easy enough to test. Interestingly, we appear to be speaking of a class of users that actually care about CPs assignments; which would appear to be programmers. It follows that Steffen might have produced such a thing primarily as a programming aid. The majority of users very likely don't care. A:M has a long history of shielding users from the arcane code that passes behind the scenes. For someone that just wants to dive in model and animate that's a good thing.

Thanks for the exploration of the Planet material. I was using it the other day and trying to make some sense of it myself. (not very successully!) Theoretically... This might be a little unrelated to your posting but the main thing I can think of is to make sure you give yourself enough scale on your model to take advantage of the Planet material. While you can scale the material to allow for smaller models at some point you run afoul of the resolution of your screen. Thanks again for the write up on specifics. Much appreciated. Added: If you don't have a video screen capture software like OpenBroadcast I highly recommend it (especially the studio version as it appears to be more fully featured). Not just because you can share what you have here but because there is surely coming a day when you want to remember what you learned with Planet material settings and find you've forgotten and must explore it all again.

I'll have to disagree with that but I don't know your reasons for forming that opinion. Let's assume we are in agreement but just looking at the same thing from different vantage points. The principle of primacy could be used to argue a 'first saved best reinstated'. But that would run up against the principle of recency where 'the most recent is more easily recalled' because it's what we have immediately at hand. In this scenario the master gets lost and is replaced by the new which may or may not be 'better' in the present light or situation.. At any rate, I can't subscribe to the underlying idea that any CP order is as good as another with perhaps one exception. That case might be in a perfect state where CPs are equal. In other words, it's the change (potential or realized) that makes the reference useful or necessary. To counter the idea from a different angle consider that the idea of ' one is just as good as another' would suggest no need for optimization. All orders being equal suggests nothing can be improved upon either. We all know this isn't the case. But optimization itself is variable (some orders being more appropriate than others) because what is optimal (well ordered) in one case will not be so in another case. The master model by itself doesn't provide anything particularly useful outside the closed system. It's when matched up against other models whose make up is different that we have opportunity for useful contrast and comparison. If the CP order of a (master) file is in a optimized state then it might be ideal but if not it may not have full title to that of mastery as of yet. In this we might have to consider from where we are taking our measurements that define mastery. I will assume that in A:M each CP is named and numbered in chronology. If CP number 17 is deleted, the next CP created is 17 but the next available number after the current count of CPs. (I've never checked so may be wrong here!). I must therefore assume that a heavily edited model has CP numbers all over the chart with respect to order and placement. A reordering of CP numbers then optimizes them based on some specific criteria (which I can only guess at). I must assume it's not from top to bottom of mesh. Nor is it from right to left. Although... importantly... once ordered, these numbers can be recalculated that way if necessary. This ordering can then be used to determine and project other efficiency. Without yet looking, I *think* the order (of renumbering CPs) is according to spline assignment and continuity. That would make sense to me. And this would be my exhibit A against the idea that 'any CP order is as good as another' in that I would think that CPs are best ordered when they align with spline assignment and continuity.

One purpose suggests itself to me but it's not for direct use but for reference. What I would imagine it could be used for is a comparison of one model to another. For instance, if a model is saved and then altered and saved again with a new file name those two models can then be compared and the change isolated via a difference check. Further, several comparisons could be ran to extract more useful information. For example: the comparison could be made both before and after the renumbering of CPs to firstly isolate the area that needs to be inspected (all other areas can then be set aside as trivial unless needed again). The renumbering process is executed and another comparison ran which identifies the CP order of change. Now we have the area of interest and the identity of CPs that remain unchanged and those that have changed. We can flag those that are unchanged as clean and those changed as dirty (or vice versa if the output direction of dataflow needs to change). Clean can be manipulated further without refinement while those dirty must be processed further with respect to the ideal topology (which may or may not be the original model that was saved). Then it's mostly a matter of assigning CPs to their most likely equivalent in another space (i.e. yet another topology or change) More practically speaking, renumbering of CPs seems to be a step one might take just prior to saving a (master) model that one wants to use as the exemplar; a model that is considered final and will never change. This is the equivalent of a read only file one that should be referenced but never altered. This exemplar is the model that is production ready and any change (in topology) from it will prove costly because that change will break something further down the food chain. As a best case scenario the change will just go along for the ride (and might not impact anything) but it sits in a hotspot waiting clandestinely for the opportunity to break things. This whole workflow would be of interesting usage in combination with versioning as iterative states of the same file could walk up and down the historical record showing the states of change (and even inbetweening them as necessary to create a form of resolution-independent view of prior states). This would be the ultimate undo because all changes could be dialed back to a former state. And moreso... the data can be used to project and identify potential/future states. A near equivalent of 'living data' that can aid the animator by maintaining/repairing and 'animating' itself.

This is the only topic I could find that appeared related to the subject (guys named Detbear and Robcat... and other animals) contemplating the renaming of CPs.: https://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44008&hl=renumber&do=findComment&comment=378740

I have a vague memory that the reordering had something to do with export to OBJ format. Something related to trying to resolve the issues leading up to five point patches and hooks but... slightly before that. I'd suggest looking into topics frequented by Malo and Nemyax related to that subject.

I've tried to use Nuke (non commercial) a few times and can't wrap my head around some of it's workflow. Fusion has a very simple organization to it. So simple in many ways that I've caught myself being frustrated a few times by the desire for something... anything... new. With Fusion that interest could very easily be covered by learning to use the LUA scripting language but my head currently doesn't want to go that route. Nuke is the up and comer because money is being poured into development and (IMO) The Foundry has a suite of other tools that studios can purchase, Katana being one of the buzz word programs. But I really really like Fusion's simplicity and yet it's ability to be as deep as necessary (through complex combination of nodes). The interface itself though is very straightforward. That is one of it's major strengths. William, With your knowledge of production you really should have Fusion in your arsenal. On the surface Nuke and Fusion are very similar but Nuke feels heavy (much like Adobe products often do... my primary critique of Adobe) but Fusion feels light as a feather in comparison but doesn't fall short in capabilities or capacity for throughput. And one of the more impressive aspects of that is how it's the same program that you get for free (minus the expensive plugins and an army of programmers at your beck and call ala Hollywood).

One of the most difficult aspects for new users of Fusion I believe to be the simple opening and saving/exporting of files. Initially this seems the opposite of intuitive. The user must find and open an Input Node in order to open an image/resource. This is strange territory to folks in the habit of using a simple File/Open approach. A simple conversion of images in Fusion however might be very straightforward: Input node Output node So a sequence of images in PNG would be fed into the input The input connects to the output node The output node specifies the format and filename to convert to (i.e. MOV) Want to add an effect, color correction, text, etc.? Insert that new node between the input and the output. The file/save structure is then reserved for collections of these nodal instructions. That way those instructions can easily be reused.

It won't be once you dive into it. The breakthrough for me was to realize that A:M's Compositor basically was the same thing just without the visual representation of nodal 'cubes'. I must admit that intially Fusion (and nodes) turned me off but that was because I had tried some node based software that wasn't very intuitive before and it soured me on the whole idea of nodes. I gritted my teeth and suffered through about one week's worth of video tutorials and emerged with an appreciation for nodal workflow. Not that I see that as better than other approaches but useful never the less. I know for a fact that you will be dangerous once you get a feel for the tools and look forward to that and ESPECIALLY what I think you'll be able to push toward A:M given the workflow. And that is really the prime word for nodes.... flow... those silly strings that connect nodes didn't appeal to me at all but when they can connect in a logical flow that I can trace from start to finish it helps in troubleshooting and in knowing exactly where to go to focus on what needs to be done. This can be much harder in an approach that doesn't have a good visual representation of how and where data is flowing. And lest someone think I'd recommend A:M gain 'nodes'... no I don't really think so. The PWS is an excellent equivalent. I have seen screenshots of Rasikrodi's bone tool software and that was nodal. If he ever brings that online that might gain some additional interest in nodes. I really don't have a thing for nodes though... just useful workflows. The nodes are a minor aspect of that and the more invisible the better. Object Orienting Program is basically nodal so there is that too and that is an important aspect of the programming of A:M and why it has such excellent workflow.

For users of Photoshop (and for use with A:M's current capability to render out to Photoshops PSD format you'll be pleased to note the PSD import works again in Fusion. This wasn't the case in the previous releases. Fusion handles the standard image formats that A:M users (bmp, tif, tga, exr, png and jpg) as well as movie formats (AVI and MOV). As Fusion is resolution independent it can also be used to convert to other formats and resolutions not supported by A:M. Fusion has no problem with importing of OBJ files, including model sequences, exported out of A:M although a knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of various model formats will help. Importing and Exporting is accomplished through the FBX import/export nodes, just make sure you change the file type to the appropriate one for import into A:M (OBJ, 3DS, etc). Fusion does well at exporting to OBJ format for import into A:M as well. I haven't explored other formats in depth as OBJ appeared to work best. Some of the modeling tools can make quick work of props and sets for use in A:M although the standard issues apply when using polygon models. I haven't explored a fully quad-based workflow in Fusion and have reservation about that approach because Fusion is technically not a 3D modeler so is not optimized for that. Still Fusion can create/export models of all kinds for use with A:M. Fusion can very likely access the additional channels that A:M renders with Open EXR format to include depth channels (which A:M doesn't support yet). This can be useful when rendering out to EXR and extending those files further for use elsewhere. Particles can easily be contained/constrained within the confines of a Area, Model or Text and one of the more useful effects/nodes is Fast Noise which can be used to create a sense of environmental depth in 2D or 3D space.

Here's a pretty nice demo of some water effects that should be familar to A:M users who have done work with water. As I say, most of these effects have one-to-one correspondence with similar approaches in A:M. The demo is from the movie 'Anonymous'. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOpN6C3ZrjY For those not familiar with node-based workflow the quickstart tutorials are recommended: xhttps://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/fusion/training