Rodney

Ouch. Looks like the v18m installers weren't copied into a v18 folder before they were replaced by v18n files. If the fix isn't in soon I can upload a temp file for you to install. I see v18m is also missing from this directory: ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/updates/windows/old/ Note that the one without the version designation *MAY BE* v18m. I'm checking that out now. Update: No that (unspecified one) isn't v18m... and it doesn't have a designation of which version it is.

In the meantime I'm still exploring v18n,,, things like the ability to apply snapshot/screenshot within a pose will definitely be useful. For those that were experiencing slow renders on certain frames v18n still addresses that issue.

I was going to add my video to your report but I see it relates to Bones/Rigging which isn't what I'm having issues with. I'll post the video here because if everyone else is seeing this it won't need a report... it'll be very obvious what isn't working. I am wondering if this is primarily a Win 10 thing. I'll ferret around and see if it doesn't have something to do with graphics settings. I reset A:M to the defaults after a clean install. I've attached a very rough screen capture of what I'm experiencing. Aside: This makes me glad I installed into a new directory (v18n) and still have v18m running properly. Edit: One thing I haven't yet done.... I should restart my computer to make sure I've cleared out all of the cobwebs. Update: No change after restart. I can confirm that v18m still works though so for now it's back to that. v18n troubleshooting.mp4

This may relate to a problem I'm seeing. When I select anything the focus doesn't stay with the selection. The first instance I ran into (should be repeatable) is to select a group of CPs and try to Right Click to name/rename the group. I can't right click unless very specifically targeting the edges of the selection. I'll post a video here. I'll assume at this point it may relate to WIn10 so folks may want to delay updating until confirmed. I'll post a video of what I'm seeing..

That's very odd. We should troubleshoot that because the 32bit release should work for you. While the primary reason would be so that you can use A:M with features not available via 64bit the real underlying reason is to make sure Steffen's hard work maintaining both releases isn't for naught. At the point where no one is using 32bit there's no reason to keep that going. Don't anyone panic though... there is lots of life still left in 32bit. For my part, I've never had any issues running 32bit and 64bit together on the same computer. Thanks for the confirmation.

Does that mean 32bit installs correctly for you David?

Same error/dialogue box here. Perhaps it is Windows 10 related? (Note that I tried installing in a variety of ways... to include a clean install in its own directory. I've never seen the classroom dialogue before so my first impression was that the installer was for schools etc. that run A:M on a distro'd network) Upon canceling the classroom server dialogue I get a license server cancellation error: Disclaimer: This is definitely not a showstopper for me personally as I run the 64bit release almost exclusively.

Jason, The 64bit installer works fine but with the 32bit installer I get a classroom server IP dialogue...

Here's what looks like a useful resource in the same general area of interest. (from the folks in the UK) http://www.lipreadingpractice.co.uk/ Here's one on lip reading/sync with rhythm from that same site: http://www.lipreadingpractice.co.uk/Lip-Reading-Exercises/Rhythm/

A fun part of the book is near the end where there are practice pages to test your lip reading skill. One joke (from 21 different jokes): What do you get when you cross a flea with a rabbit? Invisitext Answer: (Select and Scroll over) Bugs Bunny

I assume it has worked for some folks. Keep in mind that this is an old program. (the book has a 1994 publishing date). Its a simple volume at 97 pages. There is a sample video on youtube: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?t=69&v=CQ3L8Hcs8R0 I just looked up the site and they still sell the course. It'd set you back $45 (plus shipping) to find out if it will work for you! Here's their site: http://lipreading.com/ There are some other free lip reading videos out there on the internet that very likely should be explored before spending any cash. Where learning lipsync would probably pay off would be to assist with rigging the face for dialogue for use with fairly realistic characters. The standard open/close model being on the opposite side of the spectrum for cartoon characters. Added: All this makes me wonder if deaf people/lip readers would make better animators of dialogue. .

It may be worth noting that all three vowel shapes can generally be replaced by consonant shapes. For example: Blowing is similar to Pinchers Wide is a similar/exaggerated form of Lifters Smiling is a slightly more relaxed form of Teethy

Continuing...

I've been meaning to post a few examples from a book I picked up years ago at a Library book sale. The book, part of a series of lessons on learning how to lip read... with accompanying video... which was missing when I purchased BTW... echos what most animators have been taught about lipsync but adds a few descriptions to assist with categorization. Those categories include: Blowing Wide Smiling Sealers Pinchers Forwards Lip Biters Peekers Pushers Teethy Lifters In theory, all dialogue can be shoe-horned into one of these categories. This is perhaps something to consider when rigging a face to achieve articulation for dialogue... although they very likely won't cover the entirety of expressions used for exaggeration in animation *unless* considerable exaggeration is pre-built into the expression (i.e. extreme posing that will likely never be used). Note that these phoneme breakdowns are designed to be visual breakdowns of what is observed more than what is heard; thereby making the lessons more applicable to deaf and hearing disabled persons. Here's the first of the images on phoneme's from the book:

This is my kind of movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it. xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-RgquKVTPE

While we may be proud to see folks master all the ins, outs and technical arcana it's a sad day when folks stop asking questions. Folks love answering questions (and exploring areas they haven't explored before) here in the A:M Forum. So keep asking those questions!

We don't need to export a different file. Netrender uses both Project and Choreography files. Just save your Project or Chor as normal then open that file directly in Netrender. These are the same PRJ and CHO files we use to render with Animation:Master. If you cannot run a Render Slave we have two options (that immediately come to mind): - Use regular A:M render to render the files. (my personally preferred solution) - Troubleshoot to determine how to get Netrender fully operational on your particular setup (Linux/Wine).

I almost hesitated to post that system requirements stuff because it's not easily decipherable... Yes, keep in mind that Black Magic is first and foremost a maker of digital cameras and associated equipment. So the specs at the high end go more deeply into esoteric equipment than will apply to the average guy/gal. I believe the presence of the spec itself (in this case) means that *if* you have that particular equipment *then* it will need to conform to that (firmware) spec in order to operate optimally. As I don't have that equipment, other than operating a little slow at times due to limited RAM I haven't experienced any issues with Resolve. At times I do think that having a dedicated editing device with the roll balls etc. would be nice BUT THEN I remember that I don't really have a lot of footage to edit to begin with to make the purchase of special equipment worthwhile. One thing I like about Davinci Resolve is that it can be programmed to render out to multiple formats simultaneously (by adding to the render cue) which is quite nice. A workflow therefore might be to render out of A:M (or Netrender) to a targeted (optimal) resolution and then have Resolve color correct and reformat to other formats and styles. I cannot help but think of Yves Poissant when I see options to process image data in the various color spaces and specifically options to process in linear color space. I won't pretend that I know what to do with it all but I'm happy that I know Yves. It helps to know that others understand the more deeply technical stuff so that if I should ever need a more thorough understanding that knowledge can indeed be had and that once the knowledge is gained it can be (appropriately) applied.

I couldn't locate the previous topic on Davinci Resolve bSo... Black Magic has announced the release of Davinci Resolve from Beta testing. It is now available in free and paid versions. If you don't have a dedicated video editor this is well worth a look, especially as Black Magic also produces the compositing software Fusion (which is not a dedicated video editor) and integration between the two will surely continue as time goes on. The primary difference between the free and paid release ($995) is higher resolution capabilities used in professional studios. The free versions (of Davinci Resolve and Fusion) operate on Mac and PC while the full version works on Mac, PC and Linux. According to their site: Here's a quick run down of minimum requirements for smooth operation: Minimum system requirements for Mac Mac OS X 10.10.3 Yosemite 16 GB of system memory is recommended and 8 GB is the minimum supported Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 10.4.1 or later CUDA Driver version 7.0.36 NVIDIA Driver version – As required by your GPU RED Rocket-X Driver 2.1.19.0 and Firmware 1.3.19.7 or later RED Rocket Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later Minimum system requirements for Windows Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit with SP1 16 GB of system memory is recommended and 8 GB is the minimum supported Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 10.4.1 or later NVIDIA/AMD Driver version – As required by your GPU RED Rocket-X Driver 2.1.19.0 and Firmware 1.3.19.7 or later RED Rocket Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later Minimum system requirements for Linux CentOS 6.4 32 GB of system memory is recommended and 16 GB is the minimum supported Blackmagic Design Desktop Video version 10.4.1 or later NVIDIA/AMD Driver version – As required by your GPU RED Rocket-X Driver 2.1.19.0 and Firmware 1.3.19.7 or later RED Rocket Driver 1.4.36.0 and Firmware 1.1.17.3 or later

You can also model the entire thing using the font wizard to create the lettering. In that way you don't need to use an image. See attached model for example: Window Lettering.mdl

Radiosity is awesome but takes considerable time. If you just want to splash some color (ala psuedo-radiosity) there are faster ways to get that done. One way being to add a second image into the mix that 'radiates' the scene as desired (such as the original image blurred heavily and then placed back over the frame). Here's a quick proof of concept for quickly adding radiant color to nearby objects (floor, walls, etc.): *with apologies to Matt Bradbury whose image I grabbed from Yves's Radiosity thread. His original image is displayed on the left for comparison Edit: Perhaps starting with an image rendered with radiosity is cheating a bit so I need to find/render another image and start with that. fakerosity_comp1.mov

Hmmm... I did click on the link to make sure it worked and... it worked back then. Just now I re-edited the link to remove a doubleURL... and it works again. See if it doesn't work (now) on your end.

I don't recall seeing John Lasseter's Cal Arts video before. It's a fun little... at 5:25 minutes actually a rather lengthy... piece. xhttps://vimeo.com/86365423 There are many things that could be said of the short film but one is that... like everyone else who gets the itch to dive into animation... you've got to start somewhere. The prevalent thing on display in the short from my perspective is John's ability to imbue inanimate objects with character followed with a knack for putting those characters into a story with multiple emotional payoffs. Yet another is his extensive use of repetition. In this short... repetition is a major element handled masterfully.

IMO this will be your best upgrade (to run the 64bit version of A:M... as I understand it the 32bit version will max out of RAM at 4GB... which most operating systems and associated processes need all by themselves). In short, you really need all the RAM you can get. I run A:M on a Dell Inspiron desktop with Intel HD Integrated Graphics (running Win 10... very happy with that) and approx. 11.9 GB of useable RAM). A few days ago I experienced some odd graphics glitches on Win 10 that I hadn't seen before (and each time the problem signaled that I would soon have to restart A:M). I installed Intel's driver utility and it identified a proper driver update.... installed the recommended driver update... and haven't had the problem since. I would recommend running Intel's driver utility on any system you have in order to make sure you have the best/most current or most appropriate driver. I see no issues with your other specs but will defer to others with better understanding there. I can't speak to NVidia cards as I haven't used one of those in many (10 or more?) years. To answer your question of upgrading from v12... Yes, definitely worth it! Do undrstand that the file format changed at v13 to a more XML friendly formatting so you might want to lock your old files down on a read only format (CD ROM) before saving them in the new format. Newer versions of A:M should identify the files as older version files and prompt for a decision to leave in old format or update to new BUT... it doesn't make sense to stay in the old format because you wouldn't be able to take advantage of newer features/formatting stored in the new file format. Hope that makes sense. Ask if you have any questions and folks will happily join in the conversation. Bottom line IMO: Keep the old files in a safe place and update the ones you want to use to the new format as you move forward.

Great show Robert. That was a lot of fun! Congratulations to everyone.