markw

Don't feel bad about life getting in the way of your good intentions Paul. It happens to us all and posting this explanation dose you credit. Like you we all try and fit animating in around the rest of our lives and it can often be next to impossible. I might be able to find some time to help with the links. Though I too don't have vast amounts of time to devote to this, I would like to see this project done. If those of us that submitted clips could all do one link each it shouldn't take too long (ah, those famous last words!) But that decision would be easier to make if we can see what you have in mind. If you would rather not post your ideas for linking the clips here on the forum could you zip them up and PM them to those of us that submitted things. They're such a varied bunch of clips, I'm amazed you can see a way of tying them all together at all!

Very interesting find Rodney. I couldn't help but wonder during the video how loud was the sound coming from the speaker? Is there a threshold below which this will not work, there then being insufficient energy in the sound wave?

Personally I'm not unhappy with any of them as such I suppose, but part of the problem, if it can really be called a problem, is that A:M doesn't seem to have ever had "a" logo or an associated typeface that is always and constantly used, as demonstrated in Tore's earlier post with six different examples. The app icon, as far as I know, has always been Thom, which is why I thought he could maybe play a more prominent part as A:M's logo elsewhere.

I like the font you used there Tore. This would be my take on it based on what you've done. (Hope you don't mind me using your image as a base Tore!)

Interesting, have you tried different browsers Tore? Firefox 31.0 loads the slideshow instantly for me. Chrome 36.0 takes about an ¼ of a second. Safari 6.1.5 takes about 1 second.

Hi Simon, I've yet to encounter this problem so take this suggestion with a pinch of salt... I wonder if this could not be fixed by using a text editor? Something like Text Wrangler where you can compare differences between to versions of a file. You could see how it should be in the last good save and then change the bad one in the relevant area to match. I have never tried this but it might be worth considering. It goes without saying you do this with COPY'S of the files in question!

I don't think there are any tutorials on actually using the 2008 rig I'm afraid. I'd say just dive in and start putting your model into different posses, not necessarily animating as such, but just to get familiar with the rig. Other rigs often used here are: The TSM2 Rig (but that can only be installed if you are using A:M on Windows.) The Squetch Rig LiteRig (I'm going to say here though, that for me I found this rig not to be so robust in use. But others may have faired better with it than me) I'm not sure how much animating experience you may have but I would highly recommend watching the following of Robcat's vid tutorials (see his signature in any of his posts to find them): Making Bones Stay In Place Keyframing Options Keyframing Basics Pose To Pose Basics (Note: the links to these vids seem to be broken at the moment but hopefully they will be fixed soon!)

Much as it pains me to say it as a Mac owner I would have to agree with Robert and say go with the Windows version. It's faster, all third party plugins work with it (I can't think of any Mac only ones!). I would also note that there are some issues with v18 playing nicely with Nvidia graphics cards for a few users on Windows. But in my experience the graphics problems are much worse on the Mac platform.

Top notch Tore! In a world where digital animations are all looking more and more Pixar like, your look and style is most welcome. In a way it is very "photo real", in that those really do look and move like stop motion puppets! And then there is your texturing and lighting. All quite superb! Bravo, encore, encore!

Personally I favour "cloning"! Why only have one model of any given character? Sometimes it's just easier to have different versions for different needs. I'm going to guess here that you are never going to have Papa Bear actually putting on or taking off clothes on screen, in one continuos shot, which is the only reason I can think of off hand for needing a complete body mesh under the clothing. It seems to me that this aspect of clothing in 3D animation, i.e. putting on and taking off, is something even large studios with dedicated modellers, riggers and animators would think twice about attempting without some cleaver cutting of the shot.

Ah, you caught me! In truth I couldn't decide completely about them either, they all have some merit I think. I like your idea of different skins for different areas in the forums, I hadn't thought of that. Some restraint might be necessary as to how many skins are used or things could just start to look messy and uncoordinated. And look, I've still not answered your question! So since you ask, for me Nexus and Executive were neck a neck, followed by Silver Night.

Can't say I like the Black Chrome. White lettering on black just wrecks your eyes after a short time reading it. What do others think of these; Nexus 1.4: http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/2968-nexus-v14/ Silver Night 1.6.5: http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/3736-silver-night/ Executive 1.1: http://community.invisionpower.com/files/file/3906-executive/

All looks very clean and shiny in here. Almost afraid to click on things! I keep looking round behind me to make sure I'm not leaving dirty foot marks.Better give this post a once over with a cloth too before posting it, don't want messy finger marks all over it. There that's better…

Let me say again this might not be the cause of the problem for you but its the only thing I can think of right now. As I say it was in issue for me some years back with the permissions for the actual Animation Master folder, in Applications, that contains A:M and it's related files. After opening the Info window, look under 'Sharing & Permissions' at the bottom of the window, they should all show as 'Read & Write' If you need to change any of the Privileges in the left hand column, first click the padlock icon to unlock the window, it will ask for your user/admin password. Now you can click on the privilege you need to alter to get a short list of alternatives and choose 'Read & Write'. Click on the padlock again when your done.

Hi Simon, Looks like you'r having several issues there. Chor Range: If you could post an example project with the exact steps you made leading up to the problem that might be helpful. FPS & Rotate (snap angle?): As I said in my post the other day, I've not had much time for using A:M lately but setting and keeping default project FPS and rotate snap angles have not been an issue I ever had. My only suggestion here might be to make sure the read/write permissions for the A:M folder itself are all set to Read&Write. I found that an issue some time back if I recall, around v16 ? Render To File Options Window: This I take to be the window that opens after clicking the 'Render To File' button in the toolbar, yes? To exit the panel after making the changes you want, click 'Apply' as you have been doing to save your changes and then click 'Cancel' to close the window. Yes I know, what the…?! This dose work and your settings will be saved. But I grant you it is very counter intuitive having to hit the Cancel button.

Funny. I too was wondering what ever happened to this only the other day. Is there any news?

Just noticed the Troll?, spinning the words Animation Master round, for the Special Topics forum Was that your handiwork Rodney!?

Thanks for the heads up Rodney! I managed to get a copy of HitFilm2 Express during their give-away promotion, so it will be interesting comparing the two editors in terms of feel and ease of use. Lightworks still being a Beta it might possibly be unfair to focus to much on technical abilities and comparisons between the two just yet. Looking at the release notes for the Mac version this is definitely a Beta version but still worth a tryout I think. I would note they say its only been tested on Mac OS 10.8 and 10.9

Shortcuts specific to animating you say... Well not so much keyboard shortcuts these but if you have a multi button mouse that you can "program" I have found setting buttons on that very helpful. First and for most for me was setting a mouse button to bring up the 'Rotate' manipulator on a selected bone, closely followed by another button to activate the general 'Turn' tool in a Chor. Were these the sort of things you had in mind? As a foot note sadly the makers of my mouse, a bluetooth Targus, no longer support it and a while back a System update broke something and now the programmed buttons only work if they are double clicked (used to be a single click) and at a specific speed! So if I may broaden your question Simon if any others here have recommendations for programmable mice that play nice with AM it might be good to hear those suggestions too.

Just watched the download version Mark. Great stuff! Must confess I've never seen the series but your version still made me laugh, especially the bit in the tank.

Yes, Hash.com never loads for me too on Safari. It loads just fine with Firefox and Chrome though.

Well I thought it was just us Mac users with NVIDIA cards suffering here. Tore you have my complete understanding about how frustrating this is getting. Like you Tore, A:M is my only app having NVIDIA graphics problems. Though it has been a problem for some time now on Macs, the v18 run of A:Ms are the worst for these graphics issues and crashing. I must say here though that Steffen is still trying to fix this but, at least on the Mac side, he is having to bug hunt "blind" as it were because his Mac doesn't use an NVIDIA card. Sadly all iMacs and MacBookPros do use them . Yes you can reopen threads marked as "Solved" in AM Reports. I've had to do this myself for similar reasons to you. Just give him as much info as you can, I've made some screen recordings as well for him to help him see what's happening. Hopefully he will get to the bottom of it soon and be able to fix it.

First impressions here is that there are a lot of spline continuity/direction errors in the body and clothes as well as unintended internal patches in the head/hair area. I think it's these that are giving A:M a hard time knowing how to C/F/A the model! The pants and shirt (surprisingly!) work when done separately but the body geometry is just a step to far for A:M to cope with.

First thought is this set if you have the Extras DVD; Extras DVD > ExtrasData > Unsorted > Other source > TeethAndTongue.zip Also the Dex and Lambrina models have quite realistic teeth. You could try terms like, "teeth", "mouth" etc... in Spotlight and see what that throws up on your Hard Drive

Same here! Still so much to learn