Glob Studios

Thanks, Rob! I actually figured it out. I had forgotten that flat-shaded surfaces don't receive ray-traced shadows. I had to change my sun to a klieg light and set it up for z-buffer shadows. -Vance

I am having some trouble trying to get this working. When I make the ground not be flat shaded, it receives shadows fine (from a key light and a sun), but the color of the projection is off. When I make the ground be flat shaded, it does not receive shadows, even though "receive shadows" is enabled in its properties. Any hints? Thanks! -Vance

Hi Jason, thanks for all the good work! I wanted to let you know, I'm getting an HTTP 500 Internal Server Error when I try to search the forums, either from the quick search or the advanced search. I don't get an error when I search members or help. Also, every time I try to push a "Like This" button on a post, it tells me "You have reached your quota of positive votes for the day", even though I've never done one successfully. Neither of these is critical, but I thought you'd want to know about them so you can put them on your list. -Vance

Thanks Steve!

Thanks Rob!

I'm doing something a bit different with A:M. I've filmed an actress in front of a green screen, and I'm compositing her into scenes created in A:M. This is the current state of a short prologue to the story. These are videos for the music of the band Gekko Projekt, but the idea is to make them more like a short film telling a story than like a traditional MTV video. I'd love to hear any comments or suggestions you might have. Here's the link. I don't want to go public with it yet, so I've set a password, which is "drpepper" (without the quotes). https://vimeo.com/99576675 -Vance

On #1, it was already my plan to add the spaceship. The camera path is intended to show the spaceship alternately from the right and the left side of the ship. I just wanted to get the environment nailed down first. #2, I would never have thought of, but it's a great idea! Thanks! BTW, I found it very useful to do some adjustment outside of A:M. I added a filter to increase saturation and another to anti-alias the frames. The latter gave it the smooth look.

Thanks, Simon! Having Saturn turn is a good idea, though the NASA videos are long time lapse sequences that exaggerate the motion. But having the clouds move on Saturn, like they would on Earth seems like a good idea. Titan has an orange haze atmosphere lower down, which effectively masks surface features. -Vance

Thanks, Rob; those are good suggestions! -Vance

This is a fairly simple sequence approaching Titan (moon of Saturn). I'm trying to put together some video to go with songs on the prog rock band Gekko Projekt's upcoming CD. Many of the songs involve a science fiction story about being marooned on Titan. Any comments are welcome and appreciated! Titan Test #1 -Vance

Imagination Technologies has come out with a couple of real-time raytrace graphics cards including the Caustic R2500. They are a bit expensive at the moment, but I expect they will come down over time. Is there any interest at Hash in adding support for these in the future? It would provide a great capability for previewing animations. You can read about them here: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/she...y-tracing-card/ -Vance

Congratulations on getting V17 out! Any chance of getting a summary of what's new in V17? -Vance

I was recommending to a buddy of mine that he should add motion blur to an animation he had done. It's really easy to do in A:M, but more work in the funky setup he uses. He wanted to understand the benefit, so I did this short demonstration video, which you can see at the link below. Enjoy! High Def Motion Blur Demonstration Video -Vance

My plan is just to hide the glass while I'm working, and then to unhide it for the final render. But I agree that it would be good to get to the bottom of what's going on and figure out how to make it happen (when you want it to) and how to avoid it. -Vance