bubba

I have the strangest problem with Steffen's scripts: They will NOT run on my machine if I double click on it. Both the multiple master as well as net render just will not work - as is. BUT, if I open the script in the AppleScript Editor and click RUN the button, they work. Or if I re-name it and save it as an application it then works. Go figure? BTFOOM If you have six instances running at the same time, do you have six different projects open also?

I really think we need Steffen to chime in and give us a definitive answer - whether or not Mac users can (or will be able to) use more than one instance. And can we have a separate project open in each one.

Yes I have done the copy thing. But during the 16 Beta phase, Yoda64 wrote a small Applescript so that we Macintosh users would not have to make multiple copies of the entire A:M folder.

Another "Windows only" thing that used to work on the Macintosh is running more than one instance. But last time I tried it it would not work. Maybe related to this other issue.

Is this a Windows-only thing, because I cannot find any way to activate/deactivate multi-threading in the Macintosh version of 16.

I have heard about OpenGL, but what is OpenMP?

I think you might be right about the model moving slightly different. I don't have the body "bobbing and weaving" this time, so I might have "fallen of the cliff." Ok, I will go back to Quaternion (as long as you say I don't need to understand W, or how to adjust it .) Steffen also said that it did not make sense to delete the W curve (in a bug report) because it is created internally anyway. One thing I did notice in working with this particular animation was that sometimes the values in the CP Properties window did not match the values in the Object Properties panel. I would change one but the change would not be reflected in the other.

I saw them and wondered where the hell they came from. Then in the Reports section I saw you bug report. I have added a "monitor".

But this is the same model I used in my other animation and it did not have the leg wobble (straight walk.) Why should I go back. Three dimensional space seems easier to understand. Also, if the W driver is to make things smoother, do I really need that for my machine?

That seems to be a lot of extra steps. On a non-sound image sequence, all you have to do after importing the sequence is to and select "Save Animation As ..." and bingo, out pops a movie, very very quickly.

Once again into the valley rode the 600 .... If you go real slow, in the project chor window, there is a wobble in the upper leg bone of the left leg. I don't know what is causing it. I did covert all the quaternions to eulers, that I could find. Thanks Nancy. Warhawkturning6.mov LowerhalfWarhawk.prj

A:M defaults to use quaternions to compute orientation (rotation) as opposed to Euler angles (roll, pitch, yaw). You can change the default method tools/options/Action/Interpolation. Quaternions use 4 coefficients, versus 3 for eulers. You can choose to change the interpolation method of existing channels by right clicking on the rotate/convert driver/euler. It is easier for humans to understand euler angles, versus quaternion values. Quaternions are traditionally preferred for computation because they handle gimbal lock. The math to convert between quaternions and eulers can be googled. Quaternions are not easy to describe but here is something: Thanks Nancy. I remember the antenna and solar array engineers talking about quaternion equations and gimbal lock. I had no idea what they meant then, nor do I now. Can I change the preferences in Tools>Options>Action from Quaternion to Euler and delete the W curves?

I see what you mean. But when I change one parameter it seems to affect all and I have to go back through each step and look at it from each angle. Question: What is the "W" dimension? X,Y,Z defines three-dimensional space, so what is "W" space?

Sorry about not embedding the model. Here is number 5. I hope I have worked out all the bugs. I did change to zero-slope. I had it set on Linear. Warhawkturning5.mov LowerhalfWarhawk.prj

Here is a second try (after "listening" to all the advice.) For some reason, it took the longest time to get the steps coming out of the turn correct. I don't know what it was but the feet slipped and slid for many frames. Warhawkturning2.mov LowerhalfWarhawk.prj Thanks.

I have moved to the next stage of development of my Warhawk - making it turn. But I just can't seem to keep it from sliding or looking awkward. I sure could use some help. LowerhalfWarhawk.prj Warhawkturning1.mov Thanks.

Yes on the Mac thing. You are also correct that the size of the video does not affect the audio portion. Rendered out very, very quickly. Took some playing around in Quicktime Player (not Quicktime X) but I got it together.

With Netrender now standard with A:M (at least 2 instances) it "should" cut the render time in half for TARGA sequences. And A:M can be used on some other animation at the same time. I have not tried to render anything as .AVI. Can I do my short 6 second "film" on low resolution and still get "good" audio? EDIT: Ah, how do I render as .avi? That format does not show up when I open the Render to File". Is it Windows specific?

I converted one to a .doc file and posted it in this thread above. It is a reference file listing the sound file names and paths as well as size of the the sound clip and the frames it is assigned to. Earlier I was asking questions about rendering and whatnot and the majority of advisers said I should render out as TARGA then import the file back in and then render to MOVIE, as it will be much quicker the second time. If you do that, import a sequence and then "Save animation as ..." and use Quicktime to render the movie, there is no bloody sound. That is where I think this file comes in. I have tried to import the file but A:M says that there is no plugin for this type of file - maybe at some time in the past. I checked Steffen Gross's plugin web page but did not see anything. If this file is NOT for A:M then it should be compatible with Quicktime - but it is not.

I use QT Pro also to combine the sequences, but I am left without the sound. I have not tried rendering out just the sound yet.

Nancy, I just tried importing a tga sequence into a blank choreography as a rotoscope and it would not play!. I tired it again as a layer and everything was fine. I thought this issue was fixed in the release version of 16?

Here is mine. WarHawk13000.doc I noticed that it has the base name WarHawk13000 that I used as the file name. The actual .tgas only have WarHawk0000. Don't know if this is a coincidence or not. Do you think my question is getting enough exposure?

Those are fine suggestions Nancy. I am just wondering though why the file is created in the first place, if it cannot be used anywhere. Seems a waste of code. Yes I did have some problems with A:M rendering/compression but was shown how to access all the different compressors on my machine. I now use H.264 as my primary compression algorithm.

I opened the file .tga.sinfo in Text Wrangler and it is NOT a sound file. It is just some instructions pointing back to the actual files stored on my hard drive. Since I used two different sound files and staggered them in the choreography there is no one single sound file to open in Quicktime Pro. Creating a new choreography just to re-save the animation seems like an extra step. Once the sequence is imported in A:M has the option to "Save Animation As ..." Since all the frames are imported and the sound information file is "sequence name.tga.sinfo" I would think that it would be imported also. When I looked inside the .info file there were keys as to where in the timeline the sounds should be applied. So, why doesn't saving from the Image folder also save the audio?

I have a question about sound in TARGA sequences. After rendering a choreography as .tga there is one more file - .tga.sinfo. I am guessing that this is the sound information. When I import the sequences in Quicktime 7, only the video images are imported. If I import the sequences back into A:M and then "Save Animation As ..." and select .mov the sound again is left out. What do I need to do. Thanks.