[What does it cost to.........?]

I'd also point you to the Graphic Artists Guild http://www.gag.org/

They publish the "Pricing and Ethical Guidelines" book (updated fairly often) that details current going rates for everything from layout to animation to , well pretty much anything in regards to the visual arts in the commercial sense.

[Asset Management solutions]

Jumping in on this thread somewhat late (What did he mean, slow of mind?)

 

Awhile ago when I worked at a game company we took a long hard look at Alien Brain.

 

The good:

Well thought out and well designed system

Their Marketing manager at the time was really named Mr. Peacock

and the whole crew I talked to at GDC was very friendly and receptive- they seemed genuinely keen to get AB working for our particular situation.

 

The bad:

As noted elsewhere in this thread, the per-client licensing can be steep for the small studio (This was the main reason at the time that we did not go with them).

 

The most powerful features derived from its integrated support with various 3d apps. By that I mean Max, Softimage, and Maya, though they seemed receptive to AM (If enough people requested it). Out of the box though (and this is several versions ago, keep in mind) it didn't provinde the AM pipeline much more functionality than a VSS or even just a straight SQL database with BLOBs was to give us.

I will say if you _could_ easily integrate AB with AM, it's a pretty powerful combo.

 

My take on all this though is that some of the sol'ns brought up above are the way to go- an open source solution built with AM in mind would be fantastic, and could be a big plus to get more AM out into the world.

If anyone chooses to undertake this, please keep us informed. Most AM productions seem to happen in a virtual studio environment, this could be the next must-have for us AM users.

[What inspires you?]

Well, like for most people it's probably a complex batch of threads that twisted together to make the animation nut I am today

 

The several things that got me the most fired up:

 

The first was the early days of the movie channels and the National Film Board of Canada. Back in the day (Late 70's-early 80's) when cable tv was newfangled, and before HBO TMC et. al. realized you could just pack it with commercials, there used to be these 'spaces' between movies (since few movies are exact multiples of 30 minutes in length). They used to fill these with whatever short films they could find, and the NFBoC was helping generate quite a lot of them. Every day there was this dose of brilliant, weird, cool animation on my TV. I actually watched for the shorts and went outside to play when the movies started.

 

One short in particular came in two parts called "Making it Move". Part 1 had the lone animator(!) concepting, storyboarding, painting cels- the whole deal. The time-lapse sequence of him doing the final cells is still vivid in my mind, as the huge stack of drawings shrinks and the pile of cels grows. Part 2 had the final animation (lasted something like 3-4 minutes and was kind of abstract Science Fictional) that resulted from the efforts of part 1. It was the behind the scenes start-to-finish look at how this stuff acutally got made, I think, that fired my imagination to the possibilities. There was something that I could do, I felt.

 

The other big thing for me was the movie Heavy Metal, perhaps not so much for the content itself(which I personally still enjoy, for more than the obvious reasons ) as the example that feature animation was big enough to encompass more than just talking animals and musical numbers. I suppose to those who grew up after that movie might have trouble understanding the landmark in animation many of my friends and I felt it was. Just think of a time when animation pretty exclusively equalled Bambi + Bugs Bunny and not much else., and your career path as an animator (as far as a young boy looking at this could tell) was Student--Fat Albert--Disney Talking Animals and Musical Numbers. No independent comics as we know them today(Elfquest dates from around that era, but it was a mighty uphill battle for them in those days), no internet films, I believe even Spike and Mikes was not yet to be(though very soon to happen).

 

(yes, I know now that there was quite a bit of independent stuff going around, but you never saw it in a small Southwestern town in those days, even with cable television).

 

My first animations were flipbooks, my first CGI was done on a TRS-80 model 1 (MicroMovie Rules!) in glorious ASCII vision.

 

 

 

Uh, I think that covers it. . . and now that I've marked my age, could some one of you help me find my liniment?

[Is a:m like maya?]

For modelling, not so much (Hash Splines are a unique creature), although many packages are implementing some spline-like modelling so there should be some carry over. Keep in mind that only about 10-20% of modelling is really about the software you use, most of what makes a good modeller good trancends the technology.

 

For Animating, now that Maya has gotten round to implementing many of the great features of AM such as Non-linear animation, overloading, etc. yes

 

For Rigging also something of a yes. They call their constraint types by different names, but there is some similarity in the functionality. I went to all all-day demo of Maya where they walked through a start-to-finish character project and noted that every constraint they applied had an equivalent type in AM.

 

The key thing is to always focus on the principles of what you are doing, rather than the specific tools you do it with. Principles are universal.

 

Hope it helps!

[Wings]

Well, the modelling itself shouldn't be too tricky, the big hurdle is going to be texturing.

 

The v11 hair system makes this pretty easy, but assuming you want to avoid beta software for the moment:

 

Keep your patch density somewhat high through the main body of the wings. This will help the mapping carry off the feathered effect better.

 

For mapping, a combination of bump and displacement (usually at percentages like 1-4) can give the feathered softness.

 

To complete the effect, I would model some bigger feathers to go along the edges of the wings (I've tried transparency and cookie-cutter maps in the past, but found the wings with the extra splineage looked better- if you don't need a lot of detail, Cookie-cuts might be your solution).

 

Don't neglect the area where the wing joins the body- it will make the difference between believable and just stuck on.

 

Traditionally, Swan wings seem to be the standard reference, but check out other varieties too- birds have some amazing shapes going for them.

 

Hope it helps!

[I'm thinking about Buying AM...]

Output formats- Quicktime, Targa sequences, AVI

TV Res- Sure thing

TV 'Quality'- that's up to you

Other apps: As far as editing/compositing AM has a pretty good basic set of tools that seems to serve well for the majority of my needs. I do also use Premiere for editing though, but that's just because it's a workflow I'm used to. I am getting more into compositing though and expect to be adding AE or similar soon. I work mainly on the modelling and game/web side- your needs in video are going to be a bit different.

 

The only other app I would say you would _need_ is a good paint program (I use PaintShop pro, but have been equally happy with Photoshop in the past)

for doing your texure maps.

 

One of the things I've liked about AM is that it has a broad and flexible toolset that can handle all the major areas. I'd say only pick up add'l apps if you have specific needs.

 

Hope it helps

[Am for me]

Welcome Welcome.

Since it seems to be a topic of discussion lately, and you seem like a perfect person to answer this:

As a new user, what else would you _like_ to have/see in AM?

Models? More Tutorials? A 'Make Cool Scene' button?

 

Asking mainly out of personal curiosity, but getting these things up here might help the community as a whole.

[Call for User Testimonials]

When I started in 3d I was blocky, bald and suffered from Gimbal Lock. Now my surfaces are smooth, I have hair in places where I never thought to, and can twist in the most amazing ways without unsightly deformations! Thanks Hash!

[V11 Stability- OK to start a lengthy project yet?]

Thanks all. Fortunately I have two models to complete on this project, one of which doesn't require hair or any other new v11 things at all. I'll start with that one and make a few v11 experiments. . . mwahahaha!

[V11 Stability- OK to start a lengthy project yet?]

Hey all,

 

For starters, I haven't touched v11 yet.

 

I am planning my next project and wanted to know if you think the Beta is at a point where I could consider investing a lot of time in a strictly v-11 project, or if I should wait a couple more revs (This is to be a production project, not a personal one). The one concept I have in mind would make heavy use of Hair, but otherwise is a pretty standard modelling/rigging project.

 

I expect between my start time and completion time, v11 may get out of Beta. I guess I'm really asking if it's too soon to start a 'big' project in v11 yet.

 

If the consensus is to wait (it is Beta after all), I have another project I can do in the meantime, but I'm really itching to do something with that groovy hair

 

Thanks in advance!