[Being Mattressy]

great stuff. Where'd you get that sound clip?

It's from "The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" - a witty sci fi series on the radio in the UK. The first and second series appeared in the mid/late seventies, but the third series (from which this snippet comes) was only made last year. It also appeared in book form and on the TV. There have been repeated plans to turn it into a movie, and as far as I'm aware it's actually going ahead this time.

 

For info about the radio series see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/hitchhikers/

For info about the TV series see:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/

 

Stuart

[Being Mattressy]

It's not often I get the time to sit down and actually use A:M - certainly nowhere near as often as I would like. However, recently I managed to cobble together this piece of silliness:

 

http://www.stuart.rogers.clara.co.uk/Mattress_sor3H_320.mov

[ QuickTime6 - 5.4MB. I'm sure I ticked the 'internet fast start' box when I built this file, but it doesn't seem to be doing this, so you'll have to wait until it loads. Ho hum.]

 

Strictly speaking it should be in the WIP section, as there's plenty more that needs to be done on it, but enough is enough - I've spent enough time on it and now want to get on with something else.

 

Stuart

[AM in Live Action--Comments?]

I highly reccommend the set.  . . .  I think anyone that wants to utilize A:M to it's fullest, or plans to use any live action and cg, needs to get this set.

I'll second that! This is a little gem that's worth every penny - as well as showing how to do live action work, it also gives a very good demonstration of compositing.

[List messages on the forum?]

I still get the list e-mail, but, whenever I want to post something I go to the forum.  Maybe that is what everyone else on the list is doing.

My replies via the mailing list don't appear to be getting to the forums either. This is a pain in the bum for me as I much prefer the mailing list approach - it means I can compose my replies off line (I pay for my dial up by the minute). It might be that this facility died when the list last went belly up, and that no one at Hash noticed.

[Best codec for simple animation?]

Mine is at 30 fps . . .

 

I am using VGA at 640X480 at the moment but for now I might use a lower resolution as I just want to show people the anim so they can crit it - however it is important that the animation details are clear.  I am borrowing web space and will probably have to keep file size right down...

As it's for criticism and not final production, I would say render at 320x240 and even, if the anim doesn't include extremely subtle motion, consider throwing away every other frame and running it at 15fps. Also, choose a highly compressed audio track - so long as it doesn't sound like fingernails on a chalkboard, I'm sure compressed 11kHz mono will be fine.

 

Stuart

[Render Times]

Basically I am thinking of getting a new machine and like the G5s but it seems their render times for the top range models are SLOWER than older Athlons…

 

G5 dual 2.5ghz 2.5gb RAM

 

Frame 98: 01:18

Frame 99: 01:13

Hmm... I replied to this via the mailing list, but it doesn't appear to have shown up.

 

Anyway, I've just checked out what my dual 2.5GHz G5 /w 1GB RAM does using A:M OSX revision 8. Frame 99 took 1:06 when A:M was hidden and 1:02 when it wasn't. CPU load was about 105%.

 

Given that you've pointed so many other people to what I wrote about Using Dual Processors, would it be rude of me to point it out to you too?

 

Stuart

[AM STARTUP F CD-Rom]

Just Purchased AM 2004  cant understand y you must insert the AM CD into drive. to start the program, will this damage the CD, after countless usage.

It won't damage your CD any more than an audio CD will get damaged each time you play one of those. The A:M CD is only accessed when A:M starts up - it's not being read all the time. The most likely damage is if you mishandle it transferring it from drive to case. If you have a spare optical drive, leave it in there. It's a right pain in the bum if you only have one optical drive, but you have to admit it's an effective copy protection mechanism. That said, I would prefer A:M to include a USB dongle (most people have a spare USB socket somewhere), even if it means a few dollars on the regular price. The cost could be offset by only providing the software as a download instead of a CD. I'm starting to babble, so I'll stop there...

 

Stuart

[Question regarding Models for Purchase.]

good points.  I had assumed as much when I first started this thread, but now that I'm building a more realistic model while thinking about how he'd morph.. Its confirming what I thought.  Its not impossible, just a lot more work for a little payoff.  In fact I think that a less detailed model might be far superior in the long run and much more flexible.

This is pretty much the level of detail I assumed you meant when you first proposed this project. I agree that a little less detail will probably do no harm and, as you suggest, be more animatable in the long run. It's all very well giving plenty of detail to, say, the stomach area, but how many animations do you see with semi naked men? Don't go overboard with detail that no one's likely to use. I would happily opt for a less detailed but easily animatable & morphable body.

[TSM2 Release Official Announcement]

The Setup Machine 2 for Animation:Master is now available for download from the Anzovin Studio Online Store: ...

 

The Setup Machine 2 for A:M, downloadable version, is currently priced at $100 for new users. The Windows version is available now; a Mac OSX version is forthcoming.

Would you care to give an estimate for a release date for the OSX version? The *only* reason I haven't quite rid my home of the Wintel beast is that TSM for OSX isn't out yet!

[Has the mailing list gone down...?]

Has the mailing list gone down? I've not received anything for over 24 hours, and it seems awful cold and lonely out here...

 

Stuart