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Hash, Inc. - Animation:Master

rusty

*A:M User*
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Posts posted by rusty

    Challenge #1 to my current project

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Wow, thanks for the suggestions and thanks John for the experiments!!! You guys are awesome.

     

    Sorry I have not gotten back to any of you on this. First I need to get somclarificationon on those "energy balls"--I'm not sure exactly what she wants yet. However, Natalie's (this is the person who's hired me) been tied up with working and getting her camera'workingin and hasn't gotten back to me yet.

     

    Secondly, my heads been buried in the sand with my new notebook--Win8 took me by surprise; just figuring out how it worked and now, getting it working on my network (still can't access files)! Haven't even started on all the installs and license transfers.

     

    As I understand it, the energy balls are transparent looking (no color except perhaps in reflections) but you can't really see through them. There's a green glow 'around them'. The standard glow in A:M might do but initial tests show that it doesn't do too well as the balls go off into the distance... the size doesn't look right.

     

    Mirrors sounds like a great idea! Never thought of this nor tried it. Have to look into this one. Could solve a lot of problems (the standard glow would seemingly be a problem though as the balls would be reflected before the glow is applied).

     

    As soon as I know more I'll get back on this!

     

    Thanks big time!!

    Rusty

    Challenge #1 to my current project

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Hi!

     

    I need to build an 'infinite' (looking) grid or matrix of "energy balls". I've built a model of a matrix of spheres which is 22x22x22 and intend to stack these as needed to get the illusion. That one model alone contains 10,648 spheres.

     

    If I need to use an animation and decal this onto the spheres to get the energy effect I'm in big trouble. My options seem to be:

    a) decal 10,600 spheres separately or

    B) decal just the fronts of each layer (migOKe okay) or

    c) I can change the model and decal one sphere which I then proceed to copy/paste and constrain to each sphere bone in the deletingleating the spheres on the model) and export a model from the chor and stack those, or

    d) do the above and just position each sphere/export a mstacko stacck.

    All of the above is a lot of work! Does anyone see any other options?

     

    If I just need to apply an animated material to the spheres, I'm not sure of the outcome. If rather than applying the material to each sphere (too much work), I apply the material to a single group called 'AllSpheres', will it look the same from the camera and will it look good.

     

    It will probably be an animated material. Any alternatives, thoughts or ideas woulappreciatedy appriciated!

    Rusty

    Challenge #1 to my current project

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    I'm only charging this female comedian whose in England $200 to put together an intro to her prod cast (first time I ever charge and 'money' for animation work). I took this project mostly so I could track my time and see how my estimate stacked up to reality. Estimate 8 hours/work hours to date 21 and still much to do, LOL.

     

    One thing I need to create are 'energy balls'--a special effect--either an animated material or an animated decal (or both). Here's the description:

     

    Spheres which are clear energy (almost look watery to give a hint of reflection but mostly clear, yet you don't see THROUGH them to other spheres) and the halo around is an almost fluorescent green. I see this green a lot now when I'm watching sci-fi videos. If you saw Prometheus it shoa lotp alot. Effect like subtle shift of reflection to indicate activity as opposed to a static ball. It's important that they don't like like a solid object, or water, but just 'energy'.

     

    I have several ways to go but am looking for fresh alternatives and ideas.

     

    Thanks,

    Rusty

    A:M Demo Reel video...

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    I'm trying to persuade some people into getting A:M. I remember a video that demonstrated A:M; it gave an overview of the software, it showed how intuitive it was, showed how you can just drag/drop an image onto a model, showed examples of people's work.

     

    Does anyone know where this can be found?

     

    Thanks,

    Rusty

    Loosing pallet locations?

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    I also noticed that the pallet locations I took the time to arrange across my dual monitors went away!?! Anyone else seeing anything like this? Can't think of anything I did that might revert them? Weird! Thoughts?

     

    Rusty

     

    For any settings you need to close and reopen A:M... did A:M crash on you before you closed it regularly before?

     

    See you

    *Fuchur*

     

    Crash!!! No, lol, I haven't seen AM crash in a long time. No I set the locations and than closed and opened it half a dozen times. Really weird. I'll set them again and cross my fingers.

     

    rusty

    AM V17 Changes display settings

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    It's unfortunate that AM changes the windows display settings...V14 did not but I guess for some reason V17 has to? I thought AM set them back upon exiting but for some reason I stuck with out the 'transparency' of the window frames (whatever that is called). This should be a trivial point but I guess I've gotten spoiled. How do I change them back?

     

    Cheers,

    Rusty

    V15, V16, V17 queries...

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    * Hash's project and model files--specifically are they still text format

     

    Still text format and highly compatible.

    As you know any updates do bring about changes that can be effected backwardly.

    The last big format change was in v13 when the file format moved to XML compatible formatting.

     

    * Hash's library and especially the library files

     

    The only real change that I am aware of with libraries is that the Tutorials tab is no longer one of the Libraries tabs.

    This tab went away when the MS agent was retired from active duty circa v13.

     

    Thanks Rodney! I still use and maintain a big resource pool frontended but the library and I love the text format files... allows backend flexabiltity donig global changes.

     

    Rusty

    New features since V14c?

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    This is getting hard... okay so what I can remember is:

     

    Version 15 (2008) Liquids, Baked Surface (bake materials and decals to decals), Hash Animation:Master Realtime (HA:MR) integration (no longer available in newer versions)

    Version 16 (2011) 64-bit Version, Netrenderer-integration with Multicore-support, 3d connexion device support, OBJ-MDD-Animation-Export, overall performance-boost

    Version 17 (2012) Snap to Surface (Retopology-Tool), Animation:Master Answers, SSE4 instruction support, Create your own "Support"-page, Animate-Mode indicator, Improved Cloth-Simulation with Hi-res Simulation, STL-Export (with resolutionlevels up to 64 instead of formerly 16 polygones per patch)

     

    You can find tutorials for Snap To Surface on my website. (see below)

     

    There is very likely much much more that I am not aware of now...

     

    See you

    *Fuchur*

     

    Thank you Fuchur!! I'll search the forum and check out your tuts (and plug-ins).

     

    Rusty

    New features since V14c?

    in Animation:Master

    Posted

    Hi old frineds,

     

    This is Rusty and since the return of NetRender I'm upgrading from V14c. Can anyone pointout any new features added since 14c or links to same or links to tuts on these. I kind of remember some kind of water function being added to 15 but that's about it.

     

    Thanks for any help!

    Rusty

     

    PS: I'm sure most of you have seen my new book (paperback due out by end of year) and the book trailer I created in AM V14c:

    http://www.amazon.com/The-Spiral-Slayers-E.../dp/B008STATCO/

    Current Industry Animation Rates

    in Open Forum

    Posted

    TV commercial... games...web... SFX... 4K, 2K(HD), D1... rendered-non-rendered... character(s) or logo... LOTS of factors involved, Rusty. Most people charge by hour.

     

    So do I...but my rates haven't changed in many years. I charge $50 an hour unless they expect me to burn the mid-night oil for a rush and then it's $100 for over-time and I won't take projects that require more then a week of OT. A client wanted to know what the current screen second rate was and I have no idea. One job is an intro to a pod-cast...pretty simple really. Another is a 60 second book trailer...no details yet on this yet.

    Happy 4th of July!!!

    in General Announcements

    Posted

    Hi,

     

    I hope everyone has awesome 4th of July!

     

    As an aside, I started a small test of Google's AdWords creating a $50 campaign for my book trailer (

    ). I've asked four people I know who actually write and, create plays and films for a living to advise me on the trailer and am leaving some room for changes. This light weight campaign will run until Aug while a more aggressive and concentrated campaign will run two weeks before the release and two weeks after and this one could use a modified version of the trailer. If that makes sense.

     

    Have a great day!

     

    Rusty

    I need to freeze a sprite system...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Just going back to the highspeed fps idea... here's 80 frames of footage shot in your original PRJ at 960fps and slowed down to 24 fps

     

    UniverseH900.mov

     

    robcat:

     

    So what you did here is to bump the frame rate to 960fps then animate a camera moving through the sprite system in say a 100 frames (far less then a second), render then take the output (say tga files) and process them at 24fps... is this the idea?

     

    Thanks,

    Rusty

    I need to freeze a sprite system...

    in Work In Progress / Sweatbox

    Posted

    Very awesome stuff!! I see three different ways to go... probably rendering at high speed will be the ticket... if I can piece together what robcat did in universeH900.mov this will work. After that I just need to ace the effect (going from galaxy clusters to super clusters to... well see below image).

     

    Thanks so much!!

    Rusty

     

    cosmic_gc3_new.gif

    (view of 3D universe)

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