kikiriki

Hi Martin! I have just peeked to the Forum after a long, long time of absence and first thing I saw was your post! This is a great news for the community and I'm really curious what the future will bring for A:M. Looks like I will have to visit this forum more often! :-)

Congratulations to the winner. And thanks to all who voted for my work. And special thanks to Robert Holmen, who convinced me to participate. It's been nice to collaborate in the contest after all those years of absence and feeling the good vibes of this group once again. Stay positive!

Yes "had to" is a good term. I made quite a few projects with A:M over the years (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTyLlqDyrgo or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs_TTh2LG8s) And after investing so much time and energy into mastering 3D tool, it's not easy to switch to something else (because you know that you will need to invest another couple of years to master another 3D tool). A:M didn't made serious update for 10 years. And that's a stone age in 3D industry. If A:M wouldn't be so "closed" and would allow us to export our work to external renderer (or import models from other applications) then I would gladly use A:M as my main tool (around it I would use tools like Zbrush, Vray etc...). And I'm sure most of users (from once once flourishing community) would stay too... But the decision was that "A:M won't be plug-in for other 3D programs..." :-( Before I pay 79$, I would like to know that A:M works on my computer. Since version 13 doesn't, it could happen that v18 won't work from the same reason (AFAIK A:M code didn't change much all those years...) Thank you for your advice, but unfortunately it's not that easy. Theoretically it should work as you said- but it instancing works only on very simple models (like the ones from manuals and tutorials). If you use complex rigs with a lot of Shape Keys- it would make a mess... Jason, thank you very much! :-)

Hi guys! I was a long time A:M user. For my new project I (had to) switched to Blender. Blender is great in some aspects and really bad in others. I really miss the logic and workflow of A:M. I have coworkers and I simply cannot explain them how to make some things (like object instances) which was extremely easy in A:M but practically impossible in Blender. I cannot show them that- since my A:M version 13 doesn't work on my Windows 8 anymore (don't know why, since it worked couple of months ago when I tried. On the same system of course. Maybe some new Windows update has messed something... Of course I tried deinstalled and installed again... etc...). I can see there is a trial version of A:M. But: "Hash Inc. is only offering 1000 trials for Hash Animation:Master v.18.0 at the moment! This limit has been reached!" The button "Ask directly" doesn't work. How can I get the demo of new version of A:M? Has many things changed since v13? Thanks in advance! Dušan

Thank you guys! You are the best! It's a great feeling to know that I could always get help here in this forums.

Guys, you are the greatest! Thank you very much for all those informations. You gave me a lot of material to study, so I will probably need a couple of days before I could give you a feedback :-) Looks like a lot has happening since I don't checking forum regularly. If I understand this "Fake AO" works as a separate pass and we need an A:M composite or After Effects (or something like that) to merge AO effect with image? Thank you again!

(Duplicate Post?)

I'm playing with SSS in v17a and I'm having problems getting decent results. I didn't use SSS in A:M before (but I did use it in other 3D software). I found out that SSS doesn't work with "Global ambience colour". Can someone please confirm that? I would be very grateful if someone could send me a complete PRJ file with working SSS material that looks like skin or wax (of course model could be a simple ball or cube...). This would help me a lot! Maybe it would be good idea for one of the next contests, if the topic would be SSS materials. Now that A:M supports SSS materials, our community could use couple of good SSS materials. Thank you in advance! Dušan

Hi Guys! It's couple of minutes past midnight and I'm already in year 2012! Yeeeee... :-) ... and instead of partying, I'm writing you this message... which tells you a lot about my life... About Perk- some authorities in my home-town were decided, that Perk will be a mascot of our town. So they found someone to make a real model based on my sketches. (Some guy who are making this kind of puppets professionally has made it from silicone foam). He did a very good job. I saw the model for the first time just a minute before we shoot that picture on a Christmas parade, where Perk was scarring small children (as he suppose to :-)). I'm attaching another image and a render of the head which was a base for this model, so you can make comparison. (my model was made in A:M and exported to Zbrush, where I added pores, wrinkles and details.

All the best in 2012 to all Hashers! Dušan

Thank you soooo much for this! :-) I wasn't aware that A:M supports MDD, This opens so many possibilities. I haven't been so excited for years... really! Btw. Elm, you mentioned that you could do Hair in A:M and render it elsewhere. Can you please explain how? Oh... I forgot to say: Excelent work!!!

Great look and great storytelling! (It reminds me a little on great stop-motion film Cabaret Karne http://www.stopmotion.cat/cabaretkadne-en.html ) Congratulations! I'm sure it will be very successful on the festivals. Are you planning to transfer it to 35mm film?

Wow!!! Congratulations to all contributors! Very nicely done and very fun to watch.

This looks really promising!

Hi guys! I have been away for a while, so I need to catch up :-) I'm preparing a new short film and I will probably use A:M to make it. I'm still using good old v13 (I purchased v14 but I didn't really use it). Is there anything really new in v15? Has anything changed regarding rendering? This new film will be technically much simpler than Chicory 'n' Coffee (I will mostly use A:M for 2D animation- only couple of objects will be made in 3D) so I believe I could do it just fine with version 13... but anyway I would very appreciate first-hand experiences with new version. Dusan

Guys, thank you very much for this feedback! Really means a lot. I'm getting quite a few requests and since I can show this to only 25 YouTube friends at a time, I will need tu suspend you rights in a couple of days to give new people oportunity to see the film. Tommorow I'm flying to some Film Festival, so I won't be able to give the access to private screenings until the middle of the next week when I will return. Any chance of that getting onto one of the Oscar qualifying festivals? Well- Foyle Film Fest, where we will meet with Ken is a Oscar Qualifying festival :-) Those were complaints from the Animation Mentor students :-) They thought that the Disney way of animating (with all squash and stretch, anticipation etc...) is the only way. There are a lot of things that I would like to change- and of course the animation is far from perfect. But I'm quite happy with this "limited" style of animation and I'm planning to work in this style even more in the future. I think this is the only way that small studio can animate a good stories with a small budget and in a reasonable amount of time. I had a little trouble understanding the english, I might still need subtitles. I suppose the english pretty much loses the rhyme of the original poetry. If it's ever on DVD perhaps you can include an original language track? Really ?!? :-( Unfortunatelly my English is not good enough to judge... Is that very critical? I'm planning to release the DVD sometimes next year. It will have both versions (original Slovene with subtitles, and this new, synchronised version) and a lot of other things. I will probablly also add a Blue Ray disc in the package to show the film in HD.

My plan was to show the film on couple of Festivals and after that release the whole Film on YouTube to be available for everyone to watch. But film was quite successful at the festival and couple a days ago I even signed a contract with world distributor! Unfortunately that means that I'm not allowed to show my film on YouTube anytime soon. Since I'm getting quite a few requests from people who would like to see the film, I decided to make a compromise. YouTube have a special feature with which you can "hide" your film from public view and show it only to the invited ones (actually to 25 YouTube users listed as your "friends"). So if you really want to see the film, please: -make a YouTube account (if you don't have one already) -then go to my account ( www.youtube.com/user/bigbugbrain ) -and set me as a "friend". -After I will get your invitation to become "Friends" I will send you an invitation to see my film which will appear in "Inbox" of your YouTube account. P.S. One of the "side effects" of getting a world distributor was, that we Synchronised the Film to English. Of course the English version is not as good as Slovenian (not only that lip sync doesn't match perfectly, a lot of the softness and humor of the original version was lost during translation. But anyway- only couple of lucky bastards that actually speaks Slovene can enjoy the original- the others will probably like this English version much more). You can watch the English "Trailer" at:

Nothing specific yet. But it will probably be a Feature Animation. I have a drawer full of scripts and ideas for films which I would like to make. I have enough material for next couple of lives! :-) Most of the ideas are to complex for our small studio. I learned a lot on "Chicory"- and I'm not sure if I will be able to raise enough money to hire a capable and big crew to make this ideas alive. So I will probably spend another couple of months trying to make one of those ideas simple enough to be able to make it with small screw. I was very impressed by "Sita Sings Blues" or Films by "king of Indie Animation" Bill Plypton... Probably something like that. It will probablly be 2D animation.

Hi Guys! Friendly bunch as always! Thank you very much :-) And I need to give a specially BIG "THANKS" to Tony Iversen. He suggested this festival, he's intervened with the festival selector, when I missed a deadline, he was a great promoter of my film... heck... he was even in projection room when the film was screened! :-) So I guess with a support like that it would be strange if I wouldn't get that award! :-) So, Tony, Thank you once again. Chicory is quite successful in the Festival Circuit. So far it was screened on more than 40 festivals and won 9 awards (and one special jury mention). I even got 8(!) offers for distribution. Right now I'm finishing the negotiation with one of the biggest distributers of short films.. So this chapter will be soon over, so I need to concentrate on the next project!

Hi Rodney! Thank you for your interest! :-) For more informations about screenings of Chicory on the Festivals, please check my Website: www.bugbrain.com/chicory But generaly: at this moment "Chicory" is showing at the "Short Film Corner" in Cannes, in a day or two it will be screened at the San Joaquin Film Festival. Next month we will go to the Toronto (World Wide Short Film Fest) and right after that to the Edinbourgh Film Festival. Those are only the festivals that will screen the animation from 35mm film. At the same time a couple of smaller festivals (like "Asterfest" Macedonia, "festival 600" Ljubljana) will screen it from the DVD or BetaSP.

I’m happy that you like Iztok! I’m his big fan. I was sure there is so much lost in translation that no one would understand the message or care about this video! Iztok is indeed one of the Slovenian national treasures! I have really hard time to pick one of his songs for my animation. There are so many of them with great stories that could make you laugh and cry at the same time. Iztok is a very strange man. He sells enormous amounts of his CD without any publicity! And yet he refuses to appear on TV (I think that my video from FSF is the only video of him), he doesn't even have a poster for his concerts! And I could tell you about his concerts! He could easily fill the full stadium, but yet, he only has one small concert approx. once a month in some small pub. He doesn't allow more than 30 people on his concerts (he says that he cannot make a connection with more than 30 people) , so to be on his concert is like to win a lottery ticket! :-) I was happy to see one of his concerts and I can say that I never saw anything so good in all aspects! He's a great actor, a great musician and a top-notch stand-up comedian in one person. I'm really happy that during the process of working on Chicory, we became friends. We are already preparing a lot bigger project together... but psssst... that's a secret :-) P.S. And... I'm actually not so skinny as I'm on the video. Once or twice a year I go to a 20-days of fasting (I drink only 2dcl of fresh fruit juice a day and a lot of water) and in that time Im losing about 15kg. This is filmed right after my last fasting. :-) P.P.S. Nancy, did you see any posters for „Chicory“ at the Cinequest? I sent about 10 of them, but at the very last moment so I might be too late...

Yes, of course I meant it! :-) But I'm kind of superstitious so we won't mentioned this until it's happen (IF(!!!) it's happen) :-) Btw., I don't know if you saw the Introductory performance of Iztok Mlakar (author of the poem) before the opening of the film on my Website. Translation is not very good (my bad) and it doesn't quite catches the essence of his performance, but it's worth to see anyway (as far as I know this is the only time that Iztok Mlakar has been caught on the camera :-)) You could also see it on You tube:

Nancy, thank you very much for your exhaustive report :-) I really appreciate it! Thank you for noticing that! That was the main reason why I insisted in the original version! Slovenia is a very small country (only 2 million residents) and we have our own language, which is quite different from other Slavic languages. But this particular poem was made in specific Slovenian dialect, which is spoken only by a couple of thousand people near the Italian border. Mostly by the elders that lives in the willages near the border. (Many of Slovenians doesn't understand half of the words, so they need to read the English subtitles to understand it :-)). But sound of this language is so soft, and gentle and funny at the same time... I'm glad you could feel that even if you don't understand a word! It's one of those language which will be forgotten in a generation or two... it's really pity. Great! Though I expected much bigger audience in the festival like that! We have our own animation festival here in Ljubljana (Animateka) which is considered as a very small (and not very important) festival. But it attracts about 300 people on each screening. Yeea... I couldn't remember Ken's surname when I wrote the credits, so I wrote "Ken What's-his-name". But I'm sure he doesn't resent it! The main thing is that We know who he is! :-) Uf, yeah... animated war documentaries are very popular over the last couple of years (Like "Waltz with Bashir"). It's hard to compete with stories like that :-( Yes, I saw it too. It has won the "Aniboom.com" competition and it all around the Internet in it's full size for quite some time. I'm not sure about that specific festival (Cinequest) but this is against of the rules of most of the big festivals. Nancy, thank you again! P.S. Would you accept the award instead of me if I win? :-)

Thank you Vern, you are too kind... But If I recall correctly I'm not the first A:M at the front page of CGtalk. I can remember at least Joe Williamsen and of course Jeff Lew with his killer Bean (I also thik Jim Talbot got there...)

Yes, thank you guys for giving me a good push for a good start. I needed that good start, otherwise "Chicory" would be lost among all those great works there! Thanks again! :-) I don't know how yesterdays premiere went (Nancy were you there?), but suppose it was good since I allready got 3 invitations for the festivals in my E-mail this morning :-)