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

It works! Thank you! :-)

Hi guys! I forgot how to move full branch of bones in a bones mode? (like if you would like to place all bones in left arm move 10 inches downwards) I really hope someone could help me. Thank you in advance :-) Dusan

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?

TURN ON DRAW PARTICLES and HAIR!!!! Of course! I had those off by default... Didn't know they are related with Flocking. THANK YOU! (unfortunately in a meantime I already spent entire night animating crowd of 20 characters by the hand... :-( )

Thank you Nancy! I used exactly the same steps as you did. (except I was using my own model instead of bird). I did get some (limited) success using flocking in v16, but no luck with v15.

I'm trying to use flocking system in v 15, but it doesn't work. Can please someone check if it works on his computer before I report the bug... Thank you...

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.