John Bigboote

My interest is 'piqued'.

Sounds like a graphics card refresh issue. ALWAYS use latest versions...sometimes closing the model window and reopening refreshes things.

OH! I'm not in front of my Hash application right now so sorry. I think you need to right click 'within' the new model...meaning in the teal blue area...or on yours the royal blue area... Hope that works.

There is the Font Wizard. Make a new model. Right Clik in said new model, and go down to 'Wizards'...and the select 'Font Wizard'. That simple. You will then have a simple interface where you can type your text, select your font, and a few options for bevels. The Font Wizard works wonders MOST of the time. But because some fonts are crazy, and made by unknown sources, sometimes a little hand-tweeking is necessary to tweek the Font Wizards output. There is also the AI Wizard (Adobe Illustrator) and some folks prefer to layout their text in AI vectors...save in AI V8 format, and then import to 3D with the AI Wizard. Happy

Textures! These things rock! and I believe they are free: http://www.darksim.com/html/simbiont.html Also...when you mentioned 'AI' above...is that referring to 'ambience' as in camera ambience...or something else?

Drakheim was referring to speed increases in V14...Bendy is using V13...could be the problem. The 'trick' of setting the processors to deal with multiple versions of A:M has been around for a long while. I never really got much of a payoff from it, and I'll typically have 3 A:M's running at once...sometimes 4. But IF there is a speed difference to be attained from this method in V14, I would like to know about it!

33%...wow! By 'bind' do you mean: -Open Task Manager -RT clik on A:M icon and select 'go to process' -In 'Process', RT clik A:M and select 'set affinity' -Select processor 2 only instead of all... ???

Well...Martin's got some 'thuggs' he sends out if you do. NAW! Go ahead! Let us know which works better!

Here's an idea... contact a small music label that will let you do one of their artist's songs...maybe even get a small budget, that way, once it's done it will be legal and the company would get behind it and circulate and support it. Just an idea.

I thought AVI supported alpha...could be the type of compression specified that disallows an alpha...kinda like using 'ANIMATION' compression as opposed to "SORENSON3' in the quicktime realm- meaning ANIMATION will support alpha and Sorenson3 won't. I think AVI with NO compression will support an alpha channel.

John- I see you were able to use an animation to drive the displacement...last time I tried to do that it A:M V13.0Q would not allow me to import a sequence of 16bit .pngs....is that what you used?

Materials help for metal. Do you have the DarkSim textures? OR- try the Hash environment map...import a checkerboard image or a photo desert scene picture and set it as the map...instant coolio reflections with NO raytracing (prolonged renders) Do the same as above...make a group...make a new material...change type to Hash Inc, environment...import image...set as map...adjust all settings till 4 a.m.!!!

Just catching up on this old thread--- wow, lotta info! I heard some gossip today that one of the 'big houses' here in D-town (Detroit) is shipping off their Flame and will replace it with several seats of 'Nuke'. I had to scramble to learn what Nuke is...(Digital Domains proprietary compositing software, yet to be released.) The main reason being that Nuke makes good use of .exr's... Anyone hear about Nuke's release date? There's SURE not much about it on Google. Looks like it's high time to get going on the A:M .exr route...it's available in V13 right? Any good links to 'get up and running' tutorials???

I think I burned my hand! Where can we learn more about this 'environment shader'???

I was'nt a real big Rush fan until I saw THIS animation... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_5Nep7VzE I look forward to your animation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kP_5Nep7VzE

Very cool! I am a big fan of multiplanes. Walt Disney would be proud!

Caltim--- 2 things... 1) THANKS for that 'horsepowerads.com' link...that is AWESOME! Not so much the animation...it's good...but the fact that the guy is MARKETING to Car Dealers, I want to do the same thing. Car dealers...and cable advertisers in general...don't have the 'big-budgets' that the big chains have. But...with a good ad and some smart media buys they can see their sales MULTIPLY! AND- animators who work expediently and independantly can provide a valuable service and turn a nice profit. Here's a recent similar sample I made in A:M: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQ59K_vGRVU 2) I see NO indication on that website that they are using Poser. Are they? 3) NO program will make it 'easy' to make animated characatures. Just like in real life...you go to an amusement park, there's a booth there where you can sit and get a cartoon characature of yourself...you might notice they use pastels, so can YOU just go buy some cheap pastels kit and start drawing characatures...? Short answer....NO. Long answer...YES!-with practice. There is an art and science behind a simple characature...sure it looks easy...but make the nose too big or small and you learn the difference between FUNNY and INSULTING real quick. 4) To answer your general question...yes-A:M is fully able to do what you want out of it...and then some! GOOD LUCK!

Hey...just something I thrutogether yesterday for a DVD menu. Reminds me of the old joke..."I spent a WEEK in Detroit one day..." Try not to get mugged while watching this... Of interesting note...other than the Renaissance Center and one or two other building, the whole city is a copy-paste of one model...the 'Ambassador Bridge' is a model I had lying around, as are all the vehicles and other props. I am re-rendering right now to slow it down from 6 sec to 8 sec...plus I populated it a bit more. DETROIT_ZOOM2sm.mov

NICE WORK! I really like the hairstyle too! Shoulders are always a tough spot, I recommend an intermendiary bone and some adjusted CP weights. To answer your inquiry above...YES! You can adjust CP weights anywhere (model, pose,action,chor) simply by grabbing some points, right clicking on them, and choosing the 'adjust CP weights' option. It has an easy interface that does exactly as you asked...meaning you can set the %'s that you want on a CP by CP OR group basis. I'm working on something along the same lines...(stylized female, that is) a feller can dream...no?

I *think* they do exactly what they say they will do. I use 'Key Model' all the time when I need EVERY bone that I have tweeked to have a keyframe right where it is right now...great for 'pose to pose' animation. Also, if you have hit a pose in your animation that you think you will want your char to return to...hit key model...copy all the keyframes generated, and then paste them when and where you need them. The other 2 do the same thing on a smaller basis, epotimously.

Just viewed it... THRICE!!! GO HEATH! Uhhrmm. I 'm kinda slowwwwwwwww. Could you esplain the Blender joke.... is it...Blender3D???

Now that I re-read Martins reply... I see it in the right light... This was an interesting job. Our sales rep came to me late on a Wednesday (2/28) as I was out the door. Said we had a chance to 'steal the Belle Tire account' if our numbers were right and if we could take-over the 'Tireman' 3D model from our cross-town competitor who made it in Maya. Now, I knew that would NEVER happen...nobody who loses an account sends off their animation models...NOBODY. Our Maya guys gave an estimate of 1 week to recreate 'TireMan' and walked away...I went right to work on it the next day. Good thing. Thursday evening as I had just hit render on a 360 spin of my TireMan model the sales rep burst into my room..."The account is all ours IF we can prove RIGHT NOW that we can do the tireman!" I stopped the render, 1/4 way thru...and played it for him. He demanded I send a Quicktime movie pronto. The next day...Friday noonish-I was playing around with my now rigged model(TSM2) when we heard..."WE won the account!" This was big! It's a LOT more than just animation...editorial,production,sound/radio, media-management...the WORKS! The rest of the job was a dream. A:M performed flawlessly, my client LOVED everything I did, hit the deadlines like butter and now it's on the air all over the place...pure saturation. More spots to come. So I put it on YouTube and saw Martin's reaction (above) and over-reacted and panicked. Figured at least my MOM will like it. Tireman is your usual low-spline A:M model. DarkSim textures give him a nice velvetty rim-lit hat,pants-sleeves. A displacment map puts the tread on him. Lots of bones in the face and pose-sliders for lip-synch, blinks...etc. Rotoscopes were used to match him into the scene, and lighting was 'almost' default. Final touches added in After Effects, and I sent Quicktimes to the editor who used an Avid DS Nitris to finalize the spots. Thanks! for all the interest.

I apologize to Martin and all at Hash. I guess I am a little too 'thin-skinned' and I mis-read Martin's humor for criticism. Thanks to Rodney for reposting the link and for being Rodney. And I am the WORST at using emoticons...but now I see their value.

I apologize to Martin and all at Hash. I guess I am a little too 'thin-skinned' and I mis-read Martin's humor for criticism. Thanks to Rodney for reposting the link and for being Rodney.

I apologize. You can take this thread down.