strato

Thank you, really helpful.

Hi Robert, that looks very promising. Amazing how quick you produce these demos. Could you share the constraint order on the bone?

That is a good train of thought, but for the translate limit Z to work with the bone, the target would have to be a child of the bone, which means the bone can't really aim at it. The same circularity issue arises with a second aim at target outside the hierarchy and trying to translate it to the first target. Maybe with a parallel system further removed from the hierarchy, but that will take some trial and error.

Yes, that was my thought as well, but I don't know how to write expressions. A distance constraint would be great to keep an IK Target attached to the chain, and have offsets available.

Hi , I like to constraint a null within a certain distance from another one. It should be free to move within that spherical space. Are there any ideas how to accomplish it with the available constraints?

So I checked again, and yes, in V19 on W10 only the overlapping sounds can be heard while scrubbing, in V13 on W XP64 all the sounds can be heard while scrubbing.

My sound issues I believe were related to a sound card on a specific computer running windows 10 and 7. On my laptop, also 10 and 7, the sound works. I tried your project and the sounds reads but the scrubbing is sticky and unusable in V19. I than went to my old XP64 computer with V13 and everything works with fast scrubbing. I also tried rendering your project with multi pass and toon render but that still doesn't work in V19. I moved back to V13 on XP64, since it has no refresh issues and everything works really well.

Hi Robert Don't mind my last question, found the answer on the store site. About the sound though, I am still baffled.

Hi Robert Thanks for the quick response. I do have indeed a serial number, which was helpful to find, but how do I activate the software? Opening it just produces an error and a request to contact support. Thanks, Rolf

I have gotten no email response from Customer Support after I purchased a license in February. Any hints? Also, I can't seem to get the sound to work, it says no sound object loaded in the Options page, but it does show the waveform etc. Thanks, Rolf

I will get back to the performance issue next week when I have two computers, both running W 10 and 7 and V13(on 7) and 19 on both. Concerning the MDD issue, I had referred to it in another post with examples. It seems that having hooks and 5-point patches will break the MDD export as it does not match the point count of the original model, plus the point count is different between an OBJ file and a LWO file. Mr Watanabe had solved it back for V 10. Just to quickly explain. MDD was a point level cache introduced by Lightwave to export animation by practically exporting every frame as a model. There was a 'Point Oven' Importer for XSi, there is an importer for Blender, but the best was the Riptide Pro importer for C4D since it functioned as a deformer, which let you use other deformers in the hierarchy. Concerning the render issues I will further investigate next week and let you know. Thanks for your response.

Hi Gerald, it's true, I am very picky. The coloring I am talking about is the 'Windows 3D Objects' which are in 'Window color and Appearance' in Windows 7, and it will affect or unify all the surrounding elements in your softwares as you can see in the screen grabs of Vegas and Hash. This option has disappeared to my chagrin, but I did wanted to point out the difference to Svetlik in case he cares. BTW I actually have 16GB, just had taken almost all sticks out for another laptop and thought that was all that was left.

Hi Robert, Gerald. The machine has currently only 8GB and it's a 64 bit version of W7. There is no difference in performance between V 13 and V19, other than the memory draw. Also the files, (models, projects, actions etc) are completely interchangeable. The reason I use both is that I have a Japanese plug in for MDD export in V13 which works perfectly, while the one in V19 doesn't (any point discrepancy will render the export invalid). Also I do have issues to render previews or finals with Multi-Pass and Toon Render in V 19. What I do like so far in V19 is that invoking the scale or transform widget the model doesn't partially hide the colored translate points. I just read on another post that you are both beta testers for the upcoming version, so I hope you don't mind if I bring up a feature that Animation Master used to have but has been abandoned way back in version 9.5 or maybe earlier, which are the guidelines in the bone hierarchy. Also one forum member had a great idea to color code the action sections from the object sections as it is too easy to make changes in the wrong one. In other words if the negative space on the left side of the bones list could be used for more insights, that would surely be helpful. Just discovered Ultimate Unwrap on Gerald's Website and the way that program represents the bones, including a designation for a geo bone by a letter A in a square is great. If one could just have a few letters to see if the bone is a geo bone, has a Smart skin and a constraint. This should probably go into the feature request area. Anyway, I will look into the memory thing on my desktop when I get to it, Thanks for your responses.

Hi Robert, what happens when you hit alt v to have 2 views of an action and a model for example. I know the custom appearance option in Hash but what bothers me is the actual interface which was part of the windows customization and is not available in 10. I just find black writing on medium grey more comfortable, plus all my other software, C4D, Premiere, Vegas, ACID, Fusion 3, 3dPaint etc , all have the same look and keep space for the Task Manager. In 10 the interface has to be provided by the program, and many follow fashion more than function with white writing on a dark backgrounds. But of course it's all personal, Vegas took a worse hit than Hash. Can only show Window 7 captures, don't have 10 on this Laptop.

The interface of Windows 10 sucks in my opinion. You can't customize the 3D objects, which defines the look of Animation Master, so everything is white, the tracks in the Project Workspace are hard to see, single windows have a curved blue border, it's like back to MAC OS 9. There is no performance advantage. I use V12,13 and 19 on W7.

I noticed that V19 uses a lot of RAM on my Windows 7 laptop compared to V13 . Just looping an action will run it up, and there seems to be no way to empty the cache. Does anybody else has that issue? Thanks.

There was, or is, a great Tutorial by William Sutton (Zandoria) about creating a UV map In Hash after V 11. Upon export the model will have a correct UV map even with a 4-point subdivision. I found the Lightwave exporters always more reliable than any OBJ ones in closing 4-point and 5-point patches. Unfortunately the best exporter was from Japan and part of a Mirror spline commercial plug in. It not only closed all holes correctly, it also exported the UVs and the bones with weight maps. Opening the model exported into Blender, if it was a single polygon per patch, required to use of a negative Smooth and a SubD Modifier, but it would be really close to the original. I wish the newer versions had that functionality. I just bought two licenses for W7 and W10, but there are so many issues and crashes that I went back to V 13 on a XP 64. Fast and reliable.

Another approach I use for V12 on Windows 7 is to burn an Image with WinCDEmu, a free program. It will mount the image automatically as a disc. You will still need to disable the security feature as described in the articles above.

Thanks everybody for the responses. I am attaching a few pictures of my preview render issues. First I get the 'import null' request, than I get the unable to save message. V19 does create a temp file, but it just makes one empty AVI. V 13 creates a AM 12(?) Temp folder but at least renders out Targa files that can be saved. I will try with a 32bit V19 Version to see if it could solve the issue. On the MDD side, short of sending my huge file, I created a test object 'Test Kettle' in V19 with 2 hooks and 4 5point patches. I than exported it in OBJ and LWO. MDD was created by Lightwave, so the chance that the count order stays correct is high in LWO. I than brought these files into C4D with a MDD plugin which applies the MDD as a deformer, it also gives me statistics of the object and the MDD file. The reason the MDD import failed has to do with the hooks and also with the OBJ exporter. If you open the Hash file in V19 or V13 the info will reveal 212 CPs. 2 CPs are for the hooks, so the 210 remaining need to be devided by 2 for the vertices it needs to create. So 105 plus 2, or 107 is the correct number. Unfortunately the OBJ exporter only merged one of the hooks to a single vertex and split the other one into two. So the OBJ file has 108 vertices. The MDD exporter decides to split both hooks and therefor has 109 Vertices, which is also wrong. The LWO file has 107 Vertices and is correct, but only the MDD/LWO export plugin from V13 ( part of a commercial plugin by Watanabe) correctly closes the polygons and produces the right count and order. However it will not work in a 64 bit program, so I hoped that V19 had the same functionality. As a question to Bobby: does your model have any hooks? V13_TEST KETTLE.mdd V13_TEST KETTLE.mdl V19_TEST KETTLE.mdl V19_TEST KETTLE_1P.mdd

Having issues in later Versions to render previews. It asks for a null, than just creates an empty AVI in the Temp folder. Rendering a larger region with multipass in the choreography fails. Also the MDD export does not work. The MDD, OBJ and LWO files all have different point counts. Hooks create 2 points instead of merging to one, and with 4-point subdivision export 5 point patches will add 5 extra unmerged points. I tried it on different computers with Windows 7, but always the same issues. If someone had the same problem and a solution, I would love to hear about it. Thanks, Rolf

Thanks Robert, That was indeed the problem, probably in all the previous years as well. I am not online most of the time, and my main desktop doesn't even know there is an internet, so it may be in Denmark or outer space for that matter. But I m actually in LA

Every time I purchase a subscription, it seems impossible to do so without emailing Jason. I pay, I get an activation number, but what then. I download the last version and try to open it I get 'RLM error-3, Please email support@hash.com to actitvate via email'. This or similar happens ever since the darned subscription thing is in place. The purchase site is hopeless, with outdated options etc. and not once could I upgrade without support. Seems to me a waste of Jasons' time

Porcelain works really good in Version 12 and allows a smooth render for 3 point and 5 point patches at 100%. It changed in V 13 with the model format change. From V13 on 50% of Porcelain, like the Average Normals option at 50%, produces the smoothest surface in my experience, but not as good as V12.

The problem with ATI cards are the drivers. I have a saphire 8100 card on the shelf because I could not find a driver that works with Hash, XSI and Resolve at the same time. Went back to a Nvidia card.

I bring this up again, but I am very much opposed to the subscription model which was introduced some years ago. It is not the monetary outlay, but the principle of dependency which irks me to no end. I also find this protectionist attitude to be the greatest hindrance of proliferating this software and its qualities, and it will be the ultimate cause of its demise. I do have a couple of subscriptions and I will let them expire with no plans to renew in spite of my great affinity to this program. I also find that most improvements since V12 are simple window dressing, or entirely useless inclusions of open source libraries for fluids and cloth etc., but coupled to a hopelessly decrepit render engine. Why would one spend the time waiting when a perfect solution is a click away on Your desktop? AM completely missed its target by not changing the render engine in the last 10 years or before, keeping its animation and deformation tools the way they are. Currently I work with V13 since it has the ability of switching IK, but the best renders are still only available on V12 which may be a good thing since I still have a net render dongle for it which was about $600 at the time. On the other hand I doubt I will ever render anything out of AM since it is much easier to do a MDD export within the newer versions or with Watanabe"s plug-in out of V10-13. Of course all newer versions will now expire with my subscription and I may just have to learn how to live with it, and may be this will be a new dawn, and may be I am not the only one to experience it, or maybe Martin wakes up or may be I move on...