robcat2075

The new A:M Forum Image Contest starts here, starts now! New Deadline: Watch the Contest Announcement: Summer Memories! Summer is here... Show us the fun you're having (or wish you were having)! Entries can be realistic or cartoony, classic or corny... just make sure it's about "Summer!" Contest Rules: 1) All images must be original work, modeled, posed and rendered in Animation:Master. Third-party paint programs may be used for texturing purposes. 1b) WIP threads where you solicit feedback or reveal any or all of your image are allowed. 2) Images may be in any vertical or horizontal format and any aspect ratio (e.g. 4:3, 16:9...), however the shortest side must be at least 1080 pixels 2a) Image content should be of a "G" to "PG" nature. 3) Images should be submitted in uncompressed TGA or PNG format as an attachment in a Hash Forum personal message to @robcat2075 (Robert Holmén) 3a) So we may all observe and learn from the modeling efforts of the entrants a Shaded Wireframe render of the image is also required with the submission. 4) Although the contest topic is "Summer Memories" and images should somehow portray or evoke the topic, they do NOT need to include the text "Summer" or "Memories". 5) Revised Entry Deadline: September 18, 2017. But Summer lasts until the 22nd... get your entry in by then? 5a) Before voting starts, there will be a brief exhibition of all the images. Each entrant should check this gallery to make sure their image is present. 6) Winners of the contest will be chosen by a public internet vote. 7) Contest results will be announced in a YouTube video by someone in a dark suit. Winners may be asked to participate in a Skype audio interview about their creation. 8) Hash Inc. may use any of the images for promotional purposes. 9) All rules come from the fertile imagination of the contest coordinator, Robert Holmén, the final authority on any doubtful meanings and changes necessary to conduct a fair and felicitous contest. Prizes: 10) Hash Inc. is graciously contributing three Hash Store gift certificates: 1st place $150, 2nd place $100, 3rd place $75! 11) The acclaimed Animation:Master Forum Image Contest Medal will be awarded to the top three entries. 12) Handsome certificates, so suitable for framing that you get $1 to buy a frame, will be awarded to 4th through 10 place finishers. 13) Every entrant will be assigned and receive the winnings from a Texas Lottery scratch-off ticket, to be scratched-off semi-live in the contest result video. Prizes (potentially zero to hundreds of dollars) will depend on the specific the Lottery game card available at the conclusion of the contest. Winnings will be paid via PayPal. 13a) Although multiple entries are allowed in the Image Contest, scratch-off lottery tickets are limited to one per person up to a limit of 30 persons total for the contest. 14) Additional prizes may be announced in the future! 14a) Two $25 Hash gift certificates and three Caricatures by Largent ($25 value) will be randomly awarded among the 4th and lower finishers. 14b) Mark Largent is not eligible to win a caricature by Largent.

Wow! It gets to sit next to an Emmy! Congratulations, Matt!

It is a puzzling oddity. I'm not sure how graphics cards work at all.

Yeah, that looks about like what I expected. If the spacebar thing is adequate, good, but I'd still recommend using the 32bit/Direct3D version for your everyday work. The performance difference between that and the 64 bit version will be miniscule.

Another idea to try... SPACE forces a redraw of the screen ENTER forces a deselect What happens if you hold down one of those and release it just before you finish your selection box? Also... you don't have to use the bounding box to do selections. The Lasso and Polygonal Lasso are almost as quick.

Yup, you can do your modeling and animating in 32-bit and then if somehow you end up with a huge project, 64-bit is there to render it.

You mentioned a couple different video cards. Do you have them? Can you switch one out to try it?

One more thing... If you make your selection, gray box and all, then use the period key to invert and revert your selection, is the selection still a gray box? If you make your selection, gray box and all, then use the number pad to switch to another view and back again, is the selection still a gray box? The 32-bit version should work as intended in Windows 10, none-the-less.

Welcome back to A:M! The primary advantage of the 64 bit version is access to larger RAM, RAM over 3GB or so but it's rare for A:M projects to need even that much in the modeling or animating stages. Rendering to very high resolutions with very complicated scenes may push at that limit. The overall speed of the program will be only slightly faster in the 64-bit version. Does your 64 bit version have a Real-time Driver choice of OpenGLOpenGL3? Try switching that and restarting. And, old stand by advice... are your graphics card drivers up to date? Is there a reason to still be using v17?

Just curious... Is the graphics card in an iMac in a standard slot like in a PC? Could one swap it out with another card? Would the OS sense the change and update the drivers via the web like Windows does?

That turned out better than I expected!

Congratulations, Gerald! And big thanks to Ken Citron (pixelplucker) who did the heavy metal casting that made these medals possible!

The character in the loop looks a bit like Prince Charles.

And I like that avatar! Did you make that?

A temporary work around for rotoscopes might be to place the image on a rectangular patch that you then size and place to suit, then lock while you do your other work.

Here's comparison of times back to v15. Great work by Steffen on optimizing A:M and getting it to 64 bits!

That's very cool, Serg!

Running the ThreeTeapotsBenchmark on my 2.4GHz Core 2 Quad Q6600 Windows 7 PC I get v17 5:11 per frame, 11.57 frames per hour v18 4:59 per frame, 12.04 frames per hour 4% faster than v17 v19 4:35 per frame, 13.09 frames per hour 13% faster than v17

When you turn off the AO you also need to turn down the Global Ambiance level in the Chor, otherwise you have lots of global light on things with no shading to counteract it.

Pass 1 would look like this: Pass 2: The composite with ADD:

For most modeling situations, the simplest solution will also render the smoothest: join the splines at the apex of the hump in a tiny ring rather than in one CP...

Are these all flat or is the center point elevated?

It always helps to post a sample PRJ so we know we're doing what you're doing.

Make two copies of your Project. Of course, all your models must be "embedded" for this. Copy 1: For the models that have some Toon, set the groups that create Toon to black with no specularity. Leave everything else as is and render as usual. Copy 2: For the models that have no toon at all, delete all the groups and set the whole model to black with no specularity. For the models that have some toon, delete all the groups that are not creating Toon and set them to black with no spec. Render the scene and you should get all black except the Toon parts. Since this one is only toon surfaces you can save time by not rendering with AO. These changes are made in the objects folder. The two renders will composite exactly together with an "add" mode. "Add" literally adds the RGB values from each render together. In this case the colored portions of each render (values greater than zero) will show through the black (zero) portions. Different programs call "add" different names. Photoshop calls it "Screen" but After Effects calls it "Add". A:M calls it "Add" in a "Composite project". We can talk of A:M composite projects if you don't have software that can do the "add" Test this out with just one frame from each render first, to make sure you are getting the parts right.

Is there a reason you're not doing the previously mentioned method of having Toon and regular render in one pass?