robcat2075

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?

For anyone following this thread... It did get done!

And when you say "seldom"... are there images that do work?

Was v18 better at this for you?

I have had that problem although I don't seem to be having it today. There may be some circumstance that does it.

I never saw this! Looks fabulous!

Not every wax seal gets to be on an Animation:Master Image Contest Certificate. These are some of the rejects...

Variations on the theme... Here is a render using just three lights carefully adjusted, no AO. This takes about 1 minute This is the three light render with SSAO (Screen Space Ambiant Occlusion AKA "fake AO") set to try to approximate regular AO shading. About 1 minute. This is the SSAO effect "only" About 1 minute (It should be nearly instantaneous but my graphics card doesn't seem to do SSAO right.) This is a flat toon-only (no lines) render (1 minute) This is SSAO Only + Toon only composited with "multiply" in Photoshop (A:M could do this too in a Composite Project) Here's an AO-like strategy. This uses a light traveling on a spline over many passes to simulate large, broad lighting, but no AO, no stationary lights. 100 passes takes about 5 minutes. 256 passes takes about 12 minutes

"Anthropomorphized" (make a character out of a normally inanimate object)

"Endless Summer" "Working Stiff" "Secret Agent" "Back to School"

100 if you're sure you need 100, but I've never been that picky.

Maybe it's getting time for a new Image Contest but... it will need a topic first! Got ideas? Something not too narrow, not too broad, something we haven't done a lot before? Something that A:M users would enjoy putting their own personal spin on? One idea I have in the back of my head... "Planes, Trains, Automobiles" What are your ideas?

Some sort of toon setting change I would guess.

If you made their clothes 0,0,0 black instead of invisible you could simplify the compositing. Is there still a problem combining the toon and regular in one render? I would experiment with a different treatment of the eye blinks. Right now it seems they go like (open percentage) 100-50-0-50-100 Change the middle so they are not the same going down as going up, maybe like this 100-75-0-25-100 or maybe the reverse of that 100-25-0-75-100 Adding an extra frame of zero might help them seem more weary and less flickery 100-75-0-0-25-100 Head turns will usually look better if they move in an arc rather than a straight path. Usually a small dip in the middle. They also will move faster in the middle and slow-in to the end position. It's very rare for anyone to turn their head in even increments from start to stop.

As far as I can ascertain, a "server" CPU... -more cache -more RAM capacity (TB instead of GB!) -uses ECC RAM -faster bus -more cores -multiple socket mother board possible A "desktop" CPU CPU... -faster clock speed -extended instruction sets like SSE4 -onboard GPU (Intel only?))

I think lighting is the hardest part of getting pleasing 3D results. I'll note that even in live movies where they have the advantage of instant AO all the time, and walls that will bounce the illumination from the lights that exist in the world of the movie, they still usually have to cheat a bit with extra fill lights that are unseen and off-camera. example In A:M we have an advantage that our light bulbs can be anywhere and we don't have to try to hide them from the camera.

Hi Simon, For AO you need to have the Choreography>Properties>Global Ambiance Type not set to "None". -"Global Color" is the simplest choice. -This basically enables an all-around environmental light. The more that a surface is blocked from that all-around light the darker it will be. -You can adjust the environmental strength with "Ambiance intensity". When other lights are in the scene it is often necessary to set the Ambiance intensity to less than 100% -"Ambiance Occlusion" controls how dark the occlusion shadowing effect is. You also need Render to File Settings>Options>Ambiance Occlusion>ON -Occlusion Sampling is a quality vs. time choice. Higher means less speckling but longer render time. I often set it to 10% for test renders just to see the AO effect more quickly. -Transparent AO (Slow!) allows the all-around rays to pass through patches that have some Transparency set. I figure an institutional hallway like yours is probably lit with wide fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Putting holes in the ceiling approximates that. I also put holes in the opposing wall to simulate the light from the ceiling that would normally bounce off that wall onto the characters. I just added a few CPs in the middle of splines to disable patches in key areas. Here is your edited PRJ so you can see the altered model and settings. New Happy Families 001B_RCH 01 AO.prj And the preset CorridorWith AO.pre There are other ways to get this effect without actual AO that might render faster but this is easy to set up and more predictable.

In my own case, since I do more modeling and animating than rendering and since most of what A:M does is single threaded, I'd favor a faster CPU with fewer cores over a slower one with more cores. The CPUs that can throttle up one core when the others are unused sound like an interesting solution but I haven't had one yet.

When I'm looking at published benchmarks of CPUs, I think that the "single threaded" version of "Cinebench" is likely the closest to mimicking what A:M does.