robcat2075

Yeah, hard to figure out the price point on it. It will be tough to sell something that looks like a big pair of sunglasses for $2000. I wonder if there's a way for two people to be looking at the same thing. Like we could both be looking and working on the same model even though our two headsets are really two different computers.

Microsoft has teased a new device called Hololens. It is not released yet, developers dont' get access to it until about May this year and there is no commitment to even producing it yet. you can read about it in this NY Times article. Microsoft HoloLens: A Sensational Vision of the PC’s Future Briefly, here's what we know about HoloLens: -It is a headset you wear. -It overlays CG images onto your vision and synchs them to your head movements to make them appear to be planted in your real world, pehaps in a somewhat ghostly, semi-transparent fashion. -It is NOT a peripheral for your current PC, it is a self-contained computer and display. -It runs Windows 10 -Price? None announced. I'm going to guess it will be similar to a Microsoft Surface Pro. Since it runs Windows 10, I presume A:M would at least run on it. IF...we could modify A:M to use this new ability to place 3D objects in your environment, 3D objects that you can move around and see from different angles, how might that work? What might have to change about the A:M interface to use this? Apparently there is no physical mouse for you with Hololens. The basic scenario I imagine at first is that the traditional A:M interface appears in front of you as a wall that you can approach and move around. Our models might appear where they do now but as a 3D shape intersecting the wall, a 3D shape you can freely move around to see from different vantage points as you work on it. Perhaps you could freely draw splines in the 3D space with your finger tip? Other speculative ideas?

It would be cool if Hololens could used to display an A:M modeing environment in front of you, if you could draw splines in the air with some marker you held in your hand. No word that I can see on developer access to it yet, however.

I recognize most of those and the names of their artists. There's a ton of good work done by A:M artists. "Cuatrobots" is unfamilar, but maybe?

Tigers can jump... http://youtu.be/qerL893QDTY Notice how the tiger fully extends before leaving the ground and fully extends to land again.

The driver never eats you?

Ahh... here it is... clip3588AnimatingColor.mov

Here's a video of it... Never mind ... for some reason my video won't upload.

Have you turned on Show more than drivers for the object in the Chor ? That will expose Groups and then you can keyframe color and any other Surface attribute.

Here's an article on the Hololens..,. http://www.cnet.com/news/microsofts-hololens-is-no-joke-my-reality-augmented-with-skype-minecraft/

"the one second increment on the timeline in animation master" I'm not sure what you mean. The value of "time" is displayed along the top of the timeline panel (A) In Options>Units ( B ) you can choose it to "Show time as" ... "SMPTE" which is mins:secs:frames or you can choose "Frames Elapsed" which shows a continually escalating single number starting with zero. (Cel Number does the same but starts with 1) "Frame rate" or FPS is how many frame A:M divides one second of time into. When you begin a new PRJ A:M gives the PRJ a "Default Frame rate" from the value in the Options window, but you can set (almost) any frame rate in the PRJ properties under "FPS" ( C ) That number is one second worth of frames. You can make it anything you want. 24 or 30 are typical numbers. 24 comes from film and 30 comes from video. The exact current elapsed time can be seen in the frame counter (D) which also obeys the "Show time as" setting you have chosen. Does that answer you?

according to this article... Windows 10 Will Be A Free Upgrade

Perhaps seeing it in person would be different, but I prefer the larger version. It's easier to see that Thom is indeed Thom and not a yellow smudge.

Welcome back to A:M! It's difficult to document something with so many possibilities, but you have found the place to ask questions.

Yes! In the Chor turn on "Show more than Drivers" for that model That will expose the "Decals" folder and you can navigate down to the Percent property which can be keyed over time. Welcome to A:M!

It's helpful that you posted the whole screen. I proposed that a siren sound whenever that thing is off but instead we have the red border.

It looks like you have the A (Animate) button off The red border is the warning that you have the A button off.

I'll note that I have explicitly asked Steffen about the possibility of an iPad version of A:M in the past. I thought it would be a potentially useful way to extend A:M's visibility He told me there is just too much that doesn't exist in iOS for that to be a simple matter of recompiling the current A:M code or even after adding a modest amount of effort. Also I don't believe they allow an app on Apple iPad unless it is fully compliant with their interface guidelines. As noted above, that redesign would be an impossibly time-consuming task. Your idea is not a bad one, but it is an expensive one to implement.

Welcome to A:M, Laurence! The most common way is to set a "specular" color of white in your surface properties and to set the specular size and specular intensity to a value greater than zero. Experiment with different values for different looks. Note that in your sample pic, they have used an off-white object so the white specular highlight would be more visible. In addition, your light needs to have Specular ON in its properties for the above effect to be visible. In A:M's default Chor only one light has Specular set ON. If you want a very sharp specular spot you can optionally set "Specular Render Shader" to "Glossy." For that setting to work, you will also need "Plugin Shaders" set to ON in your rendering settings. The floor in that image has some reflection going on to appear glossy also. That is also a surface property you can set for your floor object. If you are making letters rather than spheres you will want them to have a curved bevel on their edges (an option in the Font Wizard) so there is always some part of them that will catch that specular glint.

It would be worth $10 (if I had an iPad, but I don't and won't) but there is no way it can be produced at that price point or even at $30. If you can line up 5000 customers at $10 that still wouldn't be enough to pay for the cost of developing A:M for a new OS. If you can line up a programmer who will do it for free, that would be a different story.

As far as I know there is no bargain Android tablet with a real pen, it's all finger control. The A:M interface has many small buttons and menus that would have to be sized up to be practical for fat fingers but that would lose you quite a bit screen space. I'm not saying it can't be done, but it would be quite a bit of work and revision to make it satisfactory.

Youtube will work on any tablet, as far as I know. If someone has animation to share they can put it out there for everyone to see even if they are not A:M users. The set of A:M buyers is just not big enough to fund a venture into a new OS.

I supposed six square-framed cameras in A:M might do it. I haven't read any of the material to know how they expect it to be stiched together into one seamless view.

There would not be enough buyers at $10 or even $30 to pay for the development cost on a new OS. Personally I would not buy a "lite" A:M. If I wanted to have A:M in a portable form factor I would buy a Windows tablet for it and run the real thing. Not the cheapest possible Windows tablet with the least power, I'd get one that has a real Intel CPU and adequate RAM. Remember that A:M is not usable with touch gesture control, you will need something that can use a mouse or at least a true pen. A used MS Surface 1 or 2 would fill that need. Those can be had cheap now. What ever advantage an Android tablet has in some hardware aspect would be outweighed for me by the fact that I could run full A:M rather than a stripped down A:M on a Windows tablet.

What would this "lite A:M" be worth to you? In dollars.