robcat2075

I'll note that we can minimize the "block" stair-stepping of displacement maps by using hi-range maps (OpenEXR in A:M's case) images for our gray-scale maps. I'm not sure if I've seen stair-stepping in bump map cases.

I've got my footage shot, I'm trying to get it put together.... stay tuned.....

Semi-rigid bodies!

I'm kind of lost on why there are 600 frames in a benchmark.

I guess old animators used to brag or moan about how many "feet" they got done in a week. which always seemed like a round-about way of referring to screen time.

I'm pretty sure it took a foot and a half to make one second at 24 frames per second. I think there were 16 frames per foot in 35mm film.

a female skull head. How do they know the difference? I suppose it's the jaw?

I'm only taking a stab at that since I often have stuck images on my screen when modeling or navigating around in AM as if the screen stops refreshing. I don't have a quadro but I sometimes have a case where only a tiny rectangle within the view window will be updating. I've noticed this only happens if i have several windows behind it in "workbook" mode.

Do you know any more about that?

Cool, Fritz Lang could have used you on Metropolis...

For the moment, hold on to it. Either Paul or I will probably collect everything but i don't hink we've thought that far ahead yet. Of course you've looked at your result and it's what you expected, right?

A faster CPU is generally better. A:M v17 is optimized to use the SSE3 and SSE4 processor extensions in modern CPUs so one of those is preferable. A:M now includes Netrender and it works on multi-core CPUS so if you had a quad core CPU you could run four nodes all on one computer. At least 4GB of ram. 64-bit Windows, not 32 A:M doesn't yet use GPU computing so the video card isn't very critical but you want something with decent openGL performance. People differ on whether AMD or NVIDIA is better but generally you don't want on-board graphics, you want a real graphics card with 512 MB or so. I like to have two monitors to work on so a card that can drive two monitors is good. A card for under $100 would be more than adequate. And of course a big hard drive to hold renders. EXR and TGa sequences can eat a lot of space. I'm sure I've forgotten something. Hopefully some others will chime in.

OK, I have a train model in obj format. However, it imports as one large object into A:M and I cannot select anything individually in order to add bones for such like making the wheels turn. Any ideas? Notice the part I've bold-faced. As mentioned above, a good tactic for mechanical things is to separate the parts in the original program and import each as a separate prop model. Then in the chor you can constrain them together and animate the parts that need to animate. It IS possible also to import Polygonal models directly into an A:M model window but most polygonal models are poor candidates for conversion to splines. It's free to try, none-the-less.

Have a Happy Birthday, then back into that SoulCage you go!

Happy Birthday, David! What does that screen name mean, anyway?

What sort of model is it? A:M can import .OBJ and .3DS polygonal models but it doesn't import things like bones or morph targets that a rigged character model typically has. I know of no software converter that will do all of that. Most polygonal models are made of far more "faces" than a good A:M model needs and are unpleasant to work with in A:M. Models made of triangular faces are very poor candidates for import into A:M. Rigid mechanical objects such as cars or furniture, that don't need to be rigged or edited can work well in A:M using the Objects>Import>Prop option.

The hat gained a lot in the transition to 3D. I like that.

He's looking great, Rodney!

Hey Rodney, I hadn't caught the explanation of how you got burned. Glad it wasn't seriously serious! I suppose the irony is that this was worse than any injury you got in the military?

A fine candle!

Here are some additional comments on jumping I made on a jump by an 11Sec Club person, this time for a straight up jump... Here is his blocking... https://dl.dropbox.com/u/59849243/Alt%20Jump.mov I commented: He put up a side view to show that the body wasn't moving backwards... http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=playe...p;v=S5XLqu3mMv8 So I composited the keyframes to show it was indeed moving backwards... And I added...

hmmm... I think a benchmark should be fairly low-impact task for anyone to run. Associating it with some other goal seems a departure from its purpose. On Benchmarks... i was trying to come up with a way to judge video card performance. I haven't figured out how to do it without testing all the cards on the same machine.

Note that toon lines are all about edges that suggest form. A good toon character may need edges explicitly modeled that a regularly shaded character would not.

Yes, toon rendering is pretty much what that is. Maya probably has more toon options, but we've seen people do knock-out stuff in the past with A:M. I recall an anime thing about a "magic egg" that was totally convincing.

To me, that looks like you will have the same triangle problem at the top.