robcat2075

I dont' know about the SSD question. At the very least I suspect you'll need to transfer an image of your old hard drive to the SSD rather than just reinstall Windows and all your apps. But i don't know. an email to Jason at hash would be in order. "32-bit color" can mean several things... -24 bits are stored in 32-bit holes because it's faster to move 32 bits than just 24 bits. This is typically what graphics cards mean by 32 bit color. -24-bits of color + 8 bits of alpha channel. This may be relevant for semi transparent displays like Aero. I rarely hear of apps like Photoshop talk of "32-bit color" even though they have used 24+8 for their files for decades. Photoshop typically refers to itself as 8 bits per color or 16 bits per color (which would be 48 bit color. 64 bits if you added an alpha channel but I've never seen anyone say "64-bit color") -Some way to hold more than 8 bits per color, like your graphics card's 30 bit color. But then where's the alpha channel? Unfortunately there isn't a standard way to talk about these things. A:M can render to 24+8 in its targa and PNG formats and with OpenEXR (a floating point format) can render to a nearly unlimited dynamic range Only some very special displays can show more than 8 bits per color and most flat-panel displays are faking it to display even that.

The only thing you're giving up in this mode is the semi transparent windows of "Aero". There's only 24 bits of color in the desktop even with Windows 7 with Aero on. No, A:M doesn't cause 16 bit. Your computer still displays 24 bit color. All your other graphics programs handle and display their image color with their full range as does A:M even while A:M is running. It's only the styling of the Aero interface that is turned off. In Tools>Options>Global you can check "Disable Aero on startup" but not everything in A:M will redraw correctly if you do. Better to leave it unchecked. I'm in basic mode all the time and still have full 24-bit color available in all apps, even in the desktop. This is the color picker showing full 0-255 available for each color:

there is no log that i know of for that rendering time info

Ping-pong may have changed substantially recently... From the always-reliable Wikipedia: When I was a boy we used 38mm balls that went by too fast to hit... and we liked it!

The drop back to basic colors solves some screen redraw problems in Windows 7 (and Vista I think). Screen redraws during cloth simulations is one I can think of. Learn to love the basic colors!

I'm still waiting for someone to send me the "rules" for the test segments. what happened to the test?

chart? + Edit: I found the link in your page. A baseball more bouncy than a ping-pong ball? I think he's off on that one. But I don't have either one to test.

Hey, David, I think those all look good. It was fun to watch each ball individually. The squetch versions were tastefully restrained. Personally, I'm doubtful that a ping-pong ball is the least bouncy of all. Maybe your needs some air.

Very fine looking!

Disclaimer: my offer to animate should not be taken as an incitement to quit your day job. Not just yet.

Mine comes in a styrofoam cup that you add hot water too and already has the flavor stuff in it so I can't edit that out. But fortunately it only has 47% of daily sodium ration.

What knockers! (I just noticed those)

Those look fabulous!

Is there something dangerous about ramen? I just bought a box.

Hey Will, I don't have any money to Kickstart you but i can contribute something useful... if you can use it, I'll do one minute of animation for "Tar of Zandoria" There are some strings attached... - it needs to be a contiguous, self-contained scene, not scattered shots, so even if the rest of the movie doesn't get done I have something watchable. - i have to like the scene and the audio track. - I'd prefer something without dialog - the scene's other assets, like the set, are done, so even if the rest of the movie doesn't get finished, I can at least render out my part and it will look done. - the characters need to be appropriately rigged for what needs to be done. - I can show my work at any time to anyone. I don't have to keep it under wraps until the movie is finished - I tend to work erratically on things like this, with long periods of no visible progress. You're fine with that. - other conditions I haven't thought of yet.

But other people seem to like what you are doing with it. Don't undervalue that. "Director of Design and Engineering" What is your day like?

If you need this now, I'd suggest doing one normal render to get the reflections and then another with the object gone and swap the alpha channel from the second render into the first render. The second render could be done quickly with lights off and other things to speed up the render since you only want the alpha channel.

Regular 5 should already do 5-pointers

When you see a big city shot in a movie, a CG movie, they typically make the least geometry they can get away with and put good textures on it to suggest the detail and only on the sides that will be seen. If the camera needs to move in close to something that will be built with more detail. They do that because their software isn't infinite either and they need to get the shot done in a reasonable amount of time and human cost. A:M can do those sort of shots if you can. Your good discretion in modeling and talent in texturing will be essential to do shots like that.

If you can control the reflection and/or specularity of the flake portion of the combiner, you could probably get a good sparkle from that. In my bump map version, you can. the "sharpness" on the Glossy shader affects how quickly a glint goes on and off, and "Specular Intensity" controls the brightness. So a pretty fair spectrum of effects could be had with this technique. In the original at the top, the bright spots are always bright from any angle so they didn't "glitter".

Indeed, just a few weeks ago the question came up. Here's my "sparkle" and there are some other solutions farther down the thread... http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?s=&am...st&p=361539

I kind of like your idea of making it all "clay". What would that look like for "wood"? What would Ardman do?

Try some stuff, see what you get. Remaking one of those boards with more splines should be about a 5 minute task. Try things. Experiment.

I was thinking the top one but the other look interesting too.. What sort of a texture are you planning to put on these boards?

yeah. maybe 2 or three in the middle. And then nudge a few of the CPs around so they're not so straight.