detbear

Love it!!! Mark....Great job capturing Brody's likeness in puppet form. The glasses shape and style match it well too. I was thinking Brody's hair was more black in the movie. But not sure it you were steering away from a direct match. Either way....looks great!!

Hey Malo. Unless I'm misunderstanding what you're asking, it sounds like what you could do to reach that goal would be to create a pose slider for the character. Or an "On/Off" pose. The pose will remain with the original character and it can be changed. A pose is very much like an action. Hope that helps.

William Sutton still uses A:M and has released a short, "First Episode of TAR"... xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd_ekaOdDWg Not sure where it will go from there.

Rodney. That looks amazing. Thanks for sharing. Looks like it has a very broad range of tools. I like the plugin that allows working in PS.

Ahhh....I see. I stand Corrected.. They must have added there marketed version after I was given that info. I see their price for nodes. Not too bad a deal for that high end rendering ability.

I think this would make a great feature request. A setting to render all shadowed areas with an alpha channel. Even maybe an option for a white background or alpha. Maybe with a list of the lights in the scene that cast shadows and you check the one or ones you want the shadows from. ALSO....A render option for section cuts by objects. For instance....just a prop as if someone took the final render and cut a certain prop out with a pair of scissors. That way, you could render objects final render....but separate.

So what was/ is the Price then

The Arnold renderer has been around for a long time. It's never been sold as a product however. I was told that if you wanted to use it, you would simply make a request to Solid Angle stating your reasons for wanting to use it. I hear that they were very helpful and actually allowed most legitimate requests access to Arnold. All Major studios have been using it. Animation Mentor has even been teaching it and using it in their VFX program since it started. But now that Autodesk has it, they will probably rent it out for a whopping fee. Arnold is such an impressive software that I'm sure Autodesk has been after it for a long time. Solid Angle probably got an impressive offer. One that they obviously couldn't turn down. This is concerning to me. A few years ago, a company developed a fluid simulator that was just as good as Real Flow. Then Autodesk bought it up, never to be heard from again. Well....They may have incorporated it into their Maya viewport 2.0 fluid stuff... I don't know. I'm surprised they haven't tried to buy A:M...

Rodney. I think you are correct that the MDD has some issues. I would love to see the MDD working really well for both export and import. I agree and 4th the FBX hopes. But that is obviously a very heavy hurdle. Maybe someday it can be accomplished.

May be off topic a bit, but still about the QT format. Although I spit out Quicktime format quite often, I've found that there is one feature it has that is invaluable during editing. That is exporting the Lossless "Animation" format setting to export hi res frames of the final edit. From After Effects, Windows Media 9 format exports really nice files that aren't massive. I've found myself using that more than Quicktime for "everyday" tests and such.

Anyone else tried to run "mirror constraints" in V18p. I got a mashed up result.

I honestly just meant that I don't have a mac and thus i won't be much help with your "w/Mac Verion" issue. I have nothing against a Mac.

I don't use a MAC, so I haven't experienced those issues yet. Are you working on another Stalled Trek?

That's so cool Rodney. I'm glad it's working. Making the connections into a head mesh would be something very useful for the community. I laughed yesterday after the Q&A because if you erase the eye ball, the lids become a Packman rig.. That rig can definately be improved and added on to. I noticed yesterday that the front, pupil lens punches through the lids. It's been a long time since I looked at that model.

Hey Guys, At the Q&A with Roger and Robcat, I offered to let them have a grab at my simple custom eye set. This simple toon rig is from my dragon rig on Adventures With Boomer. The rig could be stuck to any character... Here ya go... 2016 Detbears Toon Eye.mdl

Hey..... For smart skin purposes.....can you animate/key the bias handles curvature? If not, a low spline model with longer handles seem to present a difficult issue with how the curves work as the creases get squeezed.

Hey Nemax, Not sure why that happens. Could be the exporter or the importer in Hash. Yep....I did compare and if there's any changes in the position of any cp's, it has a completely different numbering on import.

The case in question for me is that if I import an obj model into Hash(not as a prop but via the obj import)from say........MAX or Maya.....I get an obvious CP number for each cp. The difficulty comes when I go back into Maya/Max/etc. and move a limb(like an arm) and then export the same model again into A:M. Nothing has changed at all but the slight movement of the arm, etc. Yet the two imported models have completely different cp numbers. So you can't copy cp position data of the movement because the cps are different. And there's no way that I can think of to revert the numbering system to match.

The things the movie industry has done with Fusion look really impressive. I don't have any experience using it, so I have no idea how it compares to say....."Nuke". Nuke is very expensive from what I understand. So the free offer could be enticing.

RC....Looks like nobody will respond. Maybe Steffen created it to help on one of his projects.

Hey Darrin, In Rodney's defense(And I think Rodney is an awesome guy), I sincerely believe that he does well by sticking up for A:M's current capabilities. It cost much time, and much money to make these things. ALSO....Rodney is always there to help so many people here...it would be ungrateful to take a bad approach to pushing any development that rubbed against things. THAT being said, I do feel that it is an issue worthy of consideration to improve/ work toward a simple to use export that brings the "Brilliance" of A:M's animation into external renders. My opinion is that the current, doable exports are not easy to use and they don't produce good enough results when they are brought into external engines. Going back to your questions about lighting on animation to be exported>>>>>> In my workflow, the final lighting would not be done until the animation data, props, and other elements were imported. Perhaps the camera data would also need to be imported. Pre-rendered work would require your own personal flow.....perhaps a compositing situation. I have combined several renders from several packages many times.....but that seems like a compositing job rather than a real time render item.

Rodney....It is of course rendered to a final file, but the pre-rendered work environment is amazingly close to what you see in that final render. Much like the Marmoset Toolbag Environment. And it is enhanced by the amazing strides in Video Card tech. However, "latest and greatest" doesn't mean you have to have a beast of a machine to use it. It might not run quite as optimally for a lower machine, but it still works better than last gen methods. I have a middle of the road system and it works pretty well. The animation process is secondary to the renderer in this case. Whether it is in fact mocap or hand keyed is not the issue for me. You can import Mocap or keyed frames and it's still used the same way in an external engine. The world(props, backgrounds, etc.), the lighting, the effects(rain, snow, god-rays, are seen and changeable in a more finished state. This allows the artist to see things as they are working on them. Not the animation itself. That is obviously done. If you're familiar with Marmoset toolbag, it works similar to that. You don't model a character in Marmoset, you work on the modelled character....Here's an example: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mY--K0-GGo Similarly, in a real time engine, you would import animated mesh and work on the world/ shot/ there. In that environment, you can change, adjust, add, etc....while seeing the results in a close to finished state.

In my opinion, The export process should be something that isn't that complexed for the artist. People in the biz don't care whether it's a COG or light point. We are currently spoiled to that process being figured out by someone else in other packages. So even though it's a very difficult development issue, it is greatly desired that the capability be there. NOW whether it can actually be done in A:M by the "push of the button" lies in the hands of the programmers. BUT professional artists currently have that in other packages. THUS FBX is important in the industry. I should probably say "easy to use FBX".... and with good results on the other side after it's been FBX'd out to the beyond. IT'S FUNNY.....Lumion 3D currently suffers from the opposite problem. They can't import animated mesh and refuse to try. "IT's A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD World" for 3D artists. hee hee

This is why it's so important for more interest to be placed on exporting animation out of A:M. Just my opinion. But it is the future. If you've never worked with a real time rendering engine before, it's hard to describe the power it gives in seeing your project and making important changes. It's a wonderful experience being able to easily tweak lighting, shadows, textures(bumps) in real time. My experience with it can be compared to putting in a great movie and being able to mess with all of the lighting and effects as you flip through it frame by frame. And what's even cooler is the ability to just say....."Hey...I think a shrub/ car/ etc. should be right there."...and add one in without having to re-render. I think it's a great opportunity to get in the door with these engines via A:M. But it needs to be a convenient and desirable process rather than "already do-able." Long live A:M William

Single user license for Z-Brush is currently $795. And I would say worth every penny if you have the extra budget. Artists have indicated to me that 3D Coat has even better UV methods than Zbrush. But I don't know how well it can translate back onto a spline/ patch model in A:M. That is where the troubles can come. UVing is extremely inconvenient in A:M as compared to newer methods being utilized in other software. Getting a ZBrush Model back into A:M includes the textures created in ZBrush as well. According to William Sutton, Zbrush textures/ UV's can be brought back into A:M and placed on a model. But I haven't ever done it.