detbear

Thanks Nancy... I'll give that a try. I have never run into a situation until now where I need to get rid of that bugger.

When you do a "shaded" mode quality render rather than a "Final" quality render......The x,y,z indicator at the bottom left renders into the frame. Is there a way to render a "shaded" mode render without that appearing. Can you turn it off? Thanks, William

Nancy, I've had those horrible corruptions as well. Funny thing it seems for me that my Vista Machines(64bit) have the problem whereas my XP systems don't. VERY strange indeed...

My small studio has two web licenses and a cd license.... and they operate equally as well...The cd version just gives a bit more flexibility...As for new features...New ones and improvements continue to be released ongoing. I use it professionally, and it is very effective. v15 is awesome...fixed some key bugs that were in v14. Also carries some surprisingly awesome exports still for model exports.

This is not the only way....or the best way.....But its the way I would do it: 1.Make the Broom/Guitar part of the model. Copy and paste it there....then move it to a position suitable. 2.Create a new bone....for the broom/ guitar (bone1) with the bones base at the area of where the "Pic" hand will strum...... 3.Make sure the above bone is parented to the lower Back bone or hips....This way it will move with the body and yet you can also move it independently as well. 4.place a second bone(Bone2) at the neck of the Broom. Parent this to Bone1 so it will move with the broom but also move up and down the neck. 5.With your characters "Fret" hand set to IK(inverse Kenamatics)....constrain it to the Bone2(neck) with a "translate to" constraint. 6.Then you can slide Bone2 and control the hand...while at the same time the guitars movement will. **Steps 5 & 6 need to be done in a pose or action.... This is at least a start....You can add a bunch more detail.... Hope that helps some.

At the moment I can't, because I'm working on a Direct to DVD project which is taking up most of my time. HOWEVER, I do have a more lengthy story for this. But for now, it will only be a show reel piece. In order to further develop the idea into something more, I would replace the models with more refined rigs. Hats off to creators of these rigs from the community here. Talbot and the others are so talented at this genre. Without their permission to use those, I would not carry it any further than a demo piece. I would need to refine or replace the rigs/ controls....especially the faces.

Hey everyone... Thanks so much for your kind remarks. Jason....You're right.... there is motion blurr in there, but it's a very small percentage(didn't have enough experimental time to test render it with higher levels). I didn't use imaged base lighting although I do in most other projects. But it is full Ambient Occlusion lighting. Each character was rendered separately and composited back into a matched background. It's interesting that you mention a stop motion feel. From what other animation friends have told me, I tend to have a "stop motion" feel that comes out in my animation. I am a big fan of the Ray Harryhaussen films. Somehow, I guess my influences come out in my work sometimes. The rigs themselves also limited some of the smoother polish which gives it a more stiff feel.

Hey Paul, Thanks for your comments. Yeah....There was no facial rigg at all on the Alien, so I tried to portray a very angry attitude going between two objects of his wrath. His short confusion leads to his horrible end I actually didn't shoot any reference for this one..... I just choreographed some thumbs on paper and went straight from my imagination.... I have to study body mechanics to get my animation done at work and I usually shoot reference to get ideas and such.....But I just went straight ahead without any reference on this sequence...... Definately not the best way to go.

Hey...Cool...I'm glad you like it. I started out just wanting to do a short.. sci fi sword duel. Not necessarily to match the series.... The Anzovin Ogre was the only character I could find with the 4 arms

Hello everyone, I've been producing a direct to DVD video for some time now. BUT as an animator, I also squeeze in some time to work on my demo reel. Attached is a demo reel sequence I'm finalizing. I've been inspired for some time now to animate something Sci Fi along the lines of a John Carter type theme. Lots of Fun..... I used some of the riggs from the Hash community here. They fit the look I was hoping to acheive. Aliens, Tharks, Barbarians, Martian Princess's.....FUN!!! Cheers!!! William Detwiler Detwiler_anim_1.mov

That's very cool Robert. I love it!!! Retro Sci Fi is so awesome. That was a great idea done very well.

Hey everyone... I have worked with light mapps on props that don't move.....You render one frame and that lighting is used for all the other frames...Well...that's how it works in some other apps. QUESTION: There is an option in the choreography to "Export Light Maps".....Is that what this option does?? Does it work??? How does it work?? Anyone have any experience with this option?? William

In the character render in A:M would you do this flat shaded or with shadows and occlussion also........?

The hang-up has been as follows...... It's a ground plane issue really.......The ground plane/background in the final composite is different from the A:M scene...... So I'm attempting to capture just the objects and their occlusion shadows to overlay onto a different ground plane in final composite. I can get the normal shadows in a shadow pass, But I haven't been able to get both normal shadows and occlusion shadows in an alpha state to overlay onto a different groundplane. Does that make any sense...I'm sorry that my explanation isn't very good... Nancy....In your example above could you take those nice occlusion shadows and the sphere and place them onto a separate groundplane that was not involved in the render??? That's probably the correct question I'm trying to figure out....I don't know how to get a render of the shadows to go onto a groundplane that is not involved in the render.

I saved just the occlusion layer out as a TGA. But It covers the underlying composite image.. There's no alpha transparency in the TGA image that separates just the occlusion shadows. So when you place it over the composite(color image)....it just covers it up.

Robert, Will that result overlay just the shadows into an existing composit?? Or do you have to build some kind of alpha buffer??

Hey Photoman, Thanks for your reply.. What is the process to convert that occlusion buffer to a useable alpha overlay in a compositing App?? I use TGAs for my current project. So I need just the occlusion layer with an alpha chanel to overlay it onto the composite. Any way to acheive that via the A:M composite.....and or some other fashion.... I was able to use EXR to open the occlusion(and other channels) in a test frame. But I don't know how to convert just the occlusion buffer into an image with alpha to overlay in the existing composite.

Hey Everyone. Wasn't sure where to ask/ re-visit this topic. Here goes. Getting the shadows separated for a composite is doable and I have been creating these in a separate pass with alpha buffer for some time. HOW do I get the occlusion shadows separated out or together with the normal light shadows. Can you do this for overlaying it in a compositing app?? I have tried numerous things, but so far no real success.

I run into circumstances where I need to load the same choreography on a separate machine.. Even though I bring all the files over and the choreography file, IT takes the second machine forever to load everything.... IT also asks for the same files sometimes 10 times before it's over with...On large choreography files it can take half an hour or more to get the choreography up and running on a second machine... HOW can you overcome that headache?? Anyone know?

I hope "is"

I think you can import animation files into A:M composite as well Jason....I would just experiment by importing a .MOV file in as an image sequence. Right click on images in the PWS and choose import image/ image sequence.

Hey, Hash is an incredibly powerful 3D software.....It is a valuable part of my pipeline for sure. I think that A:M Composite does work with shadows. The tech ref I've seen deals mostly with Open EXR files. However...I think Targa's also work. For my projects, I've chosen to work in After Effects for compositing. BUT A:M composite is up to the task. SHADOWS ON OBJECTS: I always render the objects/ characters with shadows on them. I normally do a separate pass for just ground shadows and then I place them under the character layer in post..(This allows me to make the shadows as soft as I need them by applying effects and also making color adjustments to them so they better fit the scenes)..Great render time saver as well ......I place these on top of the ground/ Background layer. Sometimes I have 5 or more layers depending on how complexed the scene... I heard a while back that making a good pass of an object/or characters shadows(shadows on the object itself) requires a "non-textured" version of the object as a stand-in. Not sure how all that works in A:M though. William

Awesome Robert!! I needed a similar effect a while back...Can't go back now though

Hey, I've currently been using shadow passes all over the place in A:M..... Mostly for ground shadows....Ground plane must be set to "Receive Shadows Only" in it's options panel...... ALSO and important....USE .TGA FILES.....Then in the render settings set both the ALPHA and SHADOW buffers to "ON".... Leave the other buffers(light, etc.) at "off"......When you render set the multi passes low at maybe 2-3 passes...Then later you can soften them in a post App like After Effects... BTW.....You won't see the shadows until you go to composite so test a frame or two first... Cut all the render settings off in the render settings except the Multi-pass and shadows. THIS is a simple way for ground shadows that requires some compositing know how....... FOR shadows on the characters...I have found that rendering the shadows along with the character works best in A:M....Haven't seen a fast way to render just the shadows on the character itself.... Cheers, William

If you have a post App like after effects, you can get a bunch done in the color corrections filters/ effects. But straight out of Hash normally gives great results. My current project is being rendered at 720p or 1280x720HD in the Hash settings. Because I am layer rendering different aspects of each shot(Characters, shadows, backgrounds, props), I am using a post APP to bring things back together for final edit. THIS is important to understand aspect ratios and how to "Letterbox" things depending on how you want people to see your work. I wish hash would give an option for setting distinct Aspect ratios as well as resolution. For instance 16:9, 4:3.....etc. Currently it only allows for typing in a numeric digit which I have no idea how this matches up with the 16:9, 4:3, etc. I'm sure it matches up, but I don't know how. I guess "1" equals square pixels and so forth but I don't know.....As I'm typing this, I'm thinking it would be cool to have a chart of the equivalent matches for the Hash aspect numbers to actual aspect ratios.....16:9, etc. Cheers, William