detbear

Hey..... I'm trying to do a different simulation with newton. This has a character hitting a pile of objects with a "sword".... What do I set the character to in order to have the objects react to the sword?? The sword is a part of the character's model and not a separate object. Kevin

Manuel......No problem. I'm happy to help. Keep at it. This is a great forum with a bunch of good artists. Very helpful. A:M is amazing software that can get a project produced by an individual. You should work on a short story/ film. Even if it's under a minute. Start a you Tube channel and post it. Then build from there. Keep it as simple as possible with simple props and backgrounds. Focus on the story. Kevin

Thanks guys. Means a bunch to hear your feedback. MANUEL.......That production which runs a little over one minute, took me almost two weeks to complete from story to finish. But the characters and some elements had already been finished on a previous video. The lighting and re-arranging took a decent amount of time because I light every shot individually. Animation is always difficult and I find myself working in a "Straight Ahead" animated style rather than a "Pose to Pose". But that is because of the fast nature of getting things finished. The snow had to be done in post and separately for every shot. The backgrounds for much of it is a still image doctored up and animated in After Effects. I pull out a bunch of tricks from my many years of producing animation, so it's hard to recall everything at once. I have a real unorthodoxed method in a way. MANUEL.....Don't give up, and don't be afraid to make a bad animation. You have to just Do it!!! And then try it again. Sometimes things work well, and sometimes they don't work at all. ALSO.....The most important part is the final render. So post production and editing are very important. Sound, Color overlays, brightness, music, effects, ........they all play an important role. Just do it.

Hey Everyone. Checkin' back in here. Thanks for all your support. Rodney asked about my process in a previous post here. There are some practical steps to get a short animation done with decent quality. ANIMATION: Animation itself is an art that you never perfect, but force yourself forward and improve. In many cases time impacts the quality. just a few seconds of animation can take a week if you place high quality time on it. But many times, getting things finished, keeps you from polishing everything at that level. Thus, animation is an individual endeavor and limited to a person's experience and skill. THINKING AHEAD: I always think about a shot in terms of what will look great and take the least amount of time. Often, I envision certain things that take more time.....but decide that it is worth it to do in order to make it better. QUICK ADVICE: MOVING CAMERAS will increase the post production time dramatically. This is because backgrounds and effects will need to be rendered on every frame instead of having a single image. So unless the camera move is absolutely necessary, figure out a good angle composite and keep it still. QUICK composite tip: Make your camera focus slightly wider and then in a composite program you will have enough rendered area outside the frame to move the image to get some slight, fake camera motions. This works great for shakes during explosions also. COMPOSITE RENDERS: I always render in layers. This requires a strategy in A:M because it doesn't happen automatically. You need to choose a way to get your desired layers rendered. HERE are the things I render on layers: 1.Characters only render 2.props 3.background 4.shadows(Sometimes for each character separately) 5.Ambiant occlusion(Most of the time I capture this along with the shadows) HOW I GET SHADOWS ONLY without using EXR format: 1.I convert every model, prop, and background to white(no textures, groups, colors). 2.I set their falloff to 0%... 3.VERY IMPORTANT.....Set all the lights to white color so that they don't colorshade things. 4. For each model that is not receiving shadows, I set the options to this: Front Projection=ON Flat Shaded=ON Recieve Shadows=OFF Cast Shadows=ON Shadows Only=OFF Cast Occlusion=ON For the surface receiving the shadows: Front Projection=ON Flat Shaded=ON Recieve Shadows=ON Cast Shadows=OFF Shadows Only=OFF Cast Occlusion=OFF IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT, IMPORTANT: This will result in a "White render with Black shadows" most of the time. You must bring that into a program like After Effects and set the layer mode to "Multiply." Make sure the shadow layer is on top of the character layers. This will make the white areas transparent and the shadows and occlusion will remain. SHADOW LIGHTS: Use Z-buffered lights if you can and only have one light casting shadows. AMBIANT OCCLUSION: Use the SBAO all you can. HOWEVER....This will increase anomallys if you have heavy motion blur OR Depth of Field on your camera.

The Big secret is NO SLEEP. Working long hours. Hee Hee. Just a bunch of sleep loss.

Hey Guys. Thanks so much. I will reveal my ULTRA, CLANDESTINE, TOP SECRET in my next post below this one......... ................ .............................

Hey Everyone. After more animation, R&D, models, effects, and everything else that gets things to the finish line...... I completed and published another Animation. Thanks for all your support!!! Link: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJ3SDajqsYc

RijK!!! We're so glad to have you visiting the Forums again and giving the latest A:M a try. There's a bunch of improvements and add-ons.

Welcome!!! Yes....The software will cease to open after the year subscription is up. You have the option to "Renew" though. It's a different approach to using software, but most of the Major 3D packages are already following this model as well. Those include Adobe and Autodesk. A:M is relatively inexpensive at just under 100 spacebucks. It gives new users a more inexpensive test drive without the older cost of 300 or more. Plus, you continue to get all the upgrades. ****IMPORTANT..... YOUR subscription allows you to Install and open as many of the A:M versions as you want to install. I normally have 4 versions that I can open up at anytime to use.(V.15, V.16, V,17, & V.18). And you DON't need to use a CD or Dongle to open the software. Your subscription acts as the key. ABOUT STL......Yes...Animation Master has made great strides to accomodate 3D printing. Will Sutton has some examples I think.... on his Tar Of Zandoria blog site. I'm not sure about the XP compatability. I am running V.18 on Vista though. RC... I was too slow typing....You beat me to it

WOW!!!!!! THose look like very awesome additions. Thank you Willi!!! I'm interested especially in the Point Cash....Mdd plugin. Is there any other info you can share about the use for that.

I'm sure Bullet Physics will be a nice addition, but rendering is much more of a need in my pipeline. And it seems as though the simulation of Bullet physics will need a more robust render option if the objects are numerous. Or at least it seems like that would be the case. Rendering is the number one need for my pipeline. At the same time, AND IN A:M's defense, I totally understand how difficult of a challenge this is.

According to a post by Gerald(I think it was him), the Luxrender architecture could potentially work. But I don't know all the details. I have used "Lux" in the past with other Apps and it had some decent results.

VUE also has the option of "Bucket Rendering."

I wonder if there will be any move in the Render Area that allows for export to engines like Octane. ALSO: I wish that the MAT CAP shader plugin would be included in the list.

Hey Guys. Thanks so much. And thank you for taking time to watch. It means a bunch and helps out as I work to build a wider audience. Thank you. I hope to get some other things completed as well. ALSO.....I hope to be able to get some tutorials/ examples of some of the methods and tools I use in A:M.....Like the Particle Illusion export, Other effects, and Compositing methods. Kevin

Hey Fuchur, Thanks so much. I love the German-like Font they used for the Game. I found a font that came close to matching it and worked the "Lego" into it as best I could using photoshop and effects. That look and lettering has such an awesome feel to it.

Hey Everyone. After a really long production......I'm proud to announce that my latest "Short Animation" is finished and published on my Youtube channel. The Link is here: xhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUTEbe6HyC0

This is a link for the Stand Alone App rather than the AE plugin. There is a difference. The stand alone version is PI 3.0. xhttp://www.wondertouch.com/vid_pI3_ovr.asp

Particle Illusion is a bit of a cost. They also have an After Effects version now, but I don't think that it has the same tracking import feature that works with A:M. It basically works like a plugin in After Effects. But Matt is right......If you can get the "Stand Alone" version, the tracking ability is VERY useful.

AFTER STEP 2 above, Particle illusion will ask you to navigate to the tracking/ export file you made with the PI-Motion export from A:M

Here is a brief screen capture of the 2 steps in getting A:M's PI-Motion Export into Particle Illusion. You'll need to navigate to where your data was exported to out of A:M.

ROBERT!!! SUCCESS!!!! I opened it again using my project and tried to run the export again. THE KEY is knowing to use the DOWN/ UP arrow keys to be able to thumb through the bones, etc. Without knowing there is more than one selection in the list, you don't know that they are available. ALSO.....I attached a null to the bone I wanted to track. Using a null seems to work better. THIS Deserves a tutorial because it works Very well and imports rather easily into Particle Illusion with just a few clicks. IN PARTICLE ILLUSION place an emitter in the scene first. Then "Right Click" on the emitter(Where it is listed in the left PWS column of Particle Illusion....not on the screen area itself) and select "Import/ Tracking data".......Then select Text as type(this is default though)... Then .....Walllllaaaahhhh..... It's done.

This is the only option I get to track......Is there a way to get bones, models or nulls to show up as options to track in the export plugin??

Hey... I'm not aware of any. I can't get A:M's PI export to select the null or bone to follow. The only option it gives is a "Choreography ambience" channel. Which is weird. Unless I'm doing/ not doing the proper steps to get the exporter to work, it doesn't seem to be operating. Did you run that data out of V18??

I think we previously determined that it didn't work in earlier versions. I was hoping that it would in the current version. I need a realistic torch flame to follow a path. Any ideas??