Roger

A while back I discovered a bug with the way my GPU handles displaying animation playback/scrubbing in AM. There is a bit of a lag and/or dropped frames which can make it difficult to tell what is going on. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the Intel HD graphics, the Nvidia GPU, or the Nvidia Optimus feature which is supposed to switch between the 2 (I'm assuming it may be due to Optimus, but haven't been able to confirm by testing all cases yet). Currently I've got only the Nvidia discrete GPU enabled and am looking for my project file to scrub through the timeline to see if it is still an issue. Does anyone else with a similar setup on their laptop experience this same problem?

Get rid of McAfee, it is garbage. You're better off using Avast or AVG or Nod32 (not sure if they still have a free version). There is a video floating around on Youtube made by John McAfee about how to uninstall McAfee AV. I'd post a link but it may be considered offensive. You hardware selection should be fine. If you can afford a cintiq, I'd get it. I know I would prefer one. Can't justify spending on even a used one, though.

I've had bad luck with Kickstarter so far, with the exception of some stuff from John Kricfalusi I don't think I've received anything for stuff I've funded. I knew there was a chance of that but they seemed like safe gambles.

I wish I had seen this before now. If this is really worth the 4 hundo I may have to pick it up down the road a little later, but I can't swing it now.

Roger, is it enough for him to fit through the hole or does he have to be exactly keyshaped when he does it? He should probably conform to the shape, that seems like that would be harder to do.

It's easy once you know how. Maybe I'll practice rigging Tom before I try doing my dragon character. Is there a big difference when the character has oddly shaped legs? Thom has legs that go straight down but my dragon has really thick upper legs that kinda go out at an angle.

How about "force a character through an arbitrary opening", say, a keyhole? Perhaps Thom is on one side of a door and a black hole is on the other side, sucking him through the keyhole (in reality the black hole would rip apart the door and everything else, but this is a special case where its gravity only affects the particles in Thom's body).

Rob, Just watched the rigging basics video and have to admit you make it look so easy. Was there a reason you chose to use a fan bone instead of a smart skin for the knee joint? Also, if you were rigging Thom's torso, how many bones would you use for the spine? Would you use 2, 3 or more? I'm curious because it seems kind of arbitrary and I noticed that TSM seems to add a lot of spine bones, and I've seen other people using a lot of bones for the spine.

She didn't seem terribly "hipster-y"...at least, there was no mention of artisanal cheeses or fair trade coffee. I've never really been trendy or "with it", though (they keep changing what "it" is).

I remember hearing somewhere (perhaps in a post from Martin himself) that AM works better on AMD cpus (would be interesting to know the technical reason for this, is there some enhanced instruction set AMD is using that Intel isn't?). What is the performance difference? If it is in the neighborhood of 15-20%, that; along with the much cheaper per core cost, might make it worth considering AMD cpus for a renderbox. Anyway, if anyone knows, I'd be interested in getting a confirmation.

I struggle with some of the same things. I've thought about farming out rigging and have spoken with forum members (Robcat being one of them) but I feel like it should be something I should be able to do, it is just a big stumbling block right now. From one standpoint, I look at it like "well probably is not rigging his own models" so it certainly can't be too out there to delegate work to others (provided you are paying or sharing the credit or both) but from another angle it seems a bit like cheating somehow. Maybe I'm just being silly about it. Another thing that trips me up (and I suspect others) is we look at Pixar shorts (or anyone really talented) and become daunted by trying to match that look or that quality level. I think that is a lot more common with CG than other types of animation.

Very clever. That is certainly one way to put together a 4 man band

Adobe is pretty notorious for having security holes, at least in Flash, so this doesn't surprise me.

If you do an in-place upgrade of the OS without wiping the system, I don't think you will need a new license/code, it should just transfer over. Even if you were to wipe the system completely, if you backup your AM license key you should be able to copy it back later.

I was actually going to do some sort of goldfish, but I may give this another try using a rotoscope.

I guess I can try disabling the iGPU and see what happens. Any known issues with Nvidia/Quadro graphics? I've noticed sometimes when I draw a bounding box the selection sometimes disappears.

I needed a simple project to get back on track, so I thought I'd have a go at a fish. It is still really rough. This is very much going to be a stylized fish as opposed to a photo-real fish.

I have a laptop with an Optimus chipset, that can switch back and forth between an integrated GPU and a Quadro 2000. I have noticed that there are some problems when scrubbing through a timeline, it seems like it is dropping frames (Robcat knows what I'm talking about). Is this a known issue with integrated graphics? Or maybe it is something with the way optimus switches between the integrated GPU and the discrete GPU. I hate to completely disable the integrated GPU, it will kill my battery life. Is anyone else out there experiencing problems with integrated GPUs on laptops?

Glad it helped someone.

For all you guys out there using Macs, thought you might be interested in this: https://deals.cultofmac.com/sales/the-name-...-mac-bundle-3-0 I don't really recognize the other apps, but this would be a great way to get Camtasia for cheap.

Ah, but what fun would that be?

True. Sketchpad and pencils are cheap, and have the advantage of no distractions.

So things have changed in my neck of the woods and parking costs are really starting to bite into my income, even with the reduced amount that I actually have to be at the office. I've been thinking about taking the train but that adds at least an 1 to 1.5 hours to my commute. It would be nice to be able to do something animation or art related with that time instead of reading, sleeping, or playing around with my phone. Is there any viability to running AM on a windows virtual machine on a high-end Android tablet? Something with a Tegra 3 or 4 maybe? I would just use my laptop, but without a tray table or something to put it on (not available on the train I ride) I'm worried I'll bake my lap. Not to mention, a 2 pound tablet that lasts all day on a charge is a lot easier to haul around with you. My concern is that even if I can get AM running under a virtual machine, it is going to be unuseable without keyboard and mouse so maybe a laptop is better. While I love my laptop to death, once you add on the extended battery or charger it is a real bear to haul around. Anyone have any thoughts on this?

I don't know how or even if you could integrate this with AM, but if you're just interested in playing around with planetary simulations and doing stuff like smacking asteroids into Earth or sending a rogue blackhole through the solar system, this might be something you want to check out: http://store.steampowered.com/app/72200/ Normal price is like $10, I think it is on sale now for $4 or so.

Just installed my brand-new AM subscription and I saw a new option during the install process...Timelog plugin? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess this lets you keep track of use but I haven't managed to find it anywhere yet.