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Hello everyone. This is my first AM project, I bought the software last week and I can't put it down! Especially since I had previously purchased Truespace 6.6, what a waste of time and money! Well I guess it was a tought me to appreciate AM. He will eventually be a soccer player. Sugestions and critiques are MORE than welcome. I could use all the help I can get. Thanks! My Webpage My Webpage

Hello all. It's amazing what great things happen on #hash3d, not only interesting conversations, great guffaws and of course now the monthly lectures But for me a couple weeks ago the idea for a "new" story came out of IRC. I don't want to give much a way but the 2 main characters are loosely based on 2 of our well known A:M ers. It will be an action adventure type story if all goes well. Hopefully through diligence on my part my skills will match up to my imagination and I can do the story justice.

Cartoon March Opeining scene0.mp4 I did some work on an opening scene for the Cartoon Cartoon March Opeining scene0.mp4 March project. This one features Vexy from the Smurfs and the Town Crier character from the Dr. Who game. As you can see from the attached video, things get off to a bad start.

Goodday all. I have downloaded 19g and netrender is giving error message. I have loaded the correct project, chor, camera, output location, etc into netrender. As soon as the render process starts a error appears. The error message says files (.act .mdl) are missing for my project. Netrender is searching in the c:\Program File\Hash inc\v19\Data\Material\..... for action and model files for my project. I have not saved my act and mdl file in that location. Why is netrender searching for it in that location. The act and mdl files for my project is saved in my 'document' folder. How do I tell netrender to look in my document folder? When rendering from within AM there are no problems. Hope I explained my problem clearly. Thanks David

I'm working on a personal project I hope to animate sometime soon. When I finish this model, it will be my first real completed 3d model. The entire thing is being modeled in Animation Master 9.5 (atleast until I upgrade to 10). As I get further along, I'll be posting finished models, textures and storyboards. Any tips, crits, or input are greatly appreciated. I'm teaching myself as I go.

The "Timeline" window only shows what is currently selected. You can use the "pin" at the upper left corner to make items in the timeline remain after you deselect them. The left pane of the Project Workspace (PWS) is an expandable/collapsible outline view of every asset in your project. You can select items in the PWS if they are hard to select in the Viewport. The reverse also works, if you select an item in the Viewport it will be found in the PWS. The right pane of the PWS is a timeline window of keyframes that parallels whatever you have expanded and visible in the left pane. Nothing has to be selected to show in the right pane, it only has to be visible in the left pane. The "Timeline" window existed first in A:M. A timeline in the PWS came much later, around v9... v10? The PWS/timeline combination has turned out to be far more useful for managing complex projects so I rarely use the "Timeline."

I keep thinking of all of these ideas of animations and models! I have like 10 projects I have to finish!!!! Anyways, I thought of an animation I want to make and it involves a diamond...therefore I'm made a diamond. I'm still trying to get the material right but heres a neat pic of the diamonds with different hues. Tell me what you think because I want the diaond to look good. Thanks

Hi Gang - Attached is the early stage of a my first *scene* in A:M. There will be an inhabitant and grass and all that .... but I'm posting for your comments. Thanks for looking. Doug click me ...

Mod note: this topic has been split off from a Live Answer Time discussion. Very cool class today! Here is a project addressing a possible refraction bug with two identical glass balls on a table with a decal. The glass materials are identical except one has refraction set to 1 and the other has refraction set to 1.5. The material with refraction at 1.5 is black... Not sure why that is happening... Is this a bug? Image for PRJ: RefractionTest.prj

I converted a bar/cafe structure to use as a rest stop for my Cartoon March project. The Instant Meshes program did not help for this type of model as it normally does. Most of the structure is simple geometric shapes that are easy to duplicate with Hash primitives. As is usually the case, the decals (many, many) are the main problem with this type of model. Attached are views of the exterior and interior of the building and a walk through video. Rest Stop.mp4

Hey everyone, A while ago, I mentioned that I was working on a pair of base meshes for my own projects, and that I also would be willing to share with the community at large. I have a full body finished now, but there is still a lot of tweakage to be done. I've been looking at this for a while now, so I was hoping to get some fresh perspective other than the random references I've cobbled together. Please visit the page and let me know what you think and what features you think would be useful in a basic mesh of this type (in terms of being able to stretch/shrink parts of the body, change levels of musculature, whatever). -Edit: Still graphics heavy, but the initial load has been reduced by a factor of 2 or 3. http://www.prism.gatech.edu/~gtg724n/common.html Thanks in advance, Bjorn

I'm not showing too much of this stuff around (just a treat for the forum crowd ) but here is a character I am working on for my In progress short film. More details and will be forthcoming as soon as the crew and I have things more in hand. -David Rogers

This became a good news, bad news, good news story. I successfully reproduced your example in v19e. GOOD Used the technique in a car steering project but every time the project was saved, closed and re-opened, the constraint aiming the steering bone roll handle at the null went wacky and needed repairing meaning it couldn't work using Netrender. BAD Used your technique to properly position a null under the car's front axle, then constrained a second null to translate to and orient like the front axle null, then constrained the roll handle of the steering bone to point at the second null. This always survived the project close and re-open. GOOD Thanks again for your efforts Robert.

So now the creative juices being to flow: I'm wondering if an app external to A:M is created that can be triggered from within A:M that handles archival of a project on the fly. I have always thought that some sort of repository of an animation project that ties everything together, with a nice gui front end would help me a lot. When developing a software project I/we normally go through the following process: 1) gather requirements; what is the project supposed to do? (what is the story we are trying to tell) 2) Functional design; maps the requirements into a mid-level design of the project (script) 3) Technical design; maps the functional design into a detailed design of the project (storyboards) 4) Testing design; maps the technical design into a testing plan (animatic) 5) Development; performs the work laid out in the technical design (modeling/rigging/lighting/animation) 6) Quality assurance; performing the actions laid out in the test design match expected results (editing) 7) product release; The challenge is making sure that everything defined in step 1 makes it to step 7, and there is no loss of the work as we move to each stage. I'd like to see an app that, by way of database driven archival/retrieval, that allows us to maintain an A:M project, with plug ins perchance that allow us to maintain it from within A:M and/or a stand alone web based gui. How about a collaborative project? I have friends on my side who I perhaps can talk into doing some coding (their fee is beer usually). I'd think an open-source project, take donations to help defray the cost of a cloud platform. What I would need from folks here is a requirements list. I truly am a glutton for punishment since I will be in NYC for 4 days next week starting my new job as a technical architect. That transition has got me stressed out a wee bit, but once I've gotten my Christmas short out and the Rear Window project done, I'd like to investigate this, since I'm painfully aware of what happens when things go south with files!

This is a collection of links to various explanatory posts I have made over the years on the forum. Some are full stand-alone tutorial presentations but most are answers to an A:M user's question or sometimes mere interjections in a thread and you may need to read above and below for context. They may be videos, annotated screen capture stills, example projects or just text explanations. Some videos may require installation of the free Ensharpen Codec (bottom of page at link) They are arranged only roughly in broad categories below and not in any particular order beyond that. Some might fit in more than one category but none are listed more than once. I may regroup them in the future. To search them I suggest using ctrl-f in your browser to search on a relevant keyword such as "glow" or "constraint" They are not official Hash, Inc. productions nor are they necessarily endorsed by Hash, Inc. nor are they represented as being error-free. Occasionally, later changes in A:M may make the current interface appear differently than in the tutorial example. However, I hope they are useful and if you find a problem, let me know. This list currently covers activity from January 2009 to 2014. Quick Start introductions for very new users Ultra QuickStart Complete Model-Bones-Animate-Render workflow Quickstart Missile Path. Simple tutorial for new user makes missile follow path. Interface Basic Navigation. Video demonstrates basic views and tools to adjust the view in the Choreography Custom Toolbars, Creating and Editing Text editing. Example cases of editing A:M files for unusual purposes. Image Sequence. How to import an image sequence into a PRJ and add it to a camera as a Rotoscope or apply it to a model surface. Frame channel; Notes on editing the Frame Channel of an image sequence to make the sequence hold or reverse. Stereoscopic Movie editing. Using A:M's non-linear editing powers to edit stereoscopic image streams. Adding Rotoscopes and assigning them to specific views. RAW Camera export format. Some guesses about the meaning of its contents CCD lens flare. Settings to simulate the streaks of a digital camera. Horizon Line. Model that can be dropped into a chor to simulate a horizon line. V17 Default Chor. Explanation of changes made to the default choriography starting with v17 Simulations Cloth Hi-Res option. Explanation of this new option for SimCloth in v17 Newton Object collision. Example PRJ where a ball knocks a spoon around in a bowl. A ball spinning a rotor PRJ appears later in the same thread. Crashing Wing. Newton PRJ that make an airplane wing break up on impact. Parachute. Simple parachute animation made with Simcloth with sample PRJ. Simcloth Parameter comparisons. Movie compares variations of "Stretch Type" and "Bend Type" Modeling Quickstart Missile. Simple tutorial for new users models a missile. Basic Navigation and Splining. An extended introduction to fundamental operation of A:M and first modeling exploits. Spline Continuity. Notes on how splines should and should not intersect. Spline Continuity. Notes on a user's model of a couch. Interior Patches. Video discusses problem of Interior Patches and strategy for eliminating them. Note that since this vid was made the "CutPlane" plugin has been added to A:M. It could have been used to add the spline that i stitch in manually in the video. Lathing a perfect sphere. Use the Lathe tool to create a custom sphere with any number of needed subdivisions. Lathing a wheel. Lathing is easy. Make it work for you when you're modeling. Peaks and Valleys. Brief explanation of why fewer splines is better. Mating two dissimilar meshes. Adding splines makes it easy to bridge gaps Closing a Hole. Extending splines to close the small hole that lathed objects have at top and bottom. Closing a Hole. Yet another topology for closing the hole at the axis of a lathed object. Protrusion. How to connect a protrusion to a mesh. Rerouting Splines. A mesh can be improved by changing the path of some splines Dead End Spline. Locating and fixing a dead end spline in a new user's TAoA:M Giraffe model. Dead End Spline. Video shows three ways to eliminate a dead end spline. Copy/Flip/Attach. How to properly copy/flip/attach across any axis and how to fix splines that do not mirror as expected. Bevels. So you've made a box and then want to add bevels to the edges? Nope. Make the bevel then add the box! Fine modeling is easier in A:M when you think ahead to what you need. Beveled N-Gon. Quick way to make a beveled shape with any number of sides Editing a Dense Cube to add edge bevels. Punching a Hole in a Cylinder. Several people contribute good suggestions in this thread. Bar of Soap. Topology for rectangular shape with rounded corners. Cross Pipe. Topology for intersecting pipes. Drink Can Pull Tab. Demonstration of planning and modeling the tab on the top of an aluminum can. Snail Shells. Example of using Duplicator Wizard to make spiral snail shells. Bending Text. Using distortion Box to bend font wizard text to fit a curve Penguin Beak. Suggestions on splining a penguin beak. More Beak. Sample MDL for another possible beak topology. Beak modeling. Video shows simple techniques make it simple to make a non-simple shape. Glow that shrinks with distance. A solution that uses concentric shells. Adding a Smile Line. Resplining a face to have a proper "smile line" contour. Planning an ear. Attempting to prejudge the flow of splines in human ear model. Ear model in Post#18 Boolan Cutter. Example PRJ shows use of render-time Boolean cutter. Another sample PRJ is found here. Modeled Holes. Example PRJ shows topology for modeling a hole in a surface without a Boolean cutter. Five-Point Patch Closing. Video on how to close a 5-pointer that seems no to be closeable. Biased vs. Perpendicular Normals. Video demonstrates rarely used buttons that set biased/perpendicular normals. Bias Smoothing. Some mesh lumps can be solved by adjusting the bias at spline intersections. Smoothing a Mesh. Some notes on a user's face mesh and suggestions on editing it for a smoother result. Smoothing a mesh. Notes on solving user's "crease" problem. Don't model creases! Smoothing a mesh. Video shows fixing some lumps with bias adjustment. Since making this video I've decided that good meshes with reasonably spaced splines can reduce/eliminate the need for this maneuver. Smoothing a mesh. Tips on adjusting bias to smooth a mesh. Unwarping an image. Example of using A:M Splines to unwarp a poorly scanned image. Splining. Video has corrective suggestions regarding basic splining on a user's face mesh Normal Map. Example PRJ shows how to create a Normal Map representation of a modeled object. Terrain Plugin. Notes on use of Terrain plugin that creates meshes based o grey-scale images. Ragged Edges. Modeling ragged edges on a cone. T-Rex WIP. Example of building a low-splineage Tyranosaurus with screen shots. Triceratops head. Example low splineage wireframe Triceratops head Al Capone WIP. Example of building a low splineage human head. Puppets. Thread follows modeling and development of traditional Punch and Judy style puppet and Sock Puppet. TAoA:M #11 Giraffe. A walk-thru on how to model, not the whole giraffe, but just the legs. I'm thinking of doing a vid for the whole exercise, but right now it's just about the leg. Decals and Materials and Particles and Cloth 3DPainter. A brief introduction on using 3DPainter with A:M Decaling for Painting. A strategy for using Cylindrical Application decals (instead of flattening a model to use Planar application) for "UV mapping" Decaling a Sphere. Video demonstrates results of Cylindrical and Spherical application of a decal to a sphere. Europass Soccer Ball. Example of equirectangular map for spherical application in use. Decals with Alpha Channel. Video shows how to properly use transparency in Photoshop to create decals with irregular outlines or fading/transparency effects WITHOUT a strange halo around them. The Material preview ball is 30cm in diameter Moving Decal. Example PRJ for using a Projection Map Material to move a bitmap image around a surface Glossy plugin shader. Example of settings for harder specular highlight. Glossy Thom. Example PRJ uses an Environment map to create glossy appearance. Whitewall Tire. Example material and model create old-fashioned wide whitewall tire. Wood Rings. Sample PRJ demonstrates use of combiners to make wood ring pattern. Ward Specular shader. Notes and example PRJ on shader for LPs and CD style glints and brushed metal effects. Minnaert plugin shader. Sample PRJs show use of shader for odd shading effects that are peculiar to objects like our Moon. fBm turbulence combiner. Example PRJ uses turbu8lence combiner to create rocky terrain. Brushed Metal. Screencap shows settings to make brushed metal look with a scaled turbulence combiner. Stripes. Combines gradients in a material create RYGB stripes. Union Jack. Material makes British Union Jack Flag. UV map consolidation. Simplifying a UV map captured from a wireframe screen so that decals seams are at teh edge of the UV Map. X-Ray look. Example material Polar Bear Hair. Example of dense, short hair suitable for a large mammal. Hair Comparison. Comparison of render results with different lights on hair. Sample PRJ later in thread. Sample Hair Test. Sample images of hair with different lighting. Note that "Spinning lights" are probably no longer needed as a substitute for Ambient Occlusion since "FakeAO" and "SSAO" effects have been introduced in A:M. Jet Thruster. Sample PRJ and notes on using Streaks to create variable width jet thruster effect. Steam. Example of the Steam volumetric effect with sample PRJ Clouds. Clouds made with sprite particles. Example PRJ in Post #13 Misty Clouds. A fluffy cloud effect created with material. Cumulus Clouds. Sample PRJ has another approach to creating clouds with sprites. Propeller. A procedural material that makes... a propeller! Shamrock. Procedural material makes a three-leaf shamrock. Fireworks. Sample Project creates Chrysanthemum style fireworks explosion. Sparks. Material creates welding torch style sparks. Video higher up in thread. Shower Head. Example PRJ demonstrates Streak particles as water from shower head. Cigarette Smoke. Sample PRJ makes slowly wafting cigarette smoke with streak particles. The rendered movies will appear rather dark on some monitors. Sun Surface. Material made with cellular combiner creates look of Sun surface. Aurora. Example PRJ creates Aurora Borealis effect. Jacob's Ladder. Animation of sparking device commonly found in mad scientist laboratories. Example PRJ and movie. Also, stereoscopic version with better appearance. Fast Glass. Thread offers suggestions on user's need to model faster rendering thick tempered glass. Cracked Glass. Several user suggestions on imitating cracked glass appearance. Iris Out. Sample project for old-fashioned Iris-out camera effect. Dome Panels Retracting. Animated material creates appearance of retracting panels on a dome. Rotating a Material. Example PRJ shows material rotated on object. Gradient Adjusted by Pose. Example PRJ shows gradient material with parameters changed in a Pose. Edge Gradient Demo. I'm not sure what the user's need was but this PRJ demonstrates usage of Edge Gradient. Cloth Rope. Floppy rope made from Sim Cloth Cloth sleeve. Sample PRJ demonstrates simcloth as a sleeve for an arm. Cloth Chain. Example PRJ for chain links made from Sim cloth. Metal cloth. Very stiff cloth used to imitate crunching metal. Shrink Wrap. Sample PRJ uses simcloth to create the look of a shrink wrapped label. Cloth Attach Groups. Jason Hampton's tutorial on using Simcloth Attach Groups to manipulate cloth. Boat Wake simulated with Cloth. Semi-successful attempt to create the look of a boat moving through water. Sample PRJ in post #8. Bump Map AO. Method to create the appearance of Ambient Occlusion in bump-mapped surfaces. Hair Color change. Animating the color of hair to change over time with contributions from several people. Unusual Specular Color. Example drawn from real life case. Dust. Example PRJ for A:M's "Dust" material. mtpeak2 contributes a much better solution later in the thread. Hair. Improving collision detection results with Particle Hair. Post with brief video/sample PRJ and longer Live Answer Time Session. Rigging and Constraints Constraints? What are they good for? In a new user's thread I give some examples and context. Bone Creation and Heirarchy. Video shows creating bones and effect of "heirarchy." Simplest IK Leg. If you want to know more about how the basic leg constraints work, here's a walk thru on the simplest possible IK leg Adding an IK Leg. Video shows process of adding a simple IK leg to a character. Simplest IK Arm. The absolute minimum needed to rig an IK arm. Assigning CPs. Basics of assigning CPs to bones. CP Weighting vs. Fan-Boning. Thread discusses the merits and limitations of ways to create a smooth bend across a joint. Making Poses. This vid covers making both the usual Pose Slider type of Pose and also the mysterious, rarely sighted "draggable and droppable" Pose. Color Pose Slider. Sample PRJ uses pose sliders to vary color property of a group. Enforcement Slider. Comments on editing the enforcement curves of Translate To and Orient Like constraints to vary with a Pose Slide Rotation Limits. Video show how bone posing can be simplified by turning on rotation limits. Thumb Position. Notes on proper placement of thumb bones in a typical hand. Rigging a Penguin. Three videos look at issues of rigging a user's penguin model Penguin Legs. Five videos in this thread step through the challenge of rigging legs that are short and fat on a user's character. Accordian folds. Sample PRJ demonstrates rigging accordion folds, also useful for "Lost in Space" B9 robot arms. Accordian pleats. Sample PRJ shows way to make a chain of bones pile up as one end is moved rather than move in unison or move with evenly distributed motion. Forum member MTPeak offers another solution in the same thread. Rubber band. Several users contribute example PRJs for ball hitting a rubber band. Breaking a Sphere. Easy way to break a sphere into parts. Example PRJ and movie. Lag Constraint. Example PRJ of using a lag constraint to delay the influence of a parent object upon a child object. Surface Constraint creation example. Pivot Point. Video talks about the Model Bone as the default pivot point for a model and how to add a Null to create a different pivot point. Changing pivot point. Earlier example PRJ of adding a null to a chor to change the pivot point of an object. Turning OFF a Translate To constraint. Demo Pose Keyframe Mirror. Silent video shows process of copying a deformation from one side of a mesh and mirroring it to the other side in a Pose. Mirror Bones. Using the Mirror Bones plugin to flip bones. Mirror Smartskin. Demo of standard procedure for mirroring smartskins. Smartskin, manual mirroring. How to manually mirror a specific smartskin rather than "Mirror All" Transfer_AW plugin. Video showing how Steffen Gross' AW_Transfer plugin can simplify weighting complex meshes. Transfer_AW plugin. Live Answer Time session shows using Transfer_AW to weight dense biped mesh. Path Constraint to animate a chain of bones along a path like a snake or worm. Rigging a Spring. A two-bone solution to the problem of rigging a compressible spring. Waving Flag. Cycling Wave motion created with bones Material moves on curvy shape. Animating a material (or a bitmap) and making it appear to move in a non-linear fachion. Read the thread from the top to get a sense of the problem that was posed. Rigging a Book. One approach to rigging a book with pages that need to turn and not look like cardboard. Elephant Trunk. Example of using smartskin to make two bones control a smoothly bending cylinder. Vine growing. Example PRJ demonstrates how to make a vine grow and wrap around something. Rolling Coin. A coin that rolls in faster and faster circles until it falls flat. IK or FK? A:M's unusual ability to FK interpolate a chain of bones that were manipulated in IK Gas Pump Hose. Simple boning solution for a hose that must hang from both ends. With example PRJ. Lego Man Rigged. Lego man model by Marcos Resendez (Xtaz), rigged by me. LED Meter. Using a Pose to move both a knob and an LED meter together. Hiding Bones. Video on creating a Pose that will hide/unhide bones in a model. Glow Pose. Example PRJ has "Glow" varied with a Pose slider Inside-out Cube. Several users contribute ideas on rigging cube that turns inside out. Linking Properties. Video demo that shows a right stereoscopic camera focal length linked to a left camera focal length by an expression. Saving a value. Thread on using expressions to save a randomly generated value for later use. TSM2: Note that TSM2 currently works only on 32-bit Windows versions of A:M, v11-16 TSM2 General notes on the basic geometry bones in TSM2 TSM2 Case study videos of using TSM2 to rig a nonstandard creature, in this case, a fly. TSM2 Rigging a Pentaped. Video shows how to use the Parts Tab of TSM2 to rig an unusual creature with five legs. TSM2 Controls. Video overview of basic controls in a TSM2 rigged character. TSM2 Quadleg Fix. Instructions for how to fix error in how TSM2 rigs a quadruped leg. TSM2 IK Neck. Notes and example on using the TSM2 IK Neck Rule of Thirds Grid. Rotoscope image you can add to your camera to help compose scenes by the Rule of Thirds. TAoA:M #9 Flower Power. Video discusses problems with and solutions for a user's "Flower Power" exercise. Animation Quickstart Missile Path. Simple tutorial for new user makes missile follow path. Keyframe Copy and Paste basics. How to Select, copy and paste Whole Model keyframes and individual bone keyframes. Demonstrated in an Action but works in a Chor also. Forum thread with video. Keyframing Options. Video explains the right way to use the Make Keyframe button and how to control what bones it makes keys on. MPEG-4 video in zip: KeyFrameOptionsMP4.zip Keyframing Basics. Keyframing Basics covers much the same ground as the above "Keyframing Options" but in a slightly less complete way. MPEG-4 video in zip: keyframingbasicsMP4.zip Pose to Pose basics. Basic workflow for doing pose-to-pose keyframe animation. Quicktime video link. Making Bones Stay in Place. New animators are often surprised to see bones moving sooner than they wanted them to. This video shows how to make bones stay put and only move when you want them to move.Quicktime video link Paired Keys. Workflow for blocking animation with "paired keys," a common animator technique Un-paired Keys. Workflow for animating motions like walks that do not have holds as in the "paired key" situation Channel Bias Editing. Video shows how to adjust the bias of splines in animation "channels" much like you can adjust the bias of splines of a model. Keying Shaggy. Explanation of workflow for keyframing characters in A:M Counter animating. This video shows how to raise the heel on a rig that doesn't have an independent heel bone. Why to Force Keys. Video shows simple case of why it is good practice to force keys on bones after making a pose. Basic Pose-to-Pose Walk. Making a Walk cycle as an action that will be put on a path. Generic Walks. Discussion of keyframing essential, standard walking motion. Not finished, but included as it may be useful none-the-less. (These videos may best viewed with VLC Media Player) -----Generic Walks - Blocking GenericWalks-BlockingMP4.zip -----Generic Walks - Part 2 GenericWalks2-MP4.zip -----Generic Walk - Breakdowns GenericWalk-Breakdown1_MP4.zip Five legged walk. Example of creature walking with 5 legs. Keying Multiple Bones. Video shows how to select many specific bones and force a Key on them all at once. Keying Multiple Bones. Video shows special case of keying multiple bones when transitioning from an Action to the Chor Action. Second Chor Keyframing. Ignore this. Only here for my reference. And this. Transition to next Action. Video on using "Transition to Next Action" IK to FK. Video show s a method for changing from IK to FK in the middle of an animation on a character not rigged with a "seamless" IK/FK switch. Path Essentials. A video in which the interplay of paths, actions, action "chor range" and action "Crop range" is introduced. Ease. Example PRJ and notes on editing the Ease channel to adjust speed of an action. Walk Cycle on a Path. A:M's basic drag and drop functionality for putting a model on a path and adding a walk cycle Action to it. Sliding Keyframes. How to re-time events by adjusting the keyframes in the timeline. Curtain. Sample PRJ creates curtain motion with muscle mode animation. Head Turns. Some notes on animating the head and spine. Jumping. Some text comments on animating jumping motions. Jumping. Notes on animating jumping motion. Jumping again. Notes on a user's jumping animation written on the frames of the video. More Jumping. Yet more comments on the mechanics of jumping Jumping Cube. Video aimed at non-A:M users to demonstrate some spline animation in A:M Side-step. Notes on posing a character stepping to the side. Simple Walk. Video shows workflow of posing out a walk with IK legs. Rotating objects. Notes on animating rotating objects and sample PRJ of turning helicopter blades. Robot Turn. Some comments on posing a Giant Robot to animate it turning. Squat. Example PRJ of posing a TSM2 character into a squatting position. Unicycle motion. Sample PRJs and notes on unicycle animation with additional suggetions in thread from actual unicycler. Accenting a Beat. Anticipating motion to accent a musical beat Tentacle. Example of animating a tentacle with bones. Rubber bulb. Example PRJ of a rubber bulb being squeezed. Flying Cards. Example PRJ shows playing cards flying into a predetermined arrangement TAoA:M #3 Notes on posing the arms in the TAoA:M tutorial "Move it" TAoA:M #4 It's a Pitch. Some annotations of problems on a user's Pitch animation. TAoA:M #x Notes on "The Door is stuck", particularly general Shaggy posing workflow and AM2001 Rig circumstances. Adding animation after an Action. This video shows how to add new animation on a character after using a walk-cycle action. In this case, in the context of Shaggy and the "Door is Stuck" exercise. Quicktime video link Appropriate Squetch. Advice on how much squash and stretch to use. Action Precedence. Explanation of how different Actions on the same character have priority over each other. Jog/Run Reference. Footage that compares the mechanics of jogging and running. Setting Default Interpolation for splines in the curve editor. Setting Default Interpolation II. Another explanation of a fast way to set default interpolation on many bones at once Hold Interpolation. Setting Channels to Hold to prevent wander between frames. Flipping a Channel. Video show how to reverse the direction of a motion by flipping a Channel in the curve editor. Setting Post Extrapolation. Using the Curve editor to make an automatic infinite loop. Knee Pops. Managing and preventing knee pops in characters. Random Jitter. Using Expressions to add random movement to a bone. Path Deformer, Example PRJ show Distortion box used as a Path Deformer. Distortion Box. Demonstration of how to put a model through a distortion box in a Chor. Plane intersection. A:M user shows me how to capture the intersection of an object with a plane with Booleans for a water simulation. Two Gravities. There are two settings that can create "gravity" on particles. Decal fading and cross-fading. Demonstration tutorial of how to animate decals to fade in and out. Spiral reveal. Example PRJ shows spiral progressively revealed. Amoeba Split. Example PRJ animates large blobby thing to split in two. Head room and Nose Room Notes and links to advice on properly framing shots with people in them. Note: article link in 1st post is dead, use archived version via Wayback Machine. Lighting and Rendering Jeremy Birn "Digital Lighting and Rendering" Long thread contains annotations and translations from generic terminology in very informative book to equivalent terms in A:M. Note that these comments are on the 2nd Edition. An expanded 3rd edition came out in late 2013. Reducing Render Time. Thread discusses common strategies for reducing render times. Frame Range and Step. For those wondering about the mysteries of "Frame Range" and "step" settings Three Teapots. Benchmark scene PRJ that has become a common way for A:M users to compare the speed of CPUs. Light Lists. How to create and use light lists to limit a light's scope in a scene. Frame Burn. Sample PRJ shows Frame Burn Post effect. Semi-sunny day. Suggestion for quicker rendering daytime look. Night. She said she'd love me forever if I showed her how to make her scene look like nighttime. Penumbral lights. Strategy for using z-buffered lights for penumbral shadows without long render times of ray traced lights. Car headlights. Example PRJ uses volumetric lights as visible lights on a car. Radiosity without radiosity. Tactics on creating the radiosity look without the render times. Flashlight Beam. Example PRJ shows Volumetric Light to appear as a flashlight beam in dusty air. Depth of Field. Settings to use A:M's Depth of Field effect in renders FakeAO as a post-effect. Using Jenpy's FakeAO plugin as to add AO effects in post rather than at render time. Extracting Depth Maps. Using an A":M Composite Project to extract the depth map from an OpenEXR render to an 8-bit grey-scale format. Fake Depth of Field. How to take A:M's OpenEXR renders to a post program like After Effects to use a simulated Depth of Field filter. AE's native DOF effect is very basic. Third Party plugins do a better job. Altering colors in a Composite. Using an A:M Composite Project to alter the color of already rendered footage. Light Attenuation and Intensity. Some comments on setting these light properties. Heat Distortion Effect. Work around for small bug in refraction rendering. Dispersion. Example PRJ creates Dispersion/Chromatic aberration color-fringing in glass. Caustics. Thread has several users contributions and sample PRJs toward creating the distorted clear plastics look. Caustics. Another thread about jewel-appearing caustics. Aerial Perspective. How I created a Chinese Painting-inspired scene with flat planes Shadow Buffer. Example PRJ renders object's shadow in the alpha buffer Shadow Catcher. Example PRJ shows makes shadow of object appear on Front Projection rotoscope. All-Around Drop Shadow. Example PRJ creates hazy, in-all-directions drop shadow around text. Scaling Image Sequence. Video on how to import a rendered image sequence and re-render it to a different size. Phenakistoscope. Instructions and PRJ to put your own animation into the classic toy. Coaching Posts These are not general purpose tutorials but are intended as diagnostic comments on a specific user's project. They may possibly be informative to others, none-the-less. David's Bouncing Ball Bouncing with parabolas Drop test example footage Using Original Fall to calculate later bounces Ball Drop Time visualization of ball parabolas Squash notes Comments on timing and amount of Squash How much Squetch More comments on how much Squetch to use Danf's Bouncing Ball. Several posts in this thread have notes from me on Danf's bouncing ball animations. Simon's Blockheads Simon's Heavy Lift Thejobe's Jumping character. Long thread with comments and crits through out about animating a jump. RS3D's Walk. RS3D Walk Notes Gerry's Reel. Notes on making a character fall over.

Only issues I have on win11 is a dll incompatibility, which is as far as I can see a video card issue. AM doesn't like my Nvidea card. I tried a project file with a rather lot of models like a plane model with four sprite emitters, two starscapes ( model of a lot of pointed stars in a sphere) and a background. It took about 20minutes to render one frame. I wanted to render 30 seconds, so I decided to use another aproach as this would take too much time. I made an avi file of the background with the two starscapes and made another choreography of the airplane with four sprite emitters, using the avi file as background. Now the rendering took much shorter time, but my avi file didn't go further than the first frame. I have had this problem earlier. Although I import the avi in the image file and it is seen as movie file, the choreography just loads the first frame and then freezes. I have no idea what causes this effect.

Experiment with caustics... Update: Version of the above project if you want to try: CutGlass22 new dome.prj CutGlass22.pre Load the PRJ got to Render to File in Render to File Settings, use "Load a Preset" to load the above .pre file alter the file save location to somewhere on your hard drive press OK

I started playing with a file to check and see for myself but almost injured myself in the process. I kept losing track of the variables. That's when I noted that the FPS isn't stored in a Chor but rather in the Project which in and of itself makes sense because it is in the Project that we set the FPS. (And of course we can set the default FPS in the control panel so that A:M knows what to set FPS at when it creates a new Project). Perhaps something works differently for Chors nowadays because some folks don't use Project files (Like Nancy... using only Chors... albeit they are surely embedded Chors) and yet they still maintain their FPS. But this seems a bit unlikely. I'm not sure what would have changed to make the documentation obsolete in this regard. My initial theory was that FPS didn't matter because A:M treated it's internal time in such a way as to easily be converted. This seemed to be corroborated when I didn't see the FPS entry in the text of the file but now that I see it there consistently I'm softening on that stance considerably. Of course I can (and should) delete that entry and see what happens. I suppose it is possible that at one time the documentation was accurate but since then things have changed. There was one nagging item that suggested itself to me as a final solution but my tired brain decided it needed to sleep first before taking a closer look. More exploration to do! It might help if we were looking at the same file here. Originally I was looking at an empty Project and an empty Chor but one must change something before there is something to measure. Here is the (empty) Project file I am currently working with: [PROJECT] ProductVersion=18 Release= PC Selected=TRUE FPS=1 Embedded=FALSE CreatedBy=Rodney Baker Organization=Fuj10n2020 Url=newartofanimation.wordpress.com Email=rodney.baker@gmail.com LastModifiedBy=Rodney Baker FileInfoPos=248 [/PROJECT] As an aside: Quite awhile ago I noted that 'Selected=TRUE' tag and thought how useful that might be for interactive tutorials that walked people through Projects. The idea being that we can remember to set the focus prior to saving a file (or if properly done via the text of the file later) so that when the Project is opened the correct place is already receiving a highlighted/selected focus. I need to remember to use that!

Hello Hashers- This should be a simple task (but apparently not for me)😄 I am trying to simply fade out a sprite cloud over 20 frames using the Sprite opacity setting in the choreography window. Attached is the simplest of projects. The sprites are dormant for 10 frames and then on frame 11 (only) 1000 sprites are shot out the emitter. Those 1000 sprites have their opacity set at 100% and then by frame 50 the sprite opacity is set to 0%. Unfortunately there is no opacity changes going on (as you can see from the video). Any suggestions are appreciated... (SpriteFadeOut .attached is the Project, the small blank white graphic for the sprite and the movie below) Sprites1.mp4

I've struggled with this many times, myself. For years, I would hop from new shiny project to new shiny project, leaving behind a ton of unfinished projects. Yet, I also worked almost exclusively on The Wannabe Pirates for four years ...and burned out. Having pondered all this, I realize that I need to have something to work on as a re-charger a diversion. The stages of a project are such that you start out very excited by an idea and then eventually move into a stage where it just becomes work and then usually there's a renewed energy as you near completion. When you are in that long work period, it's helpful to be able to steal some energy and excitement from beginning a new project. The danger is spending too much time in that new project and ending up in the work stage on more than one project. Now, you've got nothing to draw energy from and you're in danger of abandoning both of these projects. The other option is trying to capture some of that energy from the accomplishment stage. Break the project into a bunch of smaller projects, so that you are continually finishing parts of it. It's a weaker energy, though. Having abandoned ship so many times before, I wasn't prepared for what happened after I finished Stalled Trek. The vacuum that was left sent me into an almost year-long depression. To keep from having that happen again, I decided to go back and finish the unfinished Wannabe Pirates story. It's not something where I'm starting up a new project, but it is something that I can use as a buffer so that when The Wobbling Dead is finished, I've got this continuing on. I have another project that's germinating, too. I remember this interview with comic book writer Cary Bates. He said that he'd spent some time watching soap operas and realized there was a structure to them. As one storyline was reaching it's peak, another storyline was just starting and a third storyline was "just getting to the good part." This meant that by the time that third storyline got to it's peak, the second storyline would be getting to the good part and so on and so on. It kept the viewer hooked. I think this plan of mine is very similar. Just as The Wobbling Dead finishes, The Wannabe Pirates will be getting good and I'll start on that third project. If I keep adding to the pile, there's no reason I can't stay hooked on doing them for years to come.

Having trouble trying to reproduce the effects we saw with the Sumi plugin during the tutorial. I can't even get the window to open up where the user gets to play with the Sumi properties sliders!!! Yikes...I try double clicking on every line in the Project Workspace area but no window comes up...How do you get the Sumi editing window to appear? I did find the "save as animation" line ... but when I render out the images they are just blank that show no sumi effects at all. User error obviously... Attached is the project if anyone can pinpoint any errors, it would be much appreciated.. Thanks, Tom SumiNotWorking.prj

I completed some more models to add to the project. Violet from the Incredibles, Town Crier from Doctor Who, Robin from Barman and Robin, and Kermit the Frog. Attached is the PRJ file for Kermit and a short video. Kermit the frog _Muppets Party Cruise.zip k1h.mp4

That is something I've wished for for a long time. No, there isn't an easy re-fit for that. The source code would be needed and since that isn't in A:M already that must have been a third party plugin by someone. Do you know who made it? Incidentally, @Rodney and i have been learning C++ and we're about try to figure out how to write a plugin. That sounds like it might be a plausible early project.

I converted another model using Instant Meshes, It is the Town Crier from the game Doctor Who. I paid special attention to the decals that came with the model because decaling the converted model seems to be the the biggest time requirement. In this case it meant having the model be a little denser than normal, but it made the finished project easier. I am moving the model to my Cartoon March thread. He seems to animate pretty well despite all the clothes layers. I think I will make him the grand marshal. Attached images show the original OBJ, the A:M converted model splines and the finished rendered model. Also added a short video. turn 2.mp4

Thanks David, Attached is the project that has the woman model and a modified version of the male model. I also put the Skylights that I use for rendering. I get good results using them and it's pretty quick. 36 passes in 4 minutes on an old computer. Initially both models were just faces. I quickly modeled the bodies for rendering purposes so they are gonna be a mess. I added the porcelain to smooth while I am modeling. So if someone does not use it the models will have severe creases. I don't give any thought to any kind of organization either lol. If something is missing from these project files you guys can let me know and I will upload it. Nu1P.prj Nu1.zip