TSM2 - If *I* can use it...

[Morphy]

I just thought I'd say a few words about the Setup Machine for anyone who's pondering whether to purchase it or not.

 

I dithered about it for a long time - not because I doubted the quality (everything else I've bought from Anzovin was wonderful), but because as a relative newbie to A:M, I reckoned it would be way beyond me, and too difficult.

 

I looked at messages here, I looked at the website... the product sounded good, but I didn't see the point in buying a plug-in that I probably wouldn't know enough to use.

 

Anyway, last night I bought the bullet and purchased it. Today, as an experiment, I deleted all the bones from the only A:M character I've ever made. Then I ran TSM2 on it.

 

I didn't play with any bells or whistles - I just repeated the steps in the short training vid.

 

The result is that my character is much, MUCH better than before. I'd previously used the default A:M rig, and I'd built one according to the instructions in the 2002 Complete Guide.

 

I'm blown away by how how easy to use this product is. I can't wait to start experimenting with the bells and whistles and see what happens.

 

(er, I still feel that Weight Mover may be too difficult/complex for me - but if anyone wants to write a brief review about it, similar to this one, I'd love to read it!)

 

Morph

[John Bigboote]

Morphy-

 

Glad to hear about your TSM2 success. TSM2 is great to animate with because it is developed by animators. The WM product is in the same boat...it's a little intimidating at first, then you realize it's NOT brain surgury...then you see what it does for you...then you can't live without it!

 

I was intimidated by WM because it said I had to model a 2nd 'low-res' proxy of my model, which to me meant more work. Now, it's been learned that you can use the same geometry (copy/paste) as the proxy. And with the 'tech talk' series on AM Weights, it's easy to understand 100% whats going on.

 

If you want your characters to have ultimate flexibility, bendability, and smoothness, the WM would be well worth it.

[Morphy]

Thanks, John.

 

I think I'm going to make WM my next purchase. Probably closely followed by that 'Live Action' CD.

 

Morph

[Sevenar]

Well, after having TSM2 for a week, I can give a hearty thumbs-up to it, too!

 

I'm pretty much a total novice when it comes to bones & rigs, but after tweaking a few errant control points to connect to the right bones, TSM2 knocked out the rig in under a minute--and it works beautifully!

 

I bought Weight Mover as well, but I'm not exactly sure what to do with it...oh well--Rome wasn't rendered in a day!

[filipmun]

That is axactly how I felt about TS, guess I should get it on my next AM upgrade.

One thing If I may suggest, create a better tutorial on the process of using TS, that one just not convincing.

[anzovin]

One thing If I may suggest, create a better tutorial on the process of using TS, that one just not convincing.

Raf is working on a disk-full of tutorials; he's about half done. Hope to have that for you all soon.

 

Steve

Anzovin Studio

[Morphy]

Raf is working on a disk-full of tutorials; he's about half done. Hope to have that for you all soon.

Yay!! I can't wait!

 

I still haven't purchased weight mover (I still don't think I understand AM well enough to really know exactly what it's for), but I *did* get the A:M in Live Motion CD set, and it's great. If I had a teeny minor criticism, it would be that the sound is a little low in some of the movies, compared to other Anzovin stuff, but overall it's great.

 

In fact (you're going to think I'm mad)... but it inspired me to buy myself a vid-camera (I've never bothered with such things before, because I make all my movies inside the PC - or I did, until now).

 

But after watching the CDs, I've set myself a tutorial project for 2005: Whatever else I do, I also want to model a character, texture it, rig it with TSM2, find out exactly what this weight-moving business is all about, get weight-mover and use *that* too, and then make a short short of my AM character in my (real life) home.

 

If I can manage that, I'll start to think I'm getting somewhere with the software...

 

Thanks again for the great products. Without them, I'm pretty sure I would have given up on AM and drifted back to my old apps.

 

Morph