ernesttx Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Hey all, just bored at work and looking around at the 3D landscape and was wondering about AM and seeing all the new features being added to other programs. Now, this isn't a bash AM topic (far from it); but, I was wondering about certain features and possible roadmaps (if there are any) for future features. I've been using AM since version 5 or 6, and feel that the character animation toolset of AM is splendid. I'm not wanting in that area. What would be nice is possibly some updates or feature enhancements in other areas; in particular, the effects areas. Now don't get me wrong, sprites, blobbies, fluids, particles, et al are nice. But, I feel that there could be some improvements in those areas (ie, realistic fire, voxels, etc). I feel also, since Bullet physics is a big part of others, that if possible inclusion in AM would be nice or an update to Newton physics. In particluar, explosions, shattering, voronoi, etc would be nice. Also, perhaps some more render passes could be incorporated, velocity pass, UV pass, etc. I guess this is more a wish list than anything, but I love AM and want to use it for more than animating characters. I know the dev(s ?) are hard at work on v17, and wish them (him?) success; but, just wondering about the big picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 I have a long wish list of things i 'd like to see too, but i also recognize that A:M has more than I can possibly all use. As far as updates to Newton, Newton is actually a third-party open source thing that A:M uses via a plugin, so if those third-party open source Newton programmers upgraded Newton to include some new capability, I presume that could be enabled in a slightly upgraded A:M plugin. But you'd need to get the Newton people to do the initial heavy lifting on that. What is Bullet Physics? Tell me more about that. On fire... I think some good looking fire can be made from the particles we have even though they are general purpose particles and not a dedicated fire generator. See my fire examples in this thread Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernesttx Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 Yes, Rob I agree that AM has may capable things to use. I see that Newton physics has had version 2.33 out since April 2011. It has many updates such as shattering, etc. But, I'm not sure any dev has looked at updating in AM. Would be nice if it was revisited. Bullets physics is here: http://bulletphysics.org/wordpress . Many of the same capabilities of Newton, but I think it goes further (hard body, soft body, collisions, etc) I'll try to revisit fire sims in AM, but, from my earlier tests I'm just not getting the effects or scale that I'm wanting. I'm wondering if we might want to start a fund or something to bring in additional developers to work on specific areas of improvement; ie, start a fund to find a developer that wanted to update Newton for instance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 I thought we had shattering in Newton already. I thought I've seen johnl3d show things shattering? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernesttx Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 I know we have the explode rebuild plugin, but my usage hasn't been fruitful to create the kinds of effects that I'm wanting. Here is example of voronoi shattering and bullet to give you an idea: Now, I'm not saying this couldn't be done. However, it would take alot of work to get the objects to shatter in this particular order. Perhaps the explode rebuild plugin could be rework to provide the kind of point cloud break up of the object or include voronoi patterns for the break pattern. I don't know. I wouldn't mind digging into things. But, I'm not a C+ programmer. Perhaps if Python was included. Just thoughts of the top of my head as I would like to utilize AM more for these purposes rather than having to go outside of AM and figure out 4 or 5 other pipeline workflows and figuring out how all the pieces can fit together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 You're doing a story that actually needs all these effects? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ernesttx Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 oh yeah! and more Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 I've always wanted to see something like Self-Illumination added to the surface options, but that's really a minor thing Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 What is self-illumination? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 It's a material option in Max, it's like Ambience, except it also adds light around the immediate area. It's very good for starship engines where the shapes of lights don't fit quite as well in certain oddly shaped designs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 from my notes on Jeremy Birn's book area lights... Birn says that scaling any of the basic lights above will not change the illumination. However, in A:M the light "Width" parameter can do that. A setting of 0 cm will mimic the basic functionality Birn describes, but if you set a higher value and choose multipass rendering A:M will jitter the light placement to simulate a light with real width. In regular rendering, setting ray-traced lights to have more than one "ray" will also do this. true arbitrarily-shaped area lights are not part of A:M but in practice you can create them by constraining a light to repeatedly traverse a spline in the shape of your desired "area" on every frame in a multi-pass render. Birn warns that area lights are time-consuming to render. This is true of this technique also. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 A note on that, I tried it (the fluorescent light thing you did) and it didn't work. So wanting to see what I did do wrong, I downloaded your PRJ and rendered it and the result was the same, it acted...oddly. And this was with a multi-pass of I think 16. This was maybe a month or two ago that I had tried it, I meant to post about it but forgot. Really something like self illumination works for nuanced things. Maybe a better example is the lights from windows on a starship. Currently there's2 options for something like that (which are all perfectly well and fine, thus why this feature is such a minor thing). They would be to apply an ambience map or model the hull accordingly and then apply an ambience and glow . Thing is, for little windows, the glow setting is one main setting that can't be changed for individual objects. Furthermore, SI would allow you to control an actual illumination around the windows instead of a hundred lights constrained to the ship in a chor. Again, it's just a nuance thing, I can't think of any major use for it outside of instances like that. It's not like adding SSS or something as that was a significant addition to the surface properties Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 Show me your starship engine and I'll show you how to do it right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyGormezano Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 (edited) They would be to apply an ambience map or model the hull accordingly and then apply an ambience and glow . Thing is, for little windows, the glow setting is one main setting that can't be changed for individual objects. Furthermore, SI would allow you to control an actual illumination around the windows instead of a hundred lights constrained to the ship in a chor. Again, it's just a nuance thing, I can't think of any major use for it outside of instances like that. It's not like adding SSS or something as that was a significant addition to the surface properties You might try fiddling around with what we here in A:M land call a "fake rim light material". Essentially its a gradient material that you drag to your group that you want to "glow" (not real A:M glow, but outlines the group as much or aas little as you want), where you set the ambient color, and the amount that you want the gradient to light up the outline of your group/model In my image I've applied 2 instances of "fake rim light" material - one to the body, one to the whiskas. Changed the color to use for fake lighting, as well as the amount to "rim" the group. There are no lights on in this chor. All self glowing fake_rim_light.mat Edited March 1, 2012 by NancyGormezano Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 1, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 1, 2012 As far as a more general answer to "what is A:M's direction?" Steffen Gross is the one-person crew developing A:M now. His main focus has been to get A:M to 64-bit and to make it faster and of course to fix bugs when they are found. He has done very well at all three. Any new feature involves the rough calculation of (amount of use it would get)/(amount of time it would take to add) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Nancy's got a cool idea there. I go about basically the same thing by using the Simbiont 'Plush' material (it is found in the miscellaneous folder) You can set the colors and amount of rimlite easily. I think I actually 'overuse' this trick. Look at my 11 second animation... the girls skin... the gangsters suit are all just 'plush'... http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?act=a...st&id=59014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtaz Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I've always wanted to see something like Self-Illumination added to the surface options, but that's really a minor thing You already can fake it using the multi task Mufoof ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John Bigboote Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I did a quick forum search on that, Xtaz... mufoof. Nothing, can you elaborate? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xtaz Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I did a quick forum search on that, Xtaz... mufoof. Nothing, can you elaborate? It's here in some place .. but you can check it on my site (click my signature) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyGormezano Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 I did a quick forum search on that, Xtaz... mufoof. Nothing, can you elaborate? It's here in some place .. but you can check it on my site (click my signature) Getcha redhot Mufoofalopa-kapopapooses here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
largento Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 That fake rim light material looks really cool, Nancy! That would be a great way to create a ghost. You could do him on the black background and then screen him over normal footage. Spooky! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Show me your starship engine and I'll show you how to do it right. Oh I don't have any, it was when I was playing with some pre-built models in Max back last year when I had the trial. The thing I was more interested in, was why your specific fluorescent project didn't render right. What I mean was even your PRJ that you had uploaded didn't render right. The whole light moving back and forth within what was it, one frame or something, wasn't happening I think. I can't remember, this was at least before Christmas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 2, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 2, 2012 Where's that PRJ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 My apologies, it wasn't a PRJ you posted, it was someone else. http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...st&p=314806 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hash Fellow robcat2075 Posted March 2, 2012 Hash Fellow Share Posted March 2, 2012 Is it SplineLighttubedemo? Multi-pass needs to be on and motion blur (20%, the default) needs to be on. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darkwing Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 Ahhh, the motion blur is undoubtedly what I missed! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NancyGormezano Posted March 2, 2012 Share Posted March 2, 2012 (edited) That fake rim light material looks really cool, Nancy! That would be a great way to create a ghost. You could do him on the black background and then screen him over normal footage. Spooky! Or you can add transparency to the gradient (first attribute), along with varying spec color (from red to yellow for tube model) and do the spooky thing all in A:M (rotoscope background, with IBL using same image for lighting plus 1 white 100% Klieg light with z buff shadows) EDIT: 2nd image added Glow ON to 2nd attribute only - even better methinks 3rd image - bear glow added in 2nd attribute, gradient threshold changed from 50% to 65% 4th image - displacement + fakerim + Glow + sphere = asteroid. Cube + fakerim + transparency + spec = lightbox 5th image - No glow Edited March 2, 2012 by NancyGormezano Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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