New Default chor in v17

[robcat2075]

In V17 you may notice some very slight changes in the default Choreography that is created if you do New>Chor

 

- The old "Rim" light is now named "Spot". This light, shining from the front, is in the wrong place to be a true "rim" light in proper photography/lighting terminology. "Spot" will be a correct name for its function and placement in this chor.

 

-"Spot" light's color is now white instead of orange because orange was ugly.

 

-"Ground" is now a 5x5 grid instead of one patch. This puts some visible spline lines in shaded wireframe view, to better show the perspective of the ground plane. This also renders the placement of kleig lighting slightly better in shaded mode than the single patch Ground did.

 

- "Ground" now has Cast Shadows set to ON. Cast Shadows OFF was causing single patch thickness models to not cast shadows on the ground, which was confusing to new users.

 

Long ago, Martin once explained that setting Ground Cast Shadows OFF saved render time but I haven't been able to detect any savings with the current A:M.

 

-Camera>TV Safe is now OFF. The "TV Safe" area is no longer a serious issue with modern digital video where the entire frame of video is always fully shown. You may still turn it on in your camera properties if you need it.

 

These changes will happen only to new chors that are created, they won't affect any work you have saved and I'm not aware of any tutorials that depended upon the old chor settings.

 

A:M creates new chors by loading the "Default Chor.cho" from the main A:M program folder. If you wish to revert to the old chor style you can rename this file to "Default Chor.cho" and copying it over the one currently in place:

 

Default_Chor_original.cho

 

Save a copy of it elsewhere, future A:M installers will always overwrite these standard-named files.

[MMZ_TimeLord]

Don't forget, if you have a favorite way of setting up a Choreography, you can make a custom default Choreography like so...

 

1. Create a new Project and Choreography.

 

2. Set up the lighting, camera settings, backdrop, etc. the way you want.

 

3. Save the Choreography out under your own custom name.

 

4. Rename the original "default.cho" to something like "default.cho.old" or "default.cho.bak" in the V17.0 folder.

 

5. Copy your custom Choreography to the V17.0 folder and rename it "default.cho".

 

Now when you make a new Project, it will load your custom Choreography. Viola!

 

This can be useful for setting up multiple Choreographies for specific project where settings will be repeated.

 

You can also import custom Choreographies for the same reason.

[John Bigboote]

I have not noticed these changes... but they are all worthwhile!