A.M. ver 3.18

[R Reynolds]

Since I no longer have any 3.5 in. disk drive readers, it made sense to throw out the more than 100 diskettes that I found in a box today. Among the obsolete sound card drivers and Windows XP recovery disks I found my first A.M. installation, circa 1993.

 

 

It's frightening to think that someone born the day I received these could be out of university by now. I'll add them to my stack of installation CDs just for completeness.

[robcat2075]

Save those for posterity!

The last OS I had that ran that early version was Win 2K. It was so different from modern A:M that I couldn't make any sense of it.

[Roger]

So what's the earliest version of AM that you'd consider "modern AM"?

[Rodney]

Nice!!!

 

I think that may be the version I saw demo'd at Las Vegas (NAB computer show) by the Hash Inc crew that convinced me that I wanted A:M.

Grabbed a demo video (VHS) instead and watched and watched that thing until it almost fell apart..

It'd be another four/five years before I actually bought the program which sounds about right ('98).

 

.

[robcat2075]

So what's the earliest version of AM that you'd consider "modern AM"?

 

V10.5 has the interface we see today with the PWS outline in the left pane and the PWS timeline in the right pane.

 

Some previous versions experimented with elements like that but 10.5 was when they got it right and it has stayed that way since.

 

Of course, many features and speed/stability improvements since then but v10.5 was when it got the GUI it has now.

 

Prior to that, v5 was the big leap to a unified modeling/rigging/animation environment. Prior to v5 they were all separate apps and prior to v5 you had to break your model into .seg files for every bone and rejoin them back together in the rigger.

 

V5 also added most of the constraints we need for modern rigging. But if i ran v5 today I wouldn't know where to start, it looks so different.

[Roger]

Version 5 was my first "proper" version of AM after MH3D. Can't find the damn manual for love or money though. I imagine it will turn up when I'm looking for something else.

[jakerupert]

..well, I started with 8.5, guess it was keecat CD? Also brings up memorys of the 9.5 times, when a not so friendly "nice" guy was running the e-mail list.

Wonder what became of him. Its also so many years now, when the old hash team fell apart...

Cant really tell, but the actual folks like Jason and Yoda seem to do a really great job in keeping AM alive and kicking.

 

all the best

 

Jake

[John Bigboote]

Yes- it was V8 KeeKat for me too... TEN versions since!!! Come a LONG way... but so has the industry. CGI is so commonplace today that it has actually lost its luster. I follow Ken Baer on Facebook, once in a while he divulges details on what it was like in the 'Church' years at hash, Inc.

 

I found some diskettes the other day and I brought them to the 'kids' I work with and casually said 'here is the clients new logo- get this into the designs a.s.a.p.... eyes widened...

 

What did a diskette hold... 98k or 1 mb...? So the entire V3 A:M was 3mb?

[Fuchur]

1.44 MB if I remember correctly for one 3.5" Floppy Disc...

I am here since v8.0 (Dennis the Dog) if I remember correctly...

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[itsjustme]

Mine was in 1998...I think it was v7.1 with the "Meltdown" CD.

[kazagruma]

I had a leaflet of "Playmation" at a company enrolled at that time. "A: M" was a user from version 4. really nostalgic.

[John Bigboote]

I remember seeing the advertisement in Animation Magazine every issue in the early 1990's for Playmation...