On the fence, and a couple questions about A:M

[TwoCatsYelling]

Hello

I'm on the fence about buying A:M. I have an older version (round about 2005). I'm always hesitant when it comes to a purchase that's "bigger than normal" for me, so it's just a matter of me talking myself off the fence. From what I've seen, it looks like A:M has gotten a significant facelift since then, has a lot of new features, and better performance, and so on.

I'm almost positive I saw a page somewhere that lays out new features and updates across each version, but I can't recall where it was, or find it.

And, while I'm here, could you (meaning anyone interested) share what some of the biggest, most significant and exciting improvements have been for you since ~2005?

Thanks!

Edited April 27, 2018 by TwoCatsYelling

[robcat2075]

And, while I'm here, could you (meaning anyone interested) share what some of the biggest, most significant and exciting improvements have been for you since ~2005?

 

 

 

For me, it's stability and speed.

 

In the bad old days I remember feeling like I needed to save every 2 minutes or risk losing something important.

 

I don't have to do that now but if you're still worried, there's an automatic backup feature that will save your work every X minutes if you want that.

 

 

And A:M is much faster now. It's not as fast as the competing GPU renderers out there but I'm not going to go relearn everything I do in 3D in Blender or Maya just to render faster when "rendering" is not the thing that consumes the most of my brain time anyway.

 

NetRender is included now and works on multi-core CPUs so you don't actually need a "net" to use net render. Your 4-core CPU is now a render farm and if you want more, the cost a license for additional nodes is really cheap.

 

Steffen Gross has done a lot of work on improving render A:M times...

 

 

 

 

[TwoCatsYelling]

Hi, robcat.

Thanks!

Some good info there. Speed and stability are always a good thing.

I remember render speeds being rather slow back then, and I was on v11 or v12. Those are some very impressive render time increases.

Is the modeling and animating workflow pretty much the same these days? Anything changed in that area? I saw something about a terrain plugin, but I'm not sure I ever saw that in my versions. Maybe I just didn't look in the right place, though.

Anyway, I'll sleep on a purchase and make a decision tomorrow. I'm leaning toward the Yearly sub, though. It just seems like a better deal in the long run.

Thanks!

[robcat2075]

I recommend the annual subscription. It's inexpensive and keeps you up to date.

[robcat2075]

Is the modeling and animating workflow pretty much the same these days? Anything changed in that area?

The workflow has been the same since v11, which is good. You should find no surprises there.

 

 

I saw something about a terrain plugin, but I'm not sure I ever saw that in my versions. Maybe I just didn't look in the right place, though.

 

 

 

That is a rather old item. It's not like modern terrain generators that grow trees and everything.

[TwoCatsYelling]

Welp, subscribed and up and running.

Will post some stuff once I have something to post!

Thanks again for the information, robcat, fellow cat person (I assume).

[robcat2075]

Welcome back to A:M!

 

If you ever have questions, this is the place to bring them!

 

 

Thanks again for the information, robcat, fellow cat person (I assume).

 

 

Oddly enough, the cat in my name is not about cats, although I am a cat (and dog) person.

[Fuchur]

Welcome to the show Twocats .

 

Best regards

*Fuchur*

[TwoCatsYelling]

Welcome back to A:M!

 

If you ever have questions, this is the place to bring them!

 

 

Thanks again for the information, robcat, fellow cat person (I assume).

 

 

Oddly enough, the cat in my name is not about cats, although I am a cat (and dog) person.

Ahh I see. I'm actually more of a dog person (don't tell my cats that), but I like cats also, and don't have room for a dog in my current apt.

 

 

[TwoCatsYelling]

Welcome to the show Twocats .

 

Best regards

*Fuchur*

Thanks!

 

 

[TwoCatsYelling]

Hi, robcat,

I have a quick question about multicore usage.

Is that automatic, or is there something I have to configure/enable for AM to use multiple cores?

I did a few renderings of provided models, like Keekat. Just a single image, no animations or anything. The rendering seemed to take a while, and I was wondering if that's the actual speed, or if multi-cores need to be enabled first?

I'm on an 8 core CPU (4 physical, 4 logical), so the cores are definitely available. Just want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Thank you.

[robcat2075]

A:M itself is single core for most things including rendering. There is a multi-core setting in the Options panel but multi-core is only used on internal house keeping things like like spline and patch management, and not renders.

 

NetRender lets you make use of all your cores, of course, when you have more than one frame to render.

 

But inside A:M, one core is doing the rendering for what you see on screen.

 

Keekat has a complicated Material on him with lots of nested gradients that makes him Final Render tediously slowly.

 

If you want to see a fast result onscreen, do Shift-Q and right drag a bounding box around any part of the screen to get quick feedback on a lighting change or anything else that doesn't show in real-time renders.

 

Or, if the KeeKat material is not crucial you can delete it and replace it with something simpler.

 

Here is an alternate KeeKat material that has a similar look but is faster rendering...

 

KeeKatSimpleFur.mat

 

 

[Muff]

Its still cheap. Most important question is whether YOU are in a dedicated state for a longterm purpose of doing something with Any software other than checking it out or tinkering with it to see if YOU can do something? New features arent going to make you suddenly becaome better if you didnt master the old ones. New features are for those who need to push themselves for more. Its animation master which means as you master it you need more to progress