The art of Animation Master
Part I: Animation

Example from Exercise 1 by Dan Roberts

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ANYONE CAN ANIMATE
Exercise 1: You're the Director
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An introduction to the Animation Master interface and basic navigation in a Choreography. Approximate time to complete: 20 Minutes

Each exercise video can be either viewed online or downloaded (Right Click and choose 'Save As').

Video Tutorial
Web/Online (6.6MB)
Download Exercise 1 Zip ( 6.34MB)

Assignment
Watch the video and then read along in the manual as you complete the exercise.
Post your results from Exercise 1 here in the forum.

Workflow
Exercise 1 is primarily an exercise in familiarity with the A:M User interface but don't run through this exercise too quickly.
There is a lot you can miss!

Questions
Keep the following questions in mind as you work through Exercise 1:

What is the function of a Library?
- What benefits do they provide to you as a Director, Animator or Storyteller?

What is a Pose?
- How do you create and store Poses for later use?
- How do you access Poses?

How do Libraries and Poses relate to the concept of a 'Talent Pool'?
- What are the benefits of reusable resources?

What tools are commonly used in Animation:Master?
- What Shortcut Keys can be used to access them?
- How can you create your own?

Key Terms and Concepts
Project
Choreography
Library
Interface
Navigation
Camera
Pose
Render

All of these areas (and more!) will be explored.
For additional information please read from previous TaoA:M experiences.

Back to the Main Menu

Shortcut Keys
At the end of Excercise 1 there is an introduction to A:M Keyboard Shortcuts.
Its not important to memorize them all (there are a lot of them!) but those introduced in Exercise 1 you will probably use a lot.
These keys can prove to be VERY useful so keep them handy.

Z - Zoom
Shift Z - Zoom fit
M - Move
T - Turn
7 - Default Render
8 - Wireframe Render
9 - Shaded Wireframe render
0 - Shaded and Wireframe render

On the number pad:
0 - Bottom View
1 - Camera View
2 - Front View
4 - Left View
5 - Top View
6 - Right View
7 - Bird's Eye View
8 - Back View

Additional Resources
(Links to more information on Shortcut Keys will be posted here)

Additional Resources for use with Exercise 1

From time to time additional models, resources and links will be added here for use with Exercise 1.
If you experience any problems or want to extend the lesson further check here first!

Name: Rodney Baker
Exercise: 1
Date Started: 30 Jan 08
Date Completed: Exercise=30 Jan 08 Exploration=Indefinite!
Instructors: Steve Sappington, Hash Inc and the A:M Community
Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Join in the fun!

The easiest way to complete the TaoA:M exercises is to just jump in and do them.
Hash Inc has spend considerable time streamlining the exercises to make them accessible and educational with a minimum of distractions.

WARNING: In following my particular advancement through TaoA:M you are going to be distracted!
Always do the Exercise as its intended first to get the most out of the lesson.
Then, after you've completed the required assignment experiment and explore until you are ready to move on to the next lesson.
If I'm moving too slow, adventuring too far afield... work ahead! Any exercise can be worked on at any time.

The recommended course of action is to complete each exercise in order.
Thats where are focus will remain. We will explore other areas ToaA:M as we go based on student interest and applicability to the current lesson.

If you are anything like me you are a student for life and will enjoy the process as much as reaching the goal.
So... lets get started by organizing our resources.

Resources:
The Manual (The Art of Animation:Master)
TaoA:M is available both as a physical book as well as an electronic document.
TaoA:M is available in a variety of languages (we'll be focusing on the english version)
TaoA:M is available as a video manual

The Technical Reference (Tech Ref)
A book describing important features and options found in Animation:Master

TaoA:M Data
Project files, Models and other resources used with the exercises found in the manual


Troubleshooting:
Q: Where can I find these resources?
A: Online resources include:
Reference Materials (TaoA:M, Tech Ref and Help files)
Video Manual (The TaoA:M Exercises in .swf format)
TaoA:M Data Files (Files used in TaoA:M Exercises)

Note: The file named Littledata.zip (7MB Download) contains resources used in TaoA:M. Download this file only if you discover you are missing files used in an exercise. The A:M Installer should automatically install these.


Lesson 1: Interface and Workflow

Assignment: Complete Exercise 1: You're the Director
Task 1: Read TaoA:M Exericise 1 from the manual
Task 2: Watch the TaoA:M Exercise 1 video
Task 3: Complete Exercise 1 (Use the manual as your primary reference)
Task 4: Post your results to the A:M Forum
Task 5: Troubleshoot, share your experience, ask questions and discuss what you've learned from the lesson

Completion Time: 20 Minutes

The result of my render (unaltered as of this moment) is below.
Keekat is mighty small! We'll have to do something about that.

Some thoughts on my Exercise 1 experience thus far.
(I hope you are taking notes as you go through TaoA:M too!)

Exercise 1 is pretty straightforward but... there are a lot of things involved.
For instance, its one thing to do the exercise but something else to post the rendered image in the forum.
This and other considerations aren't covered in the manual so we'll explore those here a little more.

Exercise 1 introduces us to A:M's interface, libraries, program operation, general animation and filmmaking concepts and ease of use.
Its good to take a little time and get comfortable with these areas. You should certainly take more than 20 minutes!

Questions we might ask ourselves at this point include but are not limited to:
What is a Project? Choreography? Pose Slider? How do you create them and when should we use them?
How can I use Drag and Drop to best advantage? Are there other ways to access my resources in A:M?
What about moving my camera? What about multiple views?
What are the best rendering options to share my images with others?
What about those shortcut keys? When should I use them?

Troubleshooting Tips might include:
How do I restore A:M to its default settings after I have changed them to something I don't want anymore?
If my Libraries are missing where can I find them?

Don't be too concerned with these if you don't have answers to these questions yet.
It'll become quite clear as we progress through TaoA:M. If you have any trouble let us know and we'll work through them together.

Learning from my mistakes
I'm not sure how many mistakes I made in Exercise 1. I'll have to review.
If I discover any I'll share them with you.

Interesting note concerning 'invisible files' in Windows Vista
After rendering out to a newly created folder on my harddrive I went to find the images only to discover Vista would not show the folder or its contents. I could see them quite clearly in A:M and in other programs but through Vista's File Manager they appeared not to be there. Very odd.

Workaround: Ignore Vista and use the other programs to access the files.

Technicalities (Things we are going to want to ask the experts)
How do we create good poses?
How do we create and adjust lighting in our scenes?
How do we personalize and modify these characters?
How do we render in different styles?

Ook i did the excercise, but i did a little testing too. i moved around this big orange looking thing with a bunch of circles kind of like a galaxy kind of thig, and this what happened, u think you could explain.

Click to view attachment

Also how u show photo, if you could explain to me. i used a bmp format this time but i dont know how to show the picture like you did, rodney, in your fourth post.

Kyle,
The BMP format largely predates the internet and isn't used much on webpages and in forum posts.
Formats like JPG and GIF (and others) are used instead.

For the sake of posting in the forum I recommend using JPG.
You can get this format either by:

a ) Rendering from A:M directly to the JPG format
b ) Saving another format and converting the file to JPG

I think you may have missed my response to you in another post where I suggested using a program like Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com) to convert your images.

I don't want to say 'avoid the BMP format' but... for our purposes... Avoid the BMP format!

In these exercises will will use other images that can't be viewed directly in forum posts too.
The Targe (TGA) format is one of those. There is an important reason why we want to use that format though.
BMP... I can't think of many reasons why we would use it except that its used a lot by programs like Windows Paint.

Concerning the big orange thing that looks like a galaxy...

Say what!??

Here is your image converted from BMP to JPG format.
Right Click on it. Save it to your computer. Then try to upload it into the forum.

OK heres the photo, hopefully itll show, if not, then dangit.





Click to view attachment


wohooo, i preveiwed it and its showing, yahoo.

also the big orange galaxying, heres a photo of it.

Click to view attachment

Nothing like success eh?

Make a note of this.
JPG is going to be your primary image format for posting in the forum.
Other formats are useful to and we'll explore those uses every chance we get.

Just for practice how about rendering Exercise 1 out to sequential images (in JPG format)? I'll be glad run through the process step by step.

Ah, the big orange galaxy thingy.

What you are seeing is one of the three lights in the Choreography.
These lights are added automatically every time a new Choreography is created.

If you want to make these Unpickable so you won't move them around you can do that in the Project Workspace. (see second image)

Name: Jerome
Exercise: 1
Date Started: 11 Nov 08
Date Completed: 11 Nov 08
Instructors: Manual
Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: Couldn't be easier.
That is why I like Animation master so much.Click to view attachment

Hey Jerome! Its great to see you posting with us.

I see you've even got that titling going for you.
Your first post has you already well on your way.

Rock on!

My first post! Just completed the first exercise! I really love animation master. I carefully reseached the net to discover how they made that game videos and was first at 3d studio max. I was watching some tutorials and reading some forums and someone mentioned Animation Master.

After I found that first introductory video I was glad I finally decided what to study :-) And here I am!

You've really started things off right by working through the Exercises.
Spend as much time as you can at this basic stage. Learn all the basics thoroughly.
You'll be really glad you did.

Much success to you in the endeavor.

Lesson one was tougher than I thought it was going to be. Partly because of some rather important, yet missing information in the control scheme and partly because I tinkered with it. I actually finished lesson one quite awhile ago but I thought I would go back and start from scratch since some time had passed since I completed it. One of the first problems I encountered was a result of my using the program on my desktop rather than my laptop. It worked fine (but slow) on my laptop but once I transferred it to my desktop it was faster; but I had a major problem with "ghosting" on the mouse cursor. Every time I moved an object, clicked on anything on the stage or opened a menu a rectangular area would not move, or would distort, and caused me all sorts of problems.

I'm using an ATI All In Wonder 9600 Series video card and since I've had nothing but problems with it I figured that it might be responsible. I changed my "Smoothvision 2.1" settings (in the advanced settings of "display" in the control center for Windows XP Pro) from 4X to "Application Preferance" and also changed the Anti-Aliasing settings the same way and it seemed to resolved the issue as the program works fine now.



As you can see I added the knight to the image and played with the lighting and the bones of the knight to make him look like he is holding on to Keekat's hand a bit. Nothing spectacular but it caused me some major problems as I didn't know what I was doing.

The first and biggest issue I had was, nowhere in the first two lessons does anything in the instructions tell you how to move a model on an axis without scaling it. Once I made the Knight smaller I was hapy with his size but he was still standing on the floor and I could not get him "up" into Keekat's hand no matter how hard I tried. Every time I grabbed a control point and tried to move him he scaled larger or moved on the "Z" or "X" Axis. No matter what I did I could not figure out how to move the model on the "Y" Axis. Frankly this is something that really should be included in the lessons because I remember having the same problem with Lesson 2. Once I placed the three models on the stage area I could never get their feet to stand flat on the stage and it took forever for me to figure out how to move them.

The solution, for those who don't know, is to click on the model and go to properties. This allows you to adjust the characters position on all axis using the numerical values that appear. If anyone knows an easier way to move a model on the Y Axis without opening properties I'm all ears as it seems to be the one kind of motion that is all but impossible outside of the poperties window.

Anyway, that's lesson one.

Moving on. Now that I know how to move things on the Y Axis Lesson 2 should be a breeze.

Next time, hit the "2" (front view) key on the numpad...or the "4" (left view), "6" (right view) or "8" (back view) key. That will give you a different view than the camera ("1" on the numpad) and it's very easy to move the model on any axis from those views, Rob. You could have also hit the "N" key while in any view, including the camera view, that brings up the translate manipulator...which also makes it easy. If you want, you can also move the model around using the properties, so, you have a lot of options.

Incidentally, the "7" key on the numpad gives you a "birds eye" view, "0" gives you a bottom view and "5" gives you a top view. The "T" key will allow you to turn your view and the "M" key will allow you move the view up/down/left/right.

If you run into problems, you can always ask questions on the forum...that's why it's here.

Hope that helps.

Changing the camera view didn't work for me. I tried several different views by using the T key and moving the environment around. It still didn't help me with the "Y" Axis. I'll give the hotkeys a try though. That might be the ticket. Thanks for the advice.

This isn't an oversight in the manual. You've added an element (scaling a second character and moving it vertically) that isn't part of the goal of this exercise. That's ok if you want to try that, but it's unrealistic to expect the first lesson to cover every possible alteration a user might try.

None-the-less, moving an object on an axis IS covered the first two lessons since the first one concludes with information on how to select different views with hotkeys and the second one begins with screen shots showing how to use the views to position an object.




You really couldn't do this?:

Click to view attachment

Oh yeah, I added the element to lesson one no doubt. I admit that. But sadly, no, I was unable to change the Y axis by changing the view. Why? Because I misunderstood the differences in views. When one uses the number pad keys as hotkeys to get to different views it is NOT the same thing as using the T and M key to move the view around. I didn't get that. I do now. What I did was I kept moving the environment around with the T key trying to find an angle at which it would let me adjust the Y axis. It never did and after an hour or so of fighting with it I found the properties window and used that.

Now I've been using the PDF document for my lessons. I wanted to be sure so I went back and checked. In lesson one the hot keys for changing the views are shown but not explained and in lesson two the instructions simply say "Move the actors into position on the stage as shown."

I have listened to some of the lecture on the audio lesson but I assumed they would be similar and I'm pretty good at following directions so I've just been reading the PDF lessons. I guess I should go back and listen to the audio/video clips now because from what you have just shown me there are some serious differences. I'll say again though, I don't see any clear mention in lesson one or two, in the PDF document, (TAOAM.pdf) of how to adjust the Y axis. And that's where my problem came from.

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting piled on here though so I'm going to stop going on and on about it. I will say in my defense that it has been my experience that if a new user can't find something or struggles with a feature of a product it is rarely the users fault. Not that I'm looking to blame. I'm really digging AM so far. Three lessons in and it's getting more and more interesting by the minute. What I want you to get is that the presentation that sold me on the product made this all sound like it was the easiest thing in the world. I suspected that the program was going to be far more difficult to use than they were letting on and so far I've been pleasantly surprised. But when you ask questions like "how would I create my own model in this program?" and the guy answers "oh you basically just trace it in the program" well you know there's a little horsehockey going on.

Also, I enumerated my difficulties, because at the beginning of this thread Rodney put a rundown in post #5 that lead me to believe that it was encouraged for newbies to explain thier difficulties and how they overcame them. That's all I was doing. So if someone else came along and couldn't figure out how to adjust the Y axis maybe they would see my post and catch a break.

Thanks for the audio clip. It was succinctly everything I was unable to figure out on my own in lessons 1 and 2.

Hey Rob, thanks for posting your experience.
That's how we all learn.

While it may not be obvious how to perform some tasks you've already learned one important lesson even before completing Exercise 1; always prepare to go beyond the obvious. Your take on the exercise show that you aren't afraid to do that.

There is good reason the exercises don't spend too much time on basic navigation. More often than not computer animators must be able to think of and develop solutions on their own.

People do learn differently of course.
Some of us learn better from printed books and manuals while others learn better from moving images/videos. Since both types are available, I recommend both.

My advice (subject to change without notice!) is to view the video tutorials first. Then as you get stuck (and you will get stuck!) read into the details of the manual.

The most important thing is to have fun.
There is a lot to learn!

That was a video clip. Are you not seeing a picture?



In fairness to the guy, you've posed a question that is just one step removed from "How do I use A:M?".

A reasonably comprehensive answer to "how would I create my own model in this program?" occupies about 70 pages in the middle of TAoA:M. That's not practical to convey in one brief exchange. The demonstrator gave an essential concept, knowing that if you buy the program you'll get TAoA:M with it and that will expand on the concept and introduce other strategies. He also knew that since you didn't have the program yet, going into exact detail would be overkill because much of the minutia is not known to you.

But, we're glad you're back using A:M! If you get stuck on something, don't spend hours fighting it, ask a specific question here on the forum.

So, if I am going to try to earn the TaoA:M certificate... what am I supposed to do? Just announce that I'm going for it? With lesson 1 do I post each render? Just say I did it? I'm confused. I mean, yes, I went and did the exercise, I got a render; but it's nothing interesting or spectacular, just KeeKat posed in front of the camera and rendered. It's been a long time since I've used A:M and I just got a Mac so the interface is different for me.
Click to view attachment


Lesson 1: Interface and Workflow

Assignment: Complete Exercise 1: You're the Director
Task 1: Read TaoA:M Exericise 1 from the manual
Task 2: Watch the TaoA:M Exercise 1 video
Task 3: Complete Exercise 1 (Use the manual as your primary reference)
Task 4: Post your results to the A:M Forum
Task 5: Troubleshoot, share your experience, ask questions and discuss what you've learned from the lesson

Completion Time: 20 Minutes

The result of my render (unaltered as of this moment) is below.
Keekat is mighty small! We'll have to do something about that.
[/quote]

Hey, if no one answered, here's how to move (Translate in AM speak) an object: Click on it. If that doesn't work, turn on the Choreography menu and select the object through that. You will see it highlight and its bounding box appear as well as the root bone showing. Now the object can be dragged with the mouse.

You can constrain that move to the X, Y or Z axis by holding down the 1, 2 or 3 key in the bar across the top of your keyboard while dragging the object. Remember that these keys aren't the same as the keypad - hitting those changes your viewpoint of the model area. If you let go of the number key the model continues to move but be careful. If your viewpoint isn't exactly straight on (controlled with the ninekey patterned numbers) you can make some very unintended moves.

It's been a long time since I played with Hash and I'm just getting back into it myself. Hope this helps.


The first and biggest issue I had was, nowhere in the first two lessons does anything in the instructions tell you how to move a model on an axis without scaling it. Once I made the Knight smaller I was hapy with his size but he was still standing on the floor and I could not get him "up" into Keekat's hand no matter how hard I tried. Every time I grabbed a control point and tried to move him he scaled larger or moved on the "Z" or "X" Axis. No matter what I did I could not figure out how to move the model on the "Y" Axis. Frankly this is something that really should be included in the lessons because I remember having the same problem with Lesson 2. Once I placed the three models on the stage area I could never get their feet to stand flat on the stage and it took forever for me to figure out how to move them.

The solution, for those who don't know, is to click on the model and go to properties. This allows you to adjust the characters position on all axis using the numerical values that appear. If anyone knows an easier way to move a model on the Y Axis without opening properties I'm all ears as it seems to be the one kind of motion that is all but impossible outside of the poperties window.

Anyway, that's lesson one.

Moving on. Now that I know how to move things on the Y Axis Lesson 2 should be a breeze.
[/quote]

You're right - something as basic as 'splaining the basic layout of the pws, windows, etc should come first. However - it is what it is...and these were done a long time ago and are not likely to get redone..

But to translate in one axis without using property window - select the model, hit the N key (and you may want to be in worldspace coordinates), place mouse over the appropriate indicator and drag mouse (up, down, left right, back forward) ....

Welcome back to A:M , Badgerette!
It looks like you got Exercise 1 right.

On to #2!

(I'm guessing the long restatement of Rob_T's question is just missing a quote tag and you dont' have the same question.)

woo! One down, eight billion to go! scuse me while I dance a little.

You might not be able to tell but I did make a small change to the initial setup of this choreography; I moved one of the lights because the eyes were getting this horrible white "deer in the headlights" highlight on them and it was driving me up the wall. So I spent about an hour moving that light around (not the main one, the secondary one) and I got a nice rendering out of it. It also gave me a little workout on how the pitch, roll and yaw on these objects really plays out. Just when I thought I had it lined up I'd change views and find out the lamp was illuminating the space behind Keekat, or off to the left, or in the air... frustrating, but it forced me to think in three dimensions instead of lines on paper. Well worth the trouble.

Click to view attachment

Congratulations. You are off and running!

If you are ever wondering exactly where your light is aiming, you can cycle through the view from each light in a Choreography by pressing the [3] key on the numeric keypad.

OK giving all of the exercises a try. I'll be posting a bunch of these as I was working on them (in order) over the weekend. Here is the first:

Click to view attachment

Mike

Success! Welcome to A:M!

If you render to a JPG you can post stills directly instead of putting them in a zip.

Success! Welcome to A:M!

If you render to a JPG you can post stills directly instead of putting them in a zip.
[/quote]

Thanks tons for the posting tip!

Name: Mike Gulley

Exercise Completed: Exercise 1

Date Completed: 11.28.09

Instructor: TAO A:M

Remarks/Suggestions for Improvement: n/a

Click to view attachment

Exercise #2 awaits ...

I have been messing around with AM since 2005. This will be my 3rd time starting the program (first time posting results).


Exercises Completed: Exercise 1

Date Completed: December 28, 2009

Instructor: A:M Manual

posting helps you obtain advice.
Good job on lesson one.

Welcome back to A:M!

...and its reminds us we are not alone in our attempt to learn.

You've taken an important first step by posting your exercise results.
Congratulations!