(Please note: Some topics with specific subject matter and/or solutions may be moved to the Tutorials section to help spread the information to all A:M Users)


Hello and Welcome to the A:M Forums!

Our goal here in the Newbies forum is help those working their way through Hash Inc's manual; The Art of Animation:Master get familiar with the forum as they dive into the world of A:M.

We encourage everyone to take full advantage of all the resources at your disposal.
Post your exercises in the TaoA:M forum.
Meet people with your interests.
Ask questions. Join in the discussions.
Give and get feedback.
Explore!

So what are you waiting for?
You gonna spend your whole life lurking when there is a wonderful world of computer animation right outside your door?
Heck no!

Welcome to the A:M Community!
...and for those returning again... Welcome home!



This is a continuation of previous introductions to the forum. Click here to read more

Ahem!

From what I've seen on the internet and via Hash Inc's Facebook it looks like everyone is having a great time at the Comicon this year.

If you are a first time A:M Users and you just purchased A:M at Comicon... you had better get busy introducing yourself here.

Well, I'm sorta new, so I'll go ahead and knock this out...

I'm Jermaine Wells
16 years old. (Almost driving and job searching)

I got Animation:Master 11.1 when I was twelve. (Took me about a year to save up the money for it )
Never actually got around to modeling, and the animating... well, I was suckish, so I put it down for a long time.
Now I decided to come back to it, and I can see that I will be using it a lot considering the upcoming projects my friend
and I plan on doing. So when I actually get a job, I can upgrade to a year subscription!!

I hope to make a lot of animations and getting tips from the pros!

Welcome!
Let the fun begin!

It's great to have you here Jermaine!

My name is Arlene; I'm a writer. ("Hi, Arlene!")

I had an earlier version of Hash back in 2002 that I played around with for a bit but between computer and RL issues I set it aside and lost track of it. I decided to pick up a new copy this year at Comic-Con because I have a specific project I want to use this for and I think CG will be the best medium to realize it in; I've tried working on it as a novel but the more I do with it, the more visual and dynamic and episodic it's becoming. So I'm going to spend the next 6 months or so ramping up getting used to the nuts and bolts process, and then starting the first of the year I hope to get into production.

Reading the boards I'm seeing a lot of extraordinarily creative minds and a valuable supportive community. I'm so looking forward to the experience of learning a new way for me to realize a story. Thanks!

Arlene,
It great to have you here with us.
...and thanks for the kind words.
I agree with you about this community. (although I am considerably biased)

It'll take a little while to get up to speed but hang in there.
I highly recommend working your way through the manual (TaoA:M) as that'll set you up for success.
If you didn't get the hardcopy download the PDF file.

Welcome to the A:M Community!

Welcome, Gaduunka and Arlene!

May all your splines be continuous.

Hey, everyone. I picked up AM at Dragon Con in 2005. I have just messed around with it for the most part. I would really like to get into now, so here I go.

Welcome

Welcome to the A:M Forum Tk!

Welcome (back) to A:M! You've come to the right place.

make sure you download the last release of whatever version that 2005 CD will run.

hi im farly new
i got the user name and avitar from warriors .i been working on a cat i made my self and i FINALY finshed the desighn. now im haveing dooms day problems with color, fur, and bones from 2001 skeltion . i will find it out how to get things right sooner or later {it always did with the design} anyway AM have gave me some experince with 3d animaiton and it will come useful when i finaly become a freshman

Welcome!

Hi,

My name is Florian. I'm from Germany. I started with Animation Master v8.0. Used it fpr a while and then put it away. Now I try it again for a Projekt I'm working on. I have to create some animation for e-Learning material and I want to make them with Animation Master. I already ordered the new version and try tu use it.

Florian

Welcome back! We have a fair number of German users here.

I think you will like V15.

Hi Flo,

willkommen daheim sag ich da nur

*Fuchur*

Hallo Gerald,

Ich habe gerade deine Seite gelesen.
Das ist sehr Witzig, dein Werdegang in 3D Animation kommt mir sehr bekannt vor.
Ich habe damals noch mit Refections angefangen, was dann später in Moonzoom umbenannt wurde. Dann habe ich ein bisschen mit Cinema 4D gespielt und bin dann auf A:M 2000 aufmerksam geworden.

hello I'm omar and i have AM 2004 i saved up when i was 13 years old i forgot to update and I'm way behind you guys software wise even though i never used all the time

Welcome back, Omar. 2004... that would be v10 maybe?

V10.5

Welcome Omar!

Das gute alte Reflections... hab in Mythen und Sagen damals auch was darüber gehört
Im Handbuch stands auch ab und an mal

So oder so: Hier ist eigentlich Englisch angesagt, sonst fliegen die Posts gleich weg...

Bis dann
*Fuchur*

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

For anyone who is wondering:
We talked about our similar older programms and how we came to A:M, developed our skills, etc.

We will go on in englisch now.

See you
*Fuchur*

Hi my name is Keith Toivonen
I live in Battle Ground WA. And like to make Flash animations, 3D Animatoins.
I make logos, illustrations, edit pictures and a few other things!
Anyways I have been Animating with Animation Master for about a year and a half! only at my high school
I just went and bought the program Monday February 22 and hope to sharpen my skillz and learn from more from the MASTERS!

O yea I have v13.0 and sorta need help figureing out how to get v15.0 like my school :S

Welcome to A:M!

V13 and V15 are very similar. Which one do you have?

I have V13.0 but my school has V15.0 so im not up to date on my home pc lol

It's too bad you didn't know you could purchase v15 for $79 before you bought the old version.
At least now you know.

Welcome to the A:M Forum!

hmmm..... I had heard about that but its to late now lol im perfectly fine with v13 it gets the job done and some!

Most things that work in V15 will work in v13. The interface has hardly changed at all.

so how do i update to a new version

What do you have now?

If you have V15 now but not v15j+ just go to updates and get the current installer. Don't delete your master0.lic file.

If you don't have v15 then go to the http://www.hash.com/store/ and buy either the CD version($299) or the one-year subscription version($79).

i have V10.5 so looks like i have to buy the CD version

You don't *HAVE* to buy the CD version. It doesn't matter what version of A:M you currently have, anyone can buy the $79 1 year downloadable subscription. That give you the ability to use A:M for one year. The next year, you pay another $79. at that price, it would take you 20-50 years to spend as much money as any other comparable commercial 3D animation software costs upfront and without updates or upgrades.

But you *can* buy the CD version if you want. The 1 year subscription only works on a single computer. But you can take the CD version to as many computers as you like, and start AM on all of those computers. This is most helpful during rendering time.

well you talked me into getting the download version just as soon i get my computer fixed

Hello everybody!

I've been mostly missing in action for the last 6 years. So it's feels good to be back.

I'm a long time A:M user, beginning with V4. I used to teach A:M and Alias at a college. Even then A:M kicked butt. It ran so much faster on the students little personal MACs than the Alias software did on Silicon Graphics machines in the labs. -And at 1/463th the software cost. Yeah, wrap your head around the difference in cost!

I've gotten a chance to use the new displacement maps and they are fantastic! They render fast and look better. Huge improvement.

So what's new? I'm aware of fur/hair. I see some folks are using it for grass and tree leaves as well. I hear tell of sub surface scattering for better looking flesh. I'm ignorant about the post effects/compositing tools that let you play with the look of an image post rendering via sliders? Improved liquids sounds cool. I want to test the animated distortion boxes. I thought I heard that it's possible to attach 2D rendered files/animation to particle sprites now? Does A:M paint work with the current version of A:M?

Are there any other new features I've missed in the last 6 years?

I bet a lot was learned by A:M folks who worked on TWO. Dealing with big animated landscapes, effects, multiple characters interacting with other characters and props, etc. I've got a lot to catch up on and will have to search through the A:M forum to see if I can get back up to speed.

Glen Crowell

Welcome back!

You've identified some of the big new features.

Another recent one is enhanced selection filters

The list of additions is very long, Glen. Some you didn't mention are OpenEXR support, Ambient Occlusion, texture baking and an FK/IK switch...along with a lot of things that I'm forgetting at the moment.

A:M Paint does work with the current version.

Welcome back, Glen!

[Welcome back!

You've identified some of the big new features.

Another recent one is enhanced selection filters
[/quote]

Ho ho ho! That's a great Idea! It goes along with folders in the PWS and the toggle to to make objects viewable but not pickable in the CHO! Thanks for requesting that feature! For animation as well as grouping bones so that you can hide bones you don't want to effect or only show the bones you DO want to effect with set up constraints or key frames.

Hey, has cloth changed much? Simulations are trail and error trying to nail just the right effect. Often I'd come so close to perfect, but some little noticeable thing would be off. I always wished that when a cloth simulation was finished generating key frames the keys would become/be written as simple muscle mode animation keys. That way the animator could tweek by hand that last 7% that is noticeably bad without so many trial and error "tweek settings>re-render>repeat". Can A:M now allow the user access to the cloth animation simulation keys after it's done with the cloth dynamics simulation?

I'll have to see if there is a place on the Hash forums for feature requests.

I'm having A:M withdrawal. I hope Hash support gets back to me soon with the .lic/activation codes.... ;}

Thanks for pointing out enhanced selection filters. I had no idea that feature existed.

Glen

-[Some you didn't mention are OpenEXR support, Ambient Occlusion, texture baking and an FK/IK switch...along with a lot of things that I'm forgetting at the moment.]

Thanks for telling me. I'll search for these on the forum. Are the new features documented in the A:M technical reference yet? Some of these I have no clue about at all. Like "OpenEXR support". I have no idea what that is. Texture baking turns your materials into a decal(s), I think, to avoid long render times when they don't have to be resolution independent?

[A:M Paint does work with the current version.]

Thanks. That's good to know. I'm very tempted to buy it. The new displacement maps are so cool that animated creatures in A:M (with A:M paint, SSS, all the new and old render tools, etc.) could be taken to a new level for less effort.

One of the things I requested a long time back as a feature for A:M was a "Group Patch image". Select a group, select an image, and apply one image over a group of patches with the ease that we could apply a patch image to a single patch. (I don't mean the same whole image on each patch of the group, we can do that already, I mean 1 image across multiple patches, or at least automatically choped/sliced across the patch group into multiple patch image applications so that the mapping effect is seamless across the group.) No flattening, no projection. 5 point patches would have to (group) patch image apply different.

Yes, if we take the time in Photoshop to carefully chop up a copy of our image to come close to the proportion of each patch in the group on the model and apply each sub-image to each patch as a separate patch image we can do this now. But it sure would be nice to simply go "Select group > Apply (group)patch image". It would save hours of work for the times when something in between decals and patch images would work best for a model.

Welcome back, Glen!
[/quote]

Thanks. It's good to be back.

Glen

Cloth is now "simCloth", a plugin derived from an opennsource cloth simulator. Potentially very powerful, if you look in my "This is only a Test" blog you'll find some cloth tests, but much trial and revision is necessary in each situation.



hash.com/reports

for bug or feature requests, however... lots of features get requested, be prepared to make a great case for why it's needed

Here is a tutorial on A:M Composite...OpenEXR is talked about in there some.

Here is an AO tutorial.

Holmes made a rigging tutorial that shows how to make an FK/IK switch in it...Part One Part Two

The LiteRig, 2008 Rig and Squetch Rig all use the FK/IK switch and have rigged example characters.



Yessir.

Wow. Many thanks for the links.
I was already searching for those things and you just saved me some time.

The Hash community has always been helpful. I also like A:M's accessibility to people of all ages and skill level. Once I get back up and running I join in the fun of helping new users. Especially with spline continuity and modeling topology. If new users can break through and become comfortable with A:M modeling then the rest will follow. Rigging scares people too.

Glen Crowell
www.glencrowell.com
(old site best viewed in Windows Internet Explorer.)

Glen,
I'm a big fan of Patch Images and have on more than one occasion tried to have them perform some function they weren't really designed for. Sometimes I even find something that works really well (animated Patch Images for instance)!

I suspect one reason programmers might not pursue the single image applied to a group of patches is that functionality is already there with Decals. Having the new capability would be great but it'd be an alternative to something we can already accomplish with Decals. This is especially true now that we can simply Right Click, look at a list of Named Groups and remove those Groups from any decal. So the priority is likely lower because it's not a capability users completely lack.

As I recall, Patch Images do not bake when Baking Surfaces. This is another reason to (generally) favor Decals over Patch Images.

If anyone has a simple methodology to automagically transform Patch Images into Decals I'm interested!
This would allow Patch Images to drive on-the-fly changes to Decals.

Interesting reply...

[This is especially true now that we can simply Right Click, look at a list of Named Groups and remove those Groups from any decal. So the priority is likely lower because it's not a capability users completely lack.]

-And this I didn't know! Thanks. I'll check that out.


[If anyone has a simple methodology to automagically transform Patch Images into Decals I'm interested!
This would allow Patch Images to drive on-the-fly changes to Decals.]

Ease of use is a tease, but the attraction is also the way the image is applied. Instead of planer, spherical, or cylindrical projection it's UV is "conformed" to the area of the patch. Makes it good for mesh with lot's of nooks ans crannies as well as things like repeating scaly skin that you want to flow with the direction of the splines on a model.

I have an old contest entry here that uses this:

http://www.glencrowell.com/3Dmeatslug_05.html

(Works better in internet explorer. It's an old half finished site. I use Mozzilla myself mostly.)

I don't understand how that will get an image applied over several patches.

It sounds like you might be describing BitMap_Plus. It is a material plugin that is included with A:M. It allows you to apply an image and, optionally, a normal map, to a group of patches. It works great, but the results are sometimes unexpected. Programming something like this is apparently not a trivial matter.

Cool. I wouldn't have known about BitMap_Plus. I had no clue that A:M supported Normal maps! I feel like I just arrived from 2000. Having kids will do that. I've seen a lot of Dora and Deigo though.

I can't wait to try BitMap_Plus when I get that .lic file...

The OCR compositing looks fantastic. Control and time savings! Having kids and getting older means trying to do more with less time.

Glen

With Decaling we just hide the patches where we don't want the image and hit 'Apply'.
Once the Decal is applied if we determine we want to remove a Patch from that image we Right Click and remove the necessary Groups.

Considering further:
Patched Image Groups (or whatever this thing would be called) would basically do the same thing as the Decal except it would alter the original image by breaking it into separate images and applying each image to its respective patch. The code could presumably use the outline of the patches to crop the image at the appropriate places. Here a range of options for creating the new image appears. If it works as current images applied to a patch works then the resulting image would be distorted to allow it to fit the patch. For instance, an image assigned to a group of four L shaped patches might be considerably more distorted than one applied to a group of four square patches. Why? Because at this time all known image formats are based on square/rectangular shapes. Rare indeed is the occurance of L shaped or images of more complex shapes. They are all bound by (framed) within the raster image.

Perhaps a new methodology could be created that would allow Patch Images to accept the coordinates of images with alpha channels where UVs are stored but this really gets complicated and makes one wonder why not just use Decals instead.

A current function of Patch Images is that each patch is assigned to one single image (although we can layer additional images over that patch image). The established workflow is one of texturing by Named Groups; select a group and apply the image to the group and the referenced images is repeated throughout the Group on every patch. A different interface or menu would likely need to be built to differentiate between the current method of applying images to patches, that of Decaling and the proposed Group Image on Multiple Patches.

Perhaps seeing an example of where Applied Image on Mutliple Patches would be useful would reveal more of how it might work in the real world?

Glen,
In looking at the creature on your website I think you should investigated Layering your Patch Images.
This is really cool stuff and it can work magic on the surface of your creature.

As a test case try this out:

- Create an image with an Alpha Channel (it's important to have some of the image allow you to look through to the images underneath)
- Apply this same image to the same Name Group by Right Clicking on the applied image in the PWS (I believe you can also drag and drop another image there)
- Adjust the Repeat setting in that image to create duplicates of that image on the same patch

You should now have the surface with the image on it covered by the same image repeated several times.


I thought I'd test this to make sure I don't waste everyone's time. Here is an example created with one image applied to a single square patch three times:

Added a fourth intance of the image.

This is the same setup with a few settings adjusted:
(the lined rings create an interesting illusion under the transparent ring)