Looks like my subscription is over. I think I was using 15g before it died.

Just a couple of questions for you kind folk:

- What is the current version out there and do you folks recommend using the latest incarnation?

- Could anyone let me know the one or two most recent important developments that I most likely don't know about. I was reading about selection filters, although I never tried them yet and still don't really now what they are. I assume that they are kind of like groups? What kind of scenario would one use them. Is there anything else that is the latest and greatest thing?

- How do I go about fixing the license thing? Do I just go to the store and buy the yearly subscription? Is the price 79 dollars per year?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Yes and Yes.

Check out the Latest Info forum for release information.

The thing I would most like to have time to play with is Newton Physics v2.
I didn't see any mention in the releases about improvements to A:M Composite but... wow... it is working great for me now! (I highly recommend power users lean into it)

Many times you will want to temporarily isolate your attention on some set of bones. Fingers. Arms. Face controls. Head, neck and spine. Any set that if you're editing keyframes on one, you probably need to edit the others at the same time.

But the PWS always lists all the bones in alphabetical order and not in related groups. "upper arm" and "lower arm" won't appear next to each other. "Pinky, ring, index, little" finger names wont appear next to each other.

In TSM2 almost everything is prefixed with a digit and a "left" or "right" which makes them hard to quickly scan for bones you want.

You can CTRL-select any set of bones and they will appear together in the "Timeline" window, but you have to scroll around and hunt them down every time you want this.

Selection filters lets you define any arbitrary group you want appear to by itself in the PWS timeline and it's recallable with one click.

Left fingers. Right fingers. Lips. eyelids. eyelids and eyebrows. eyelids and eyebrows and lips.

Once you've brought up your group you can easily shift its keyframes around without grabbing something unrelated. You can quickly shift select the top and bottom to key them all at once.

It speeds up the keyframe animation process.

If you're only animating 5 bones on a character, this won't seem like a big deal. But when a character has 100+ bones keyed in the chor to wade thru, this is a big deal.

Sounds good.

Actually I have been anxious to get into Newton Dynamics for a while now. I am really looking forward to it. Can you guide me to any learning resources about it. Or is it printed in a manual I have lying around here somewhere? Are there any good tutorials that have been written?

Regarding AM composite, I use After Effects to do all my compositing. For those that use something like AE, what is the benefit to using AM Composite? I guess I'm a little unsure about what it is. Is it a compositing tool similar to AE?

Also is the latest version 15i and is it recommended to go straight into it?

Thanks for the explanation about selection filters, I'll probably upgrade in next couple of days and look further into them.

AE is more powerful in respects of 2d-animation. (2d-Animation after rendering... or lets say more "!lifelike", since A:M has layers and that stuff.

But Composite is more about colorcorrection, rendering to different "passes" (in A:M they are called buffers) and so on.

I made a videotutorial about it here:
Buffers in A:M

There is much more to discover in A:M Composite so!
*Fuchur*

PS: About 15i -> I dont have any bigger problems with it, so Steffen will very likely release a new version shortly.

I got an forbidden message with that link!

My fault, sorry... try again.

*Fuchur*

Quick question before I resubscribe. I am planning to go down to Florida for a couple of weeks and bring my laptop. So while I am down there, I would like to use A:M. When I come back, I want to go back to using it on my desktop machine. Can I do this?

Please note, I am not asking whether I could install it on both my laptop and my desktop, but rather, I would like to know whether I could somehow transfer the license back and forth and use it on only one at a time?

No, it's not made to work like that. You'd have to get Hash to re-authorize every switch.

Ask Jason about switching... but you know it may take some time afterwards to switch. He will do this service by hand and it is not meant to be used often.

Resubscribing itself is very easy.:
1.) Copy the file "master0.lic" from your animation-master-folder to another folder (make sure you dont delete it, if something happens it is good to be able to send a LIC-file to Hash.)
2.) Start A:M -> The activation-window will pop open asking for the code.
3.) Buy a new code in the A:M-Shop. You will be provided with a new one immediatly after paying.
4.) Enter the code to the activation-window (you can copy it).

A:M should be activated again and will work for another year.

See you
*Fuchur*

Thanks. Sounds logical.