I did an annual purchase of AM a few days ago. AM seems nice, was very happy to see the 3d connexion option, though every time I start AM the Windows Colors drops to the limited Windows 7 Basic palette. It's rather disappointing, as the windows 7 basic color palette looks ugly compared to the other palette. Does any know when this will probably get fixed?

Also, what are the current rumors on OpenCL rendering?

You can disable that behaviour in future BUT it can lead to problems... so you don't really should do that. In the end the Basic colors are still better than XP-styles... it wont change anything in A:M in any way but only the taskbar would look a little different.

OpenCL is currently looked into... it seems, as if it is not very easy to optimize A:M rendering with it (just doesn't really help much, since Patch-rendering is different from polygon-rendering). But we will see what the future brings.

See you
*Fuchur*

The drop back to basic colors solves some screen redraw problems in Windows 7 (and Vista I think).

Screen redraws during cloth simulations is one I can think of.

Learn to love the basic colors!

mmm... yea... can't love the basic colors. I used to change 16bit to 24bit color years ago. Now, it's 32bit, and there's a difference, there really is. How do I fix it? I know it may cause problems, but if AM causes 16bit and I'm working on a college project in autodesk/inventor, I have to close AM, I simply don't see how I'll be able to multitask in this way.

Also, if I upgrade to an SSD, will the activation number I received when I payed for AM no longer work?

The only thing you're giving up in this mode is the semi transparent windows of "Aero". There's only 24 bits of color in the desktop even with Windows 7 with Aero on.




No, A:M doesn't cause 16 bit. Your computer still displays 24 bit color. All your other graphics programs handle and display their image color with their full range as does A:M even while A:M is running. It's only the styling of the Aero interface that is turned off.

In Tools>Options>Global you can check "Disable Aero on startup" but not everything in A:M will redraw correctly if you do. Better to leave it unchecked.


I'm in basic mode all the time and still have full 24-bit color available in all apps, even in the desktop. This is the color picker showing full 0-255 available for each color:

Click to view attachment

Thank you. That's very helpful. I didn't realize that windows was using 24bit for aero, and that even when aero was disabled in advanced system settings it was essentially still present. My card doesn't have 24 bit color option, though... it's 32 bit. Although enabling 10 bit color through catalyst wreaks havoc on a lot of programs working happily. Actually... that 10 bit color option gave me kernel crashes with flash player... it was quite troubling till I'll figured it out.

Thank you everyone for all of your replies, you've been really helpful and quick. I appreciate that.

My Tally :-D;
Answered: OpenCL... still being tested
Answered: Windows visual appeareance lessened is not disabling the actual color available to programs
Answered: Preventing Windows visual appearance from changing causes redraw problems (on wireframe or rendering?)
not so much: If SSD upgrade made on the same computer, will the AM key work?
not so much: If 10bit output (1.07 billion color) enabled, will AM crash like Adobe Flash Player does? ... I think I'll test this ...

I dont' know about the SSD question. At the very least I suspect you'll need to transfer an image of your old hard drive to the SSD rather than just reinstall Windows and all your apps. But i don't know.

an email to Jason at hash would be in order.




"32-bit color" can mean several things...

-24 bits are stored in 32-bit holes because it's faster to move 32 bits than just 24 bits. This is typically what graphics cards mean by 32 bit color.

-24-bits of color + 8 bits of alpha channel. This may be relevant for semi transparent displays like Aero. I rarely hear of apps like Photoshop talk of "32-bit color" even though they have used 24+8 for their files for decades. Photoshop typically refers to itself as 8 bits per color or 16 bits per color (which would be 48 bit color. 64 bits if you added an alpha channel but I've never seen anyone say "64-bit color")

-Some way to hold more than 8 bits per color, like your graphics card's 30 bit color. But then where's the alpha channel? Unfortunately there isn't a standard way to talk about these things.


A:M can render to 24+8 in its targa and PNG formats and with OpenEXR (a floating point format) can render to a nearly unlimited dynamic range

Only some very special displays can show more than 8 bits per color and most flat-panel displays are faking it to display even that.

You're right. I was wrong. 32 bit color must be 24 bit color with alpha.

The ATI catalyst driver for my ATI Firepro equates 24 color as 8 bit color(as it is 3 channels of 8bit). The ATI catalyst driver has a 10 bit option to be used instead of 8 bit. This 10 bit option would be 30 bit color, 3 channels of 10 bit. And logically, I think we'd both have to conclude that a claim of 40 bit color is 3 channels of 10 bit plus alpha. If there is any logic to this 64 bit claim you speak of from Adobe, then I guess that would mean that the latest Photoshop programming is technically capable of handling 16 bit color(3 channels of 16 bit plus alpha), or 48 bit color. Wiki says: "The HDMI 1.3 specification defines bit depths of 30 bits (1.073 billion colors), 36 bits (68.71 billion colors), and 48 bits (281.5 trillion colors).[7] [7] http://www.hdmi.org/learningcenter/kb.aspx?c=3 HDMI Licensing, LLC.. 2006-11-10" (I suppose this would mean defining proper color counts for 10 bit, 12 bit, and 16 bit color of 3 channels each.) So... that means Adobe Photoshop is technically capable of handling 281.5 trillion colors... sheesh. Which, I suppose this means that Photoshop retains the color information from a 48 bit scan correctly. Then this 64 bit color claim just doesn't sound so glamorous... (The current Sony Sound Forge makes a 64 bit sound claim... does that mean it's really 48 bit sound?)

Your also right on displays. External 30 bit displays are slim pickings. Out of 332 monitors, newegg.com has 12 that are 30 bit. Out of these 12, ten of those claim they meet this new 1.07 standard for 10 bit. And they ain't cheap.

All that said... I'm on the low end of this new standard. Just 10 bits. And enabling that breaks lots of 3rd party programs. And yes, I didn't pay for the internal Dreamcolor display on my laptop(it was expensive, and the card itself still outputs 30bit color through the DisplayPort.), so when I enable 10 bits, the card is calculating the numbers, but the display is faking it. That said, for whatever reason, it still looks a lot better when that option is enabled then when it isn't. Couldn't rely on it for color values though.

I don't think there's an alpha channel for sound. Or is there?

Sound card claims may have even more marketing wizardry at work than graphics card claims.

I see Audacity offers 16-bit integer, 24-bit integer and 32-bit Float as options.

Agreed... sound card claims are crazy. Though in sound software, I gotta give it to Sound Forge Pro for having the coolest spectrograms ever.

-- Upgraded to an SSD. Reformatted my drive first to see what happened. Animation Master didn't work. No surprise. Sent a support email with pdf of my receipt to support at hash dot com or whatever the email was that comes up when you type in the code for validation. No response. The quickest rental period I've ever had... lol. No seriously, this has got to be fixed.

Did you copy your master0.lic file?

If copying the master0.lic-file has happend and it does not work, please follow the steps here to provide the informations Hash will need to reassign your licence. It may take a day or two (especially if we are talking about weekends inbetween) before they will answer you.

See you
*Fuchur*

Robcat... um.. no. Wish there was a pop up message at installation that said copy this license file to your external backup. Will remember this, though.

Fuchur... followed directions exactly. had to search how to copy the mark. Thank you. Didn't send anything besides the number, this time, not even the pdf of the receipt. Hope it works out.

It is not an automatic procedure so it may need a little till Jason can help you. This evening Jason will do some serverwork but I am sure he will talk to you soon.

See you
*Fuchur*

Go to the image of your old drive that I recommended you make several posts ago...



...and you will find your master0.lic file in the folder where A:M was installed.

Or go to your old hard drive that the SSD replaced.

What? You reformatted your old hard drive? I'm pretty sure no one recommended that.

Not that important. Do you still have your activition-code? That should be enough to identify you (if I am not totally wrong) and will give Jason the possibility to reassign your licence. (don't post it here!)
Anyway in future: Be more careful with your lic-file. It is recommended to have it backuped somewhere.

See you
*Fuchur*

Typing from the hospital... my wife and I just received a new baby from God... totally awesome.

The license file was sent, and it works great.

Anywho... the forced color change was fixed somehow. I downloaded the current version that linked from the page you download Animation Master when purchasing. I started the 30 bit color before installing Animation Master 64, and there's been no forced change since this last install. Not sure what the difference was or is, but it sure stresses me a whole lot less.

Congratulations! Enjoy them while they are so little... they seem to grow up too fast!


(Glad to hear you got the Window/A:M thing in order too)

Hope you can take time to revisit us here on the forum... in-betwixt diapers! Congrattio-daddio!

Found that the 10 bit option on my workstation card prevents A:M from causing windows 7 basic color. A:M had a bit of a redraw problem in 10 bit color mode, but nothing too crazy. Adobe flash however, hates 10 bit with passion, allowing this user to enjoy a wonderful kernel crash in a consistent sort of fashion.

My wife and I's baby girl is doing great, and we are certainly getting used to being parents.