#Amin Master Problems
26 messages in this thread
Greeting,
I purchased Anim. Master nearly a year ago at the Mac Expo in S.F. CA.
I loved the kinematics and I loved the tools. I started building the parts
that I would use in some animation projects that I had lined up. I quickly
found the Amin Master had some sever problems dealing with lighting and
shadowing. I built a simple test that demonstrated the problems. I was told
that the problems would be fixed and I would be recieving an interim fix
release. Months went by. The Hash BBS was oftern off-line and when it was
on-line I'd be fixed if I could get anyone to respone. In all fairness, I
seems to have caught Randy during month long vacation. When I did finally get
the update and was assured that the problems were found and fixed. They (?)
even indicated that they ran the fixes against my demo files and found no
problems. Unfortunately, when I did get to re-render my animation and the demo
I found that the problems remained. I really like Anaim Master and appreciate
the following but I have two questions:
1. Where there any real fixes applied to the lighting and shadowing
sections of the rendered?
2. Am I the only one doing aniumation with complex lighting? Most fo
the images I've see posted don't look like they're using
light to achive interesting shadow cast effects.
I'd get any Anim Master updates and/or upgrade but only if I could
verify that the problems I've experienced have been fixed.
Thanx,
_Marc
<<Most of the images I've see posted don't look like they're using light to
achive interesting shadow cast effects.>>
That's because they may be "work in progress" rather than final product. It
takes SOOOOOO much longer to raytrace everything that other than rendering a
frame or two to check lighting, I wouldn't use "photo" quality to check an
animation until the very end.
charlie
>That's because they may be "work in progress" rather than final product. It
takes SOOOOOO much longer to raytrace everything that other than rendering a
frame or two to check lighting, I wouldn't use "photo" quality to check an
animation until the very end.
>charlie
Well.. I relalize that PHOTO quality take much longer… but short of the
wonderful still of the artist's father's bust shown often by Hash, I haven't
come across a nicely lite scene. Most of the anims and stilsl look cartoon-ish
— though that has a lot to do with the style of animiations and the
realization that animating real-world things is much harder to get right that
animating imagined characters.
Thanx,
_Marc
I am a relatively new user of A:M, but I have already got some really
impressive rendered frames out of it with minimal effort. I just got
Caligari's Truespace for type manipulation. Add that to the character features
of A:M and I've got more features (for my needs) than 3D studio at 1/3 the
cost.
Charlie
>Add that to the character features of A:M and I've got more features (for my
>needs) than 3D studio at 1/3 the cost.
>
>Charlie
What other systems have you or are you using?
Thanx,
_Marc
<<What other systems have you or are you using?>>
Not quite sure about the question, but I'll tell you *everything* <g>.
I've got 5 PC's (three business and two personally) from a lowly 386/33 ISA
machine all the way up to a Pentium PCI/SCSI machine including a multimedia
notebook for remote presentations. I also have acces to (though I don't own)
two MACs — a IIci and a Quadra 860AV. They are all loaded up with RAM, HD
space and have CD-ROM access.
As far as software goes I have all the biggies for DTP — Quark, PageMaker,
Photoshop, Illustrator, CorelDraw, Picture Publisher as well as many little
utilities. I use Macromedia Director for the interactive stuff. For the 3D
stuff I've been using Drafix CAD professional (first true Windows CAD program
if that means anything) for the DXF preliminary stuff. Animation Master, of
course and most recently Caligari's TrueSpace for "flying logo" types of
things.
My needs for the 3D and the animation are mainly front ends and splacsh screens
for the interactive presentations I put together in Director. I don't really
see my self becoming an "animator" per se but anything's possible.
My reasoning behind the 3D software is simple. With AutoCad and 3dStudio
costing what they do, I'd rather buy a new car<g>. And, only now is 3D studio
getting into the inverse kinematics and charactering that A:M has and
Playmation has had all along.
Charlie
Thanks! I was just curious about what other 3D systems your using and why.
Thanx,
_Marc
<< . . . and why.>>
Really, because it's fun and really cool to do this<G>
Charlie
>I am a relatively new user of A:M, but I have already got some >really
impressive rendered frames out of it with minimal effort. I >just got
Caligari's Truespace for type manipulation. Add that to the >character
features of A:M and I've got more features (for my needs) >than 3D studio at
1/3 the cost.
>Charlie
I have both of these programs, and I have also used 3D Studio, and after using
A:M for two weeks, I sometimes feel like a salesman when someone asks about a
program for modeling, rendering, and animation…
Grady O. Williams III
Grady,
I know what you mean. A friend and I are doing an anim together, and he went
out and bought Imagine 3.x and I bought Playmation 2.x. I'm trying to convince
him even now…
For character anim, though even he can't argue. 🙂
Umm, I don't have a problem, sorry about the thread drift. AD
Adam,
I believe one day all the nay-sayers will become believers…
and realize you don't need a SGI for great spline modeling…:)
Grady III
-Uhh yep!
Thanks Grady! <g>
Steve, Hash Inc.
<<sometimes I feel like a salesman>>
You and me both. One guy Jim Jonah and I were talking to at last night's local
Animation SIG here in the Detroit area wanted to know if we were reps for
Hash!!!
<g>
Kevin
Marc,
There are some limitations to the light and shadow casting, but if you
will describe to me the effect you want, I'll see if there may be a way to
acheive it. If you will check the Features 2 message, I described a light and
shadow effect that I wanted to try but the program does not support it.
Well.. in the simple instance the effect is a simply the shadows cast by a
grate placed around a light source. For example, construct a conical lamp
reflector of the sort you might find in a desk lamp – put a light souce near
the closed end of the reflector. Next place a simple cross grate or grill at
the open end of the reflector. Put the lamp over a flat surface and render. I
would expect to see the grate cast shadows on the surface. In fact, rendering
this scene does product teh desired effect – BUT if you start to move the
camera around the lamp, you begin to see not only inaccurate or incomplete
shadows, ou also see aberant light casts. Light base cast for a source not
defined in the .cho. I still have the test project if you'd like to see the
problem first hand… or perhaps just the the four sample gifs showing the
problem.
Thanx,
_Marc
Marc,
I'd be interested in seeing the gif's.
Michael
As I asked Steve… just how and where do you upload files (forgive me… I'm
more at home on the Internet and annonymous FTP 😉 )?
Thanx,
_Marc
Marc,
You got me on that one. I'm not on the 'Net at this time.
Michael S. Flynn
> You got me on that one. I'm not on the 'Net at this time.
>
> Michael S. Flynn
Sorry, didn't mean to imply I was accessing CIS through the net (which of
course is do'able via telnet'ing to compuserve.com). I just needed to know
where the correct and authorized place is for uploading files for Hash. Do you
know? If not I'll find out from Hash when they respond. My guess is that the
place is the Hash upload section in the Animation Vendor A forum. Good guess?
Thanx,
_Marc
> As I asked Steve… just how and where do you upload files (forgive >me…
I'm more at home on the Internet and annonymous FTP 😉 )?
> Thanx,
> _Marc
Well… If you are using the software that Cserve sent you, you just click on
library, and contribute, but If I'm not mistaken, you are not allowed to upload
to this area…
Grady O. Williams III
>Marc,
> I'd be interested in seeing the gif's.
>
> Michael
Well… I uploaded a set fo 4 gif files to te hash upload area. The images
show the light/shadow casting problem. As you'll see te scene is very simple
and the only thing changing is the camera position. I have no idea what could
be causing the problem. …you got a guess?
Thanx,
_Marc
Mark, I need alot more info to be able to help… ie: exactly what type of
lighting problems your are having what results you are getting, etc… you can
send me your data files and we can check them out for you if you like…
Steve, Hash Inc.
Not to be niave but how would I sent you the data file. Upload them as
contribution? If so where?
BTW: I hope the tone of my message was clear. I fully support and
enthusiastically use A:M. It just gets frustrating to spend a good deal of
effort (and as Martin would suggest: detailing ) on a project just to have the
rendering not be quit right. I do though appreciate you interest in helping.
Thanx,
_Marc
Marc, you can send data file with CompuServe by choosing the "send File" option
from the mail menu… happy to help any way I can… BTW sorry to take so long
in responding… I've had no success logging on the past couple days… node
problems I guess…
Steve, Hash Inc.
Steve,
I've just uploaded a set for 4 gif files that show how the list/shadow
casting problem manifests itself. As you can see, teh scene is very simple and
shouldn't cause the problems shown. Even If I did construct the objects
incorrectly, I wound not expect to see the ligh/shadow problems change from
frame to frame. BTW: The 4 image were generated by simple rendeing the scene
four different times moving the camera each time. I guess the important thing
to note is that all the images were rendered together in a single pass – show
there is no skewing from multiple pass runs.
I'll try and zip together the .seg, .fig and .cho files if you think having
them would help.
Thanx,
_Marc