Converted Animation Master file goes to C4D!!

[xeno]

I really like this model, it has this really cool characteristic feel over it. Oh and welcome to the wonderful world that is C4D!

[Zendorf]

Hey Patrick...very nice model and image man! I have seen plenty of your tasty AM stuff on the animaster list over the years and it has been quite inspiring.

I have recently also taken the plunge from AM(v8.5..never could bring myself to upgrade any further...I am not a masochist :) to Cinema 4D R8 and wow am I happy with the stability, speed and render quality. Of course AM has brilliant animation, posing and rigging abilities, etc but......

Just a couple of questions for ya if I may:

I am porting some of my AM models over as well, so am wondering if you have found DXF export better than using Arthurs' OBJ exporter? Since you said that your cool bot model has been exported as a DXF, has it been converted to sub-d in Cinema or is it a high poly model? Since I can see nice transitions from curved to hard edges...how did you achieve this in the transition from AM to R8....via edge hardening?

Have you tried to export any bvh animations from AM to Cinema...I have tried some basic ones which work fine as far as seeing the bones animate in R8, but haven't actually gotten around to boning in Cinema (aargh)so I haven't actually attached a model to the skeleton...It seems feasible to bring a model and corresponding animation work over from AM to R8...what do u think?

I am just about to get MOCCA...how does it compare to animating in AM? Also about to get MotionBuilder PE (fbx import should be an option in R8 soon), since I freelance...it is an absloute bargain. I do like to keep my options open :)

Hopefully not too many questions for you...cheers for any help.

[JIII]

Very cool model dude. Welcome to C4d it totally rocks (in my opinion).

[PJC]

I didn't use Arthurs OBJ exporter cuz I didn't know about it at the time :p

DXF came in great, (I had very few 5 pt. patches) but I had to export at 4 polys per patch (I would have loved to bring in 1 poly and subdiv more but it came in to "skinny") and yes some stuff has been HyperNurb'ed some hasn't. It is definately high-poly, and that's where AM is faster than C4D. It is a high patch model in AM but I can work in shaded mode in almost realtime, but in C4D bones really slow the interface down.

It came in as a solid, one piece model and then I just went to "explode segments" and it broke up the model into the individual objects.

Since I'm doing comic book work I haven't tried importing animation, but I will say this: AM is the best thing out there for rigging, boning, (can you say smart skin?) and poses, re-usable non-linear actions and the AM 2001 rig with center of gravity etc. just blows almost everything away.

I started out in Alias PA v3.4, and work in Maya at work as well as MAX and AM and AM character tools are WAAAY better.

MOCCA is better than the tools in 7.3, and I don't know how it compares to Golem...but the tools are nice, better than LW's.

Soft IK is VERY nice, but on a high poly model it is SLOW, so I recommend using IK when you can. Boning in any poly package is a severe pain compared to boning in AM, but Claude Bonet is VERY NICE compared to the old 7.3 way of selection sets. The file size really creeps up when you CB the entire model. It went from 5MB to 26MB when all the CB was done. The AM model was 4.6MB when boned.

The rigging is pretty straight forward like AM, just different ways to get to the same end. AM is stronger with it's excellent constraint options.

What it comes down to for me is that C4D renders better and FASTER, has a useable Radiosity solution has more lighting options (area lights are my favorite) and I can buy more models of things that I need than I can in AM.

Hope that helps,

- pjc

[CosmicBear]

i can only agree about the animation-feature in cinema being not as good as the possibilities in A:M. especially when it comes to character-animation and modelling. i still prefer patch-modelling over any kind of poly-modelling when it comes to character-modelling. what i do most of the time is just create my models as a kind of rough sketch in A:M (still 8.5) and then export to dxf to bring it into cinema to do the finishing touch-ups and the texturing.

but as usuall, you'll find lots of advantages and disadvantages with the different packages.
when it comes to animating, i still find myself doing it 'the animation:master-way', but R8 finally takes me into the new millenium ;)

you said, that your robot-model is kinda high-poly. that might explain the 50 mbyte file. http://www.cosmicbear.de/icons/wink.gif maybe if you clean up your mesh a bit more and use only one hypernurb for the entire geometrie it will slim down again.

and last but not least: cool model! i'm working on a robot myself these days... maybe it will get a head soon, so it will be worth posting http://www.cosmicbear.de/icons/grin.gif

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