A:M Assessment Please

[Dearmad]

I'd say:
1: OK
2: OK
3- see below
4: OK

3 is tricky it depends on the depth of accuracy you need- if you want true to physics modelling of fluids or powders (wow!), you probably need a programmer (at least) if not a physicist on board. No one has done that yet and released it to the public. In house solutions have been done by Pixar and that other studio responsible for Schlock, but those are suitable for the APPEARENCE of realism, which is all that matters for film.

The other things are no brainers in AM, IMO.

[andrewBwinter]

Originally posted by Dearmad
The other things are no brainers in AM, IMO.

thanks. That probably explains all of the views and only your reply.

Best,
a

[dingo]

ditto on Dearmad's post

[Lettuce]

We'd like to determine if A:M is suited for the following:
1. Lathed objects skinned with product labels.
2. more complicated packaging both modelled and animated. (dancing cookies and cereal boxes, blood bags, etc.)
3. medical instrumentation and particle emissions for demonstrating flow of both fluids and powders.
4. Hi res. output for print, min. 300dpi.


1. Not a problem, and fairly easy to apply. One tiny example (I hope Mike doesn't mind me linking into his site):
http://www.animationpitstop.com/models/users/images/pen.jpg

2. Certainly. Momentum has done quite a few commercials with such things.
http://www.momentumanimations.com/

3. "Yes, but" is my answer to that... A:M has very good particle tools, but they aren't perfectly physically accurate. I found this out once when I flowed liquid off an object that was sitting on another object (a table). After a while, the liquid was dripping through the table.

Having said that, if you wanted to illustrate, say, fluid going through a tube, you can certainly animate a meniscus, color change, refraction change, or whatever might be convincing.

4. No resolution limit that will give you trouble, just make sure you have lots of memory on the computer doing the rendering (256 MB or more). My largest render was 4000x3000, for a poster. I would get 512 MB or more RAM if you want to render larger files than that.

[andrewBwinter]

Thank you all very much for the input.

I have to be honest, the price tag is confusing. All this for $299.00.

Mind you, we used Swift for $169.00 to produce this (with Flash MX):
http://www.kultfactory.com/Swift/lemonTest.html

What I find lacking is the basics of anticipation, which can't be executed by a mesh deform in Swift, merely squash and stretch.

best,
a

[runejw]

Variation of the answers already given

1. Yes, this is basic for any 3d app nowadays. Decals is a concept in AM, perfect for labels.
2. Well, AM's modeller though loved by some, in my view is not quite "state-of-the-art" in terms of export/import capabilities and not very suited to mechanical modeling either. For organic modeling, it has a sunny side.
3. Instruments would be mostly mechanical, and not really good to make in AM. Booleans are really weird in AM for example... ("bone cutter"). Particles like commented are not perfect or precise. May also cause AM to crash with more complex setups.
4. Yes, lots of RAM. Also rendering without special effects are best, as volumetric effects may give rendering artefacts.

For modeling also check out Wings3D (free from www.wings3d.com) which can export AM models (.mdl)



Rune

[Nonproductive]

Originally posted by andrewBwinter
I have to be honest, the price tag is confusing. All this for $299.00.

A:M is a very capable App, but it does have it's quirks.

Import / Export is *very* limited

Modeling is very different than other apps (loved by some, hated by others)

Some features are more marketing hype than truly usable.

The program is finicky about the way things get done - you learn to work the way A:M works, A:M does not adapt to you.

And most importantly - $299 gets you in the door - there is then an annual subscription fee. The problem here is that sometimes you really need that next year's version because it fixes outstanding bugs from the previous version and Hash doesn't look back. In fairness, there are still people very happily using v8 - so unless you need a new feature or bug fix no one is forcing you to upgrade.

That said; If you are on a PC platform, don't need to move models / animations into other programs and understand that you will need to work the way Hash wants you to work within A:M - then the program is a tremendous value.

The animation tools and rigging tools are some of the best available in *any* program and the render engine seems to have gotten a big facelift with v10.5. It's generally pretty fast to work with even on low end machines.

Do your homework - read back through some of the threads in this forum and weed out the remarks that have no basis in fact from the observations of long time users of the program. Like any 3D app there is a bit of evangelism that goes on here. For every 1 person that loves A:M there are 5 that will tell you it is horrendous. Some of which have valid gripes, others expected Maya Complete for $299 and still others didn't take the time to learn the way A:M wants you to do things.

Personally, I fall into the last group. I still own A:M - and continue to upgrade (although I do it every other year). However, I also own Lightwave and find that my forays into A:M are now more for experimentation with timing than for "real" work. Note that I am a hobbyist, so none of my work is truly "real" anyway :)

Unfotunately I don't think there is a demo to try befor eyou buy - but check out David Rogers "Animation:Master 2002" book in your local book store. It's a better reference than the manual and covers a huge amount of material. Anzovin Studios also have soem very nice, inexpensive A:M training materials.

Good Luck!

[andrewBwinter]

Originally posted by Nonproductive
Do your homework - read back through some of the threads in this forum and weed out the remarks that have no basis in fact from the observations of long time users of the program. Like any 3D app there is a bit of evangelism that goes on here. For every 1 person that loves A:M there are 5 that will tell you it is horrendous. Some of which have valid gripes, others expected Maya Complete for $299 and still others didn't take the time to learn the way A:M wants you to do things.

The homework caused me to post this thread.
it appears to be a an all over the map reponse to A:M which makes it awkward to get a definitive answer.

In addition, I read the mods concerns about comparitive posts so I read the assessment thread contained in their request, and A:M wasn't mentioned. A different app. that shall be nameless, was suggested as the best bang for the buck. As managing partner, I'm responsible for cash flow and have to determine ROI. One app. in particular seems to have expansion capabilities based on needs and that might be the alternative.

I am impressed with the review of A:M in the British publication: "Computer Arts"
which has glowing things to say about it.

Will continue to do the research and make the decision based on everyone's input, cash flow, capabilities and needs.

Thanks all.

best,
a

[Nonproductive]

Originally posted by andrewBwinter
The homework caused me to post this thread.
it appears to be a an all over the map reponse to A:M which makes it awkward to get a definitive answer.


Oops! Sorry, I hope my "Do your Homework" statement wasn't taken wrong!

I didn't mean it to come out as "stop wasting our time" or something like that.

I was more to support the statements I made - as I know some of them were a little negative towards A:M and I didn't want them to seem unfounded.

[andrewBwinter]

No worries mate.

a

[Ti Moute]

Originally posted by andrewBwinter
The homework caused me to post this thread.
it appears to be a an all over the map reponse to A:M which makes it awkward to get a definitive answer.

In addition, I read the mods concerns about comparitive posts so I read the assessment thread contained in their request, and A:M wasn't mentioned. A different app. that shall be nameless, was suggested as the best bang for the buck. As managing partner, I'm responsible for cash flow and have to determine ROI. One app. in particular seems to have expansion capabilities based on needs and that might be the alternative.

I am impressed with the review of A:M in the British publication: "Computer Arts"
which has glowing things to say about it.

Will continue to do the research and make the decision based on everyone's input, cash flow, capabilities and needs.

Thanks all.

best,
a

I have to say something about many of the reviews I have seen. Many are written by people that have used AM for years and have adjusted to AMs way of doing things. This may not be the case in your particular article.

I personally have used AM since version 8 and upgraded every year except this one. I have since moved onto LW because I find LW better for my type of modeling that I do as a hobby. I can't bash AM much because I learned so much from the program and there are more resources out there to learn from now. I mainly got tired of the crashes, but I hear on the hash list serve that version 10.5 is more stable but still not perfect (but what program is?). It is a good program in my opinion but I like to use booleans when modeling. Quess I'm more of a polygon modeler than a spline modeler. Loved the choreography in AM.

When I purchased AM, the price was right and pretty much still is the same low price, but some of the competitors have lowered their prices but are still much more for the commercial versions. But some of the competitors do have some demos.

The 4 items you listed I have to agree with the others. It is possible depending on exactly what you want.

I don't know how much this helped but there is my experience from my view.

[Wegg]

4. Hi res. output for print, min. 300dpi.

I think you may run into problems here.

We couldn't render complex scenes at 8.5 X 11 from Animation Master untill we had eggslice. AM on its own just chokes and dies.

Thats 3300 pixels by 2550 pixels btw.

I doubt much has changed. . .

[binder3d]

I think they are rocking with 10.5 but if the high res problem is still there I think Hash still has a lot of work today. One thing I want to do is print work.

OT-what do you think about the changes to LW8 and the whole momo thing from lux?:D

[Wegg]

We only really use LW as a renderer. . . and that will probably soon go away once Studio gets released in a few weeks.

I have actually been toying with the idea of doing a video tutorial demonstrating how to get your animations and models from AM into LW. . .

Do you think there would be much interest?

Momo looks pretty slick but we are huge Wings fans here so it'd have to be. . . better and less expensive. ;)

[Nonproductive]

Originally posted by Wegg
We only really use LW as a renderer. . . and that will probably soon go away once Studio gets released in a few weeks.


Messiah Studio?

Did they make improvements to the render engine?

[Wegg]

Yup.

Now that it has UVs and nice procedurals. . . we can start working LW out of the picture.

Not that LW is bad but. . . man. . . thats one crazy workflow.

[Nonproductive]

Eggg--sellent.

I don't want to take this too far off A:M...Please keep us updated over in the the Messiah forum. I own M:A 3.3 and am still undecided as to whether I want to upgrade so I'm very anxious to hear some feedback.

[ypoissant]

Originally posted by Wegg
4. Hi res. output for print, min. 300dpi.

I think you may run into problems here.

We couldn't render complex scenes at 8.5 X 11 from Animation Master untill we had eggslice. AM on its own just chokes and dies.

Thats 3300 pixels by 2550 pixels btw.

I doubt much has changed. . .

I would say it improved. In February, I did a render with the v10.5 alpha version of that time. This must have been one of the very first alpha. I was testing AA. The largest image was 5400 x 2880 pixels and it rendered without a hickup on a PIII, 500mHz, 256meg computer. If I could do that with a very early alpha version, I doubt it would not be possible to do that with the current release version now.

Yves Poissant

[Wegg]

We could render very very simple things. Like one object in the middle of space. But as soon as you get into the crazy landscapes Brian cranks out. . . and the spiffy characters we were doing. . . it'd never get through even one frame at those resolutions.

[ypoissant]

Wegg,

I see. I used one frame of the "Toys" project. It sure is not as complex as one of your characters inside one of Brian's landscape with Brian's materials on them but it was quite more complex than a simple sphere on a plane.

Still, I think some more tests would be required before concluding that large renderers are or are not possible in the current version and in which circumstances. Unfortunately, I don't have one of your highly complex scene at hand to do those tests and you are probably not interested in doing the test either. So the conclusion is kind of moot.

But most of all, I believe this discussion should give a good idea of what should be expected given the type of project at hand. For someone who is not planing the type of complexity that you tackled, it should render fine.

Just from another point of view, 300dpi of print resolution is not the same thing as 300dpi of pixels resolution. A 150dpi pixel resolution with good AA will print perfectly well when processed through 300dpi print screens. I never rendered higher than 150dpi for any print job be it for packages or brochures. I once had a customer who insisted that I supplied a 300pdi render. I scaled the render up in Photoshop and the customer sweared that the scaled image was much better than the unscaled one. If anything, the scaled one was actually blurrier. Go figure. My point is you don't have to render such huge resolutions most of the time.

Yves Poissant

[Wegg]

Oh yea I totally agree.

Infact. . . we don't even render to the full D1 resolution when we are doing Television work. 640 X 480 feels . . . I dunno. . . warmer or something.

I guess thats the same with print.

Just don't let the clients know. :rolleyes:

[ewdean]

I have actually been toying with the idea of doing a video tutorial demonstrating how to get your animations and models from AM into LW. . .

Do you think there would be much interest?
[/B]

Hell yea! I'd be very interested in seeing a video like this. Though how about just skipping Lightwave and instructing AM refugees on how to transition to Messiah Studio?

[Wegg]

I'd kind of want to hedge my bets on an app that a LOT of people use instead of just a few. . .

How many people have AM and Messiah?

[ewdean]

Originally posted by Wegg
How many people have AM and Messiah? [/B]

I don't know, I've v8.5 since it came out and am working through the demo of animate v3.3, but speaking for myself, eventhough I'm still in a "research" phase for a new app to focus on, I'd most likely want a package that handles as much of the production process as possible...like AM does. Yet I'd want that package to be self-contained. I'd go with Wings/Lightwave/Messiah, but Wings/Messiah Studio seems more attractive.

If I flew out to Utah would you train me?

[Wegg]

You serious?

[Bill_Young]

Originally posted by Wegg
4. Hi res. output for print, min. 300dpi.

I think you may run into problems here.

We couldn't render complex scenes at 8.5 X 11 from Animation Master untill we had eggslice. AM on its own just chokes and dies.

Thats 3300 pixels by 2550 pixels btw.

I doubt much has changed. . .

Well I havn't done any tests with it yet at these resolutions, but I was chatting with Greg R. a while back and the subject of hirez renders came up and Eggslice. According to what I got out of the chat was that the way they have reworked how A:M aproches rendering should effect larger resolutions. Supposedly the new version should be capable of handeling larger images now, and poster resolutions may be possible with the new render engine; however, as I've not had the need to test this I can't realy say. Perhaps you can send me one of the old files that didn't render well, and I can try it here in the new version. Thus we can see if the problem has indeed been resolved.

[runejw]

Originally posted by Wegg
Yup.

Now that it has UVs and nice procedurals. . . we can start working LW out of the picture.

Not that LW is bad but. . . man. . . thats one crazy workflow.

OFF TOPIC (I'm sure, but nevertheless...)

Wegg: I would be interested in your view on how messiah compares to what you've seen from LW8 - i.e. messiah studio still better ??

A LW8/Siggraph link posted in another forum:
http://www.tv3d.com/Sig03/LW8.htm

Rune

[modernhorse]

I have actually been toying with the idea of doing a video tutorial demonstrating how to get your animations and models from AM into LW. . .

I would be interested in such a tutorial!!

[Squeakypics]

Me too!

[Wegg]

Originally posted by runejw

Wegg: I would be interested in your view on how messiah compares to what you've seen from LW8 - i.e. messiah studio still better ??

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=79934

[pequod]

I have actually been toying with the idea of doing a video tutorial demonstrating how to get your animations and models from AM into LW. . .


That sounds really interesting. I explored this avenue a while back when I was desperate to render a character with decent looking fur.
But since AM's renderer and fur have vastly improved, I'm not sure if the procedure would be worth it.
I'm certainly open to persuasion though.

[Bill_Young]

Originally posted by Wegg

I have actually been toying with the idea of doing a video tutorial demonstrating how to get your animations and models from AM into LW. . .


Hmm... This brings up a post I've been meaning to make. At one point we played with exporting animation from A:M to other apps, and at siggraph I was chatting with Frank Silas who was having some issues getting some of the motion data out of A:M. So I thought I'd give people a quick explination in case some one needed the data accessable for games ect. The models can be exported as DXF's, but can't use 5 point patches or hooks. If for what ever reason your game system uses subdivs, you can use an app to smoothshift the surfaces out so when it subdivides it will look closer to the original model. To get the BVH bone data to export in a usefull fashion we found that it was best interpreted by Lifeforms. If the BVH data was not run through Lifeforms then the motion data scaled up far to big to be used properly for some reason. We then took the data from Lifeforms and poof every thing lined up perfectly. I belive we also had to bake all the motion at every frame before we exported the data for some reason. Anyhow it was more of a test. We never realy did much with it, but I'm sure game makers or others might be able to make use of this info. Here is a link to the end result http://lib1.store.vip.sc5.yahoo.com/lib/rafhashvideotapes/TSMLWmotiontest.mov It was intended to be rendered with fur so ignore the surface errors, but it shows that the process does work.

[Wegg]

Cool.

I think alot of people would like to see a step by step process on all that was involved in doing that kinda thing Bill. Its something we do all the time and there are certainly things to look out for that speed up the process.

I doubt the average Joe can afford life forms though. . . I'll have to make sure to keep the process as free as possible.

[Nonproductive]

Issue 27 (I think) of 3D World had a full copy of Life Forms v3.5
...if it helps at all...

[binder3d]

Bill are you saying that you can export the model and bvh from Hash to other apps for working on games? This opens a whole area to AM users. If this worked and people have Lifeforms and lets say C4d then AM users could probably animate for games. Sounds really cool.

[jmcalpin]

Wegg please do that. I would really be interested in a tutorial of am to lw

J

[eboy]

i tried a while back to get AM bvh
files into C4D, you can set the scale
on import so the bones line up,
but the resultant mass of bones was
too confusing for me to sort through, i couldnt figure out reapplying the bvh rig after updates as the only referrence was from the Lifeforms docs but that referred to an old 5.x version of C4D. I didnt go any further as the Motionbuilder/C4D/FBX combo could be a better option in future.
But i'de be interested in more info.

[Bill_Young]

Originally posted by binder3d
Bill are you saying that you can export the model and bvh from Hash to other apps for working on games? This opens a whole area to AM users. If this worked and people have Lifeforms and lets say C4d then AM users could probably animate for games. Sounds really cool.

Basicaly thats the idea. It's a little more complicated than the post makes it sound, but it can be done. You have to make sure that the bone systems match up, and the data isn't realy editable in other software as there will be a key on every frame, there also might be a few other things I missed. Seeing as Wegg is talking about making a CD on the subject, his info will probably explain the process in more detail, but you can try experimenting if you want.

[ewdean]

Originally posted by binder3d
This opens a whole area to AM users. If this worked and people have Lifeforms and lets say C4d then AM users could probably animate for games. Sounds really cool.

If you use the RealityFactory game engine which is open source right now, you can export motion data through a plugin that Martan Sant wrote, and then use a game modeller named Milkshape to convert it to a format which the engine uses.

There's some independant game developers which use that combo according to their message board. So games are already being done right now.

[Ran13]

I'm very familiar with Martan's exporter and there are some caveats. Art Walesek has done some needed mod's to address some of the issues, and it's Art's version that I use for all my Genesis3D work (RealityFactory is basically a "plug 'n' play game shell which uses the Genesis3D (G3D) engine for real-time rendering. G3D is open-source and free to use with some very light licensing restrictions that state you must show the G3D logo at game start-up and on all marketing materials ).

Martan's version is only compatible with A:M v8.x, it will not work with later versions. Art Walesek has brought the exporter up to speed with v10, but many of the problems still exist.

To get motions out of A:M, you must export each of your individual actions as separate A:M *.mot files. Apparently (I'm no programmer, so this is just word of mouth info), the A:M mot format does not address issues of world space vs. bone space. The normal path is to export your actions as MOT and export your base model as Genesis3D *.ACT (the exporter pics up the motion data in the mot files to create the animated G3D actor). Then Milkshape is used to de-compile the G3D ACT file into its constituent BDY (mesh, texture mapping, bone-to-vert assignments) and G3D MOT (skel-based motions...not the same format as A:M MOT). Milkshape (MS3D) can then import the G3D BDY and apply the MOT actions to it. Here's the caveat: due to the "bone space" to "world space" conversion, all bones in the Milkshape file will be written to X,Y,Z = 0,0,0. Yes, all the bones will be shown at the origin. They will all be there, and the animations will work as long as you don't alter the skel in any way. So much as touch the skel (move or rotate a bone), MS3D will re-order the bone matrix and all your motions will be useless (the animations will look like a Star Trek transporter malfunction :p ). This has caused problems with trying to do bone-level collision detection for games where the idea was to take in consideration not only whether or not a character was hit, but also what part of the body was hit.

Art's mod to Martan's plug-in addresses this issue by offereing you the option to have the bones written to their proper orientation and postion in world space, but it has an adverse effect on the animations. It ignores the "black bone" (in A:M, the true root bone), and also ignores any transforms to the root bone of the skel hierarchy (in most cases...the pelvis bone). But the feature was added to allow those that need bone-level collision detection to have the bones in their proper locations, but they have to deal with keeping the actors feet on the ground in code.

Art's other mod's include the support for transparent textures, and fixing a problem that exists in Martan's export where non-looping animations would still loop back to the first fame.

My e-mail addy is in my profile, so feel free to shoot me a message if you have any specific questions or are just wondering what the heck I'm talkin' about. ;)

[zued]

so.. where can I get this Genesis3D export plug?
Walasek version that is..

/Thanks

[ewdean]

Yea listen to Ran, that workflow is what I had to go through when I started my Cash Money Cockfighter demo, you can check it out right here...

http://www.realityfactory.ca/ewdean/CMCF_DEMO.WMV

The birds and the main character were modelled and animated in AM, and then exported using the latest Walasek plugin, just like you read above. The trick is to get everything done in AM and just use Milkshape as your file converter.

If you want the plugin try going over to the Genesis forums and doing a search for Animation Master, it's on there somewhere because that's where I got it. I'd upload it but it's too big for the measly 200K limit.

[Wegg]

Dude that is sick. . . and wrong.

Cash Money Cockfighter. . .

:annoyed:

[My Fault]

Wow, that is messed up. Can't believe you took all that time for that.

Great that you were able to make it work though.

[ewdean]

Originally posted by Wegg
Dude that is sick. . . and wrong.

Cash Money Cockfighter. . .

Believe me, Wegg, I've heard that before. To each his own...

What's interesting to me is when I show people this concept they either love it or hate it. There's absolutely no iffy about it. Cockfighting is only legal in 3 states, but outside of America, it's big business.

But what's really odd are the developers who are working on ultra-violent, human-to-human/war, death-match games that are taken aback by the idea of a game like this.

[pequod]

There's a good deal of truth in what you say. However, it's the sense that we are forcing animals to unnaturally fight to the death for our own amusement, whereas humans fighting each other, there's an element of them doing it through their own volition, but of course not always. Killing fantasy creatures, well that's probably just therapeutic.

[ewdean]

Originally posted by pequod
However, it's the sense that we are forcing animals to unnaturally fight to the death for our own amusement...Killing fantasy creatures, well that's probably just therapeutic.

I understand what you're talking about. And when I struggle to finish this demo, perhaps I'll be changing the perspective of the player to the gamecock himself and just eliminate any human presence. If you mean instigating a fight between two animals, then I agree with you, but gamecocks don't unnaturally fight to the death. Observe them in the wild, and when boundaries are crossed, then it's on! That's their nature. I did quite a bit of research on gamecocks before I even started this demo. I've watched a few documentaries, and the infamous World Slasher Cup(superbowl of cockfighting). Gamecocks have one of the most volatile hierarchies(aka. Pecking Order) within the animal kingdom. They are EXTREMELY territorial. I have docs from breeders that say once a pecking order is established and if there is an introduction of an outsider male, or even the subtraction of a male, that turns the whole order upside down and it's often times a bloodbath thereafter. Gamecocks are bred for fighting, they have been for thousands of years, way before the concept of PETA ever was introduced.

[no0ne]

@ ewdean

if you are going for a "typical-bloodbath-game"<-parody
why not exaggerate the whole thing?
if you'd use ceo's or other boss-type chars instead of cocks
most would have loved that one (:

the point is, you need a base to work on
i fear there are not that many cg-lers around
that experience cock-fighting the way you do

it's not popular at all around here (germ-any)
& i like it that way (;

@ wegg

i'm sure such a video-tut would be real fun

[Bill_Young]

Originally posted by Ran13

Art's mod to Martan's plug-in addresses this issue by offereing you the option to have the bones written to their proper orientation and postion in world space, but it has an adverse effect on the animations. It ignores the "black bone" (in A:M, the true root bone), and also ignores any transforms to the root bone of the skel hierarchy (in most cases...the pelvis bone). But the feature was added to allow those that need bone-level collision detection to have the bones in their proper locations, but they have to deal with keeping the actors feet on the ground in code.


Hmm... interesting... So I would guess then the simple way around this problem is to create and additional bone or two (as I'm not 100% sure how many bones are getting ignored. Just the model's base "black" bone, or the first bone in a heirarchy as well?) and then treat the appropriate new bone as the models base bone by assigning all other rig bones as children to it, and assigning all base bone CP's to it as well. Correct? If so it seems like a minor inconvenience, but one that probably should be addressed.

[Ran13]

It basically ignores the black bone, and makes the highest bone in the hierarchy below the black bone the root bone. The end result is that, when the in the original A:M animation, the pelvis is lowered and the feet stay planted on the ground, in the converted action, the pelvis stays put and the feet raise up off the ground. :surprised

I thought of your solution myself, but I seem to remember Art saying that if the root bone had no keyframes, it would be ignored as well. :shrug: I suggested just keying the root bone on the first and last frames of the action. but Art said that, because of the keyframe optimizations inherent in the G3D ACT format, redundant and miniscule keys are optimized out, so the end result (unless you actually transfor the root bone significantly between the first and last keys) would be that this new root bone would be ignored as well.

If you can get in touch with Art, maybe he can explain better than I.:shrug:

ewdean:
video cockfighting?!?!?
sheesh...what's next...virtual dog fighting?? with bionic dogs perhaps? ;)

[Roger Eberhart]

Originally posted by ewdean
Observe them in the wild, and when boundaries are crossed, then it's on!

Of course, in the wild, no one has attached razor blades to their feet. It's a sick sport, no matter how you rationalize it.

[My Fault]

Originally posted by Roger Eberhart
Of course, in the wild, no one has attached razor blades to their feet. It's a sick sport, no matter how you rationalize it.

I had a friend who on a first date, the guy took her to a cockfight. How braindead do you have to be to think....
hmmm first date....
movie...no
dinner....nah
cockfight.... oh yeah!

Needless to say, there was no second date. That's a lesson for all you single guys out there. :thumbsup:

[Primus]

Off topic here but:

A matter of cultural difference?

It's a sick sport, no matter how you rationalize it.

Been around for hundreds of years, and of course it doesn't bother me.

Yes I'm probably insensitive and heartless and would gut another human being for the sheer sadistic pleasure it affords me.

But chickens goaded into killing each other doesn't bother me in the least.

Hey to each their own opinions. We agree to disagree? :thumbsup:

[My Fault]

Originally posted by Primus
Off topic here but:

A matter of cultural difference?

Been around for hundreds of years, and of course it doesn't bother me.

Yes I'm probably insensitive and heartless and would gut another human being for the sheer sadistic pleasure it affords me.

But chickens goaded into killing each other doesn't bother me in the least.

Hey to each their own opinions. We agree to disagree? :thumbsup:

I'm sure it's a sport Gacy or Bundy would love.

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Primus
Off topic here but:

A matter of cultural difference?



Been around for hundreds of years, and of course it doesn't bother me.

Yes I'm probably insensitive and heartless and would gut another human being for the sheer sadistic pleasure it affords me.

But chickens goaded into killing each other doesn't bother me in the least.

Hey to each their own opinions. We agree to disagree? :thumbsup:

No, it is not simply a matter of opinion. Cruelty to animals is not acceptable in civilized society, regardless of "culture". When I see people being cruel to animals, I do everything in my power to put a stop to it. Most people I have encountered feel the same way. If someone's "culture" encourages cruelty to animals, that culture needs to be modified.

For example, here in Canada, Natives are allowed to hunt whales because it is part of their "ancient culture". Apparently, this "ancient culture" includes speed boats and high-powered rifles:rolleyes:. Everyone sits back and shakes their heads while these beautiful, intelligent mammals are slaughtered, because speaking out against culture is so "politically correct". Sometimes this world just sickens me... :sad:

[Dearmad]

I like beef enough to a kill a cow and butcher it myself.

Your whale analogy doesn't ring like cruelty to me- they didn't torture the animal, and a high powered rifle shot to a whale is a lot more humane than a harpoon and seal-skin floats to wear out the poor beast only to be killed after it is exhausted and, presumably, despairing enough to "give up."

I'd rather be shot than forked and have to run around until I collapse.

I'm against the killing of whales for reasons other than because killing animals is per se cruel- I don't think so. I'm gonna eat, and I'll kill my meal if I have to.

Wow, what an OT thread... What'll pop up next?

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Dearmad
I like beef enough to a kill a cow and butcher it myself.

Your whale analogy doesn't ring like cruelty to me- they didn't torture the animal, and a high powered rifle shot to a whale is a lot more humane than a harpoon and seal-skin floats to wear out the poor beast only to be killed after it is exhausted and, presumably, despairing enough to "give up."

I'd rather be shot than forked and have to run around until I collapse.

I'm against the killing of whales for reasons other than because killing animals is per se cruel- I don't think so. I'm gonna eat, and I'll kill my meal if I have to.

Wow, what an OT thread... What'll pop up next?

Killing animals isn't necessarily cruel. For example, you might kill a cow for food, but (hopefully) you wouldn't do it out of cruelty. As for my whale analogy, here's what pissed me off about the whole thing:

They claimed they were hunting whales to preserve their Native traditions, yet they were using speed boats and high-powered rifles. Obviously, "tradition" and "culture" weren't their primary motivation. They were simply showing that they can get away with anything from behind a cultural shield. Whales are not cows. They are incredibly intelligent, beautiful, gentle animals. Nearly as intelligent as humans, and by far much more gentle. There is no good reason to kill whales in this day and age. Also, if you saw the hunt on the news (as I did), I think/hope you would agree that there was cruelty involved.

[Primus]

No, it is not simply a matter of opinion. Cruelty to animals is not acceptable in civilized society, regardless of "culture".

It's your opinion to view it as not an opinion. Hey China has been civilized for much longer than western culture. We consume dogs, cats, horses, whales, sharks, sea turtles, and hey even beaten game cocks.

Your values are definitely different from mine. I've no problem with your belief system, please feel free to abhor mine. Everyone is entitled to free thinking.

I think that Western forms of philoshophy is very repressive, and end results are people like Gacy or Bundy? Or children shooting each other with shotguns. I can see how cock fighting can cause millions of Asians to go on a mass murdering spree. :shrug:

Empathy for cruelty to chickens is commendable how ever.

The killing of endangered species I'm definitely against. Which is part of my belief system.

[no0ne]

civilized men? :applause:
we are much more cavemen with glasses & ties

always attacking what's different :beer: how grown-up

one is used to more cruelty & the other can't stand the half of it
the first one says "it's not that cruel, really - that's just the way life is"
& the second is blown away by the pain caused alone by watching the whole sitcom

please go on with this crucification-justification-jingle
since there can be of course only one side wrong, right? :wavey:

simplifications suck :beer:

still like the ceo-fighting-idea or how about presidents, chancellors & stuff?
& still don't get if it's going to be a cock-fight-simulation or a bloodbath-game-parody
a simulation could be way more detailed in grafx (at least)
so you feel the feathers being ripped out & flesh torn apart
yeah, you gotta shiver & feel the adrenalin pumpin
well if that doesn't sound cruel, what does? (:
& a parody could be way more exaggerated (imho)

[Primus]

we are much more cavemen with glasses & ties

I agree noOne, there is no simplification, there is no black and white, there are so many shades of colors let alone gray.

Humans are animals too, every agressive act by a human against another is at it's very root motivated by behaviour programmed in through evolution.

Wars to gain territory, religous wars to spread belief, muggers who kill for food, money etc. (rape is male dominant behaviour). Maybe Freud wasn't such a weenie after all and like every other animal, sex and procreation is the root and cause of our problems. Attempts to modify that basic behaviour causes profound unhappiness.

We are the ultimate animals? Yet the denial of basic instinct causes so much problems in the human psyche that deviant behaviour emerges?

Yet we can become so much more than what our reptillian brains tell us... Can we? The individual is so important in our concept of humanity...

"On matters most cosmic I dwell not, but find in living today all I need to be happy."

Very off topic and my last word on the subject ;)

[mhovland]

WOW! This is the best "Straying into OT" that I have ever seen!

From someone asking about an honest assesment of A:M's abilities, into a discussion on the cultural differences and acceptance/abhoration of cockfighting.

I love the net!

[Wegg]

If the roosters were throwing naked punters into the ring to watch them kill each other. . . I'd buy it.

[ewdean]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by mhovland
From someone asking about an honest assesment of A:M's abilities, into a discussion on the cultural differences and acceptance/abhoration of cockfighting.
QUOTE]

LOL!

Here's one of the birds I modelled. The animations are pretty crude 'cause I'm still looking for a better game engine and didn't want to go to far with Reality Factory.

http://members.cox.net/edean6/gamecock.avi

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Primus
Your values are definitely different from mine. I've no problem with your belief system, please feel free to abhor mine. Everyone is entitled to free thinking.

Right, but you aren't necessarily entitled to free action. Forcing animals to fight for your own entertainment is cruel, which is why I don't respect that aspect of a person's belief system. The men who flew a plane into the WTC were just following their "beliefs".

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.