10.5e crashes

[Wycoff3d]

What OS are you running? The stuff.exe is for all WinOS except XP. Did you install the stuff file under XP? That might be it.

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Wycoff3d
What OS are you running? The stuff.exe is for all WinOS except XP. Did you install the stuff file under XP? That might be it.

When I installed A:M 10.5 under XP, it required me to also install *stuff.exe for gdiplus.dll. So far, A:M has been fairly stable (more stable than 9.x, that's for sure) as long as I stay away from cloth;).

[Wycoff3d]

Ive been running XP since it was released. And Ive run AM on XP since that. I never had to insatll this stuff.exe. In v9.X I did. But not since XP. This may be a good time to email Hash and ask them directly.

[Ran13]

Win 2000 Pro SP3

[dagooos]

I don't know what your problem is but I feel your pain. I,m stuck with version 8.5 also I would like to run 10.5 but every time I try to use it it shuts down randomly. I thought it might be my video card but I am not using the same card as you and it sounds like you are having same problem.
If you do find anything out, post it and let us know will ya :)

[Ran13]

The only thing I've been able to figure out is that I'm glad someone else paid for my "upgrade". :annoyed:

[Wegg]

I'm in the same boat. I really was convinced that things had changed for the better but. . . I'm being dropped to my desktop randomly as well.

Such a pitty. :annoyed:

[Wycoff3d]

For the users having problems did you all install the stuff.exe file? I didnt and so far I havent had any problems. I wonder if its because of the stuff file? Im running XPPro. Im no computer expert so I cant say my PC is special. But Ive been able to run AM ok. I think before getting hot under the collar {and you have every right since this is happenning} maybe a quick email to support or Steve and maybe Ken might help? I dont think those guys read htis forum so they might not know this is happening.

[Wegg]

There's the rub isn't it. . .

The Steve filter.

[JTalbotski]

Originally posted by Wegg
There's the rub isn't it. . .

The Steve filter.

Maybe if you don't bring along the old baggage, it can work. You could always try.

Jim

[hoochoochoochoo]

For the users having problems did you all install the stuff.exe file? I didnt and so far I havent had any problems. I wonder if its because of the stuff file? Im running XPPro. Im no computer expert so I cant say my PC is special. sounds like that needs to be in the hints and tips thread for those PC users on 10.5.
Out of interest, is the same thing happening on the Mac?

I dont think those guys read this forum so they might not know this is happening.
I seriously doubt that, especially when you see some of the really big-hitters or moderators on some of the other fora(?) here.. EdHarriss for one and some of the other XSI people. I believe there's a fair sprinkling of Kinetix and Discreet people here too. Would be a form of madness to ignore big public/specialist forums.

[Wegg]

Maybe if you don't bring along the old baggage, it can work. You could always try.

Jim

Ok . . . new leaf.

But what could I possibly say.

"It crashes randomly."

Thats about it. There is no real logic to it. None of my other apps crash like that. . .

Can you FEEEL the frustration?

[hoochoochoochoo]

whoever said Americans didn't know how to do "irony?"

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe if you don't bring along the old baggage, it can work. You could always try.

Jim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Ok . . . new leaf.

[JTalbotski]

Originally posted by Wegg
Ok . . . new leaf.

But what could I possibly say.

"It crashes randomly."

Thats about it. There is no real logic to it. None of my other apps crash like that. . .

Can you FEEEL the frustration?

Wegg,
Oh, I can and do feel the frustration (of my own, too). And I know you and Brian are miles ahead of most of us, in how far you take (or push) a program. And so you are certain to discover more bugs than any of us. And so become more frustrated than any of us, too. But if you are trying A:M again and want to see if it can be a pro app, we need pros like you to push it to be better. (Selfish of me, isn't it, asking you to make the app better for me?)

Here's to new leaves (irony or not).:shrug:

[Wegg]

I can't help think that it wasn't always like this. Even with the best versions of 8.5. . . weren't there always random crashes?

I always used to just take it in stride but. . . I have been using other apps for so long that I think my tollerance for them has gone down. A lot.

I'll try. . .

[3DArtZ]

I think that you just have to get used to saving a lot again. Everytime I do a preview animation, I'm saving or doing a save as. Today alone I've saved 9 new files for the same animation.
Sometimes I think that bugs are just part of the software marketing machine. I mean, if there were no bugs, why would we have to upgrade. Sort of like, light bulb manufactures won't ever produce a lightbulb that will never burn out, even though they can make em.
Mike Fitz

[Wegg]

But we are on revision 10.5 of this amazing lightbulb. There shouldn't BE bugs. . .

[3DArtZ]

Hey Wegg, you are preaching to the choir. I'm just so p##sed that they changed the software after v8.5
I mean what the f? Why when they got the car running did they feel the need to start over again? I'm having a real hard time letting that go.....
People are raving about the new software, but bottom line is this.... it is not as easy to use or navigate as v8.5.
Yeah, it has new features which hint towards something cool, but we lost a whole year with the v9 bs.
And what sucks even more than these bugs - is that Hash's character tools are so useful, that leaving AM to find another solution is almost as painful as dealing with the software problems.
Mike Fitz

[Ran13]

After reading comments like "pushing the app" and saving after creating a preview animations, I'd like to re-make the point that I am not "pushing the app" in the slightest. In fact, I would LOVE to be able to get to the point where I have a mesh to render. I can't get THAT far. Like I said in my first post, I am doing absolutely NOTHING that could be construed as "taxing" or "pushing" the app. I was simply re-directing spline flow on an imported mesh. A rather economical mesh at that...only about 300 patches!:banghead:

There are other problems with the viewport renderer and PWS text corruption that I can work around, but the app exiting to the desktop every 5-10 minutes for no apparent reason is not a problem I can live with.:thumbsdow

P.S.

Mike was posting at the same time and I just saw his comments. I can't agree more with ya Mike! I love A:MS animation tools...

I'm gonna miss 'em! :cry:

[JTalbotski]

Originally posted by Ran13
After reading comments like "pushing the app" and saving after creating a preview animations, I'd like to re-make the point that I am not "pushing the app" in the slightest. In fact, I would LOVE to be able to get to the point where I have a mesh to render. I can't get THAT far. Like I said in my first post, I am doing absolutely NOTHING that could be construed as "taxing" or "pushing" the app. I was simply re-directing spline flow on an imported mesh.

Sorry for kind of stealing your thread there.

Was your mesh imported from another app? If so, have you tried looking at it with a text editor for any funny stuff that might have come over with it?

[Wegg]

I mean what the f?

Its like they took an inventory of everything that worked and didn't work in the app. . . and then re-did everything that was already working great. . . and left everything else alone.

<sigh>

[Ran13]

Created the mesh in Wings3D. Wings exports directly to Hash MDL format, in one of two flavors: v8 & before or v9 & later.

Exporting to v8 MDL and importing to v8.5 works fine.
Exporting to v9 MDL imports fine into v10.5e, but crashes for no apparent reason while I'm trying to re-dierect the spline flow. (As you probably know, poly-based meshes come into A:M with some pretty squirrely spline loops.)

One of the first things I did when I got the mesh into A:M was to re-save it in case there were Wings exporter problems. I can only work the mesh for a few minutes at a time. I can break splines (K), I can split splines (Shift+K ?? IIRC), attach new splines, and reconnect splines. But for some reason, I will try an op that I've completed repeatedly in other areas of the mesh, only to be left suddenly staring at my desktop wallpaper. :surprised There's no rhyme nor reason to it.:shrug:

Also, on one of the few times Win2k managed to throw an error log on the crash, I could see that the crash was caused/in "master.icd" and not the main app "master.exe". This leads me to believe it's a problem with the CD copyright scheme. (perhaps???)

[ewdean]

It's a broke piece of software. And it proves itself broken everytime you use it. Why can't you just let go of it and move on. AM is OT....old technology.

[Wycoff3d]

I agree. For now AM works like a charm for me <grin>. But if doesnt work for you move on. I think AM is great but if a user is upset with it just start using something else. There other apps. I tried to learn LW with a friends legal-yes legal copy but I just couldnt get it. Instead of going crazy and complaning I said no and now with AM. I dont let this get me to upset. So the users who cant get AM to work-step away from AM and move on to somethign else. Life is to short to be angry and to be so worried and upset over software.

[John Keates]

Sorry for length...

AM is kind of diseased. It has a cancer whose cure has the side effect that of a debilitating mental condition that leaves you waiting for that next update. Sometimes I think that Martin Hash got a degree in psychology so that he can make people give him money because his software doesn't work.

I understand what you are saying about moving on but it isn't that simple for many of us. For me, I bought AM because I could afford it. I can't afford many of the other apps out there and now that I Know AM, there is a lot about it that I wouldn't want to miss. One thing that I would like to miss though is the instability. I have been waiting for over two years now for that stable version. I now think that it wont come but I would at least like something that is half-way stable.

The model that I am working on just wouldn't load into the last update which was supposed to have a cut/paste bug fixed so that I could do some face rigging. As I couldn't continue with what I was doing, I thought that I would make a real simple character from start to finish. If everything had worked properly then I could have completed it in less than four hours (including model/rig/light/animate). As it was, I was met with random crashes as well as quirks and bugs that are in-excusable. (information still gets lost in Chor. Non-existent circularities are detected etc.)

I sent a letter to Steve saying that I would come back in a few months and if it isn't much better, I will explode. (I can feel myself doing that now).

I just don't understand how the avalanche people get by. They must have one hell of a backup system. Or maybe they have a secret stable version of AM.

Cinema 4d is looking real good just for the fact that it is stable. Are there any decent examples of animation done on that thing?

[John Keates]

PS: Yes I, am bitter because I was refused a free up-grade to 11 even though I have put in many hours of bug reporting. Oh, and yes, Wegg, I would like you to get into it again so that you can do your "fair share" of bug reporting for 10.5. :twisted:

[eboy]

The only way all this stability stuff will ever be resolved is when Hash plough more of their profits into hiring several more experienced C programmers to code AM. It seems they just go round in circles, fixing a bug and introducing another two ad nauseum. If a bigger company had AM (Maxon,Alias) it would all be done in a tenth of the time and would actually work. But it won't happen.

It's the workflow i really like about AM thats all - ease of use, why one the other 3d companies hasn't produced (copied) something as easy to use and low cost as AM is a mystery. I've been waiting ages for the OSX version and now it looks like the bugs will be x 2 - everything in the windows version plus all the porting stuff. sigh...

[Wycoff3d]

creationengine.com
journeyed.com

Find someone that has a student ID and get C4d for $300. Same price as AM. Or LW for $400.

Good luck.

[dagooos]

I think we are getting a little off track on this thread. We all know we can just use another software but thats not the point.
The point is AM is randomly crashing to desktop which is a bug that you can not repeat because sometimes it happens when modeling,renderering or animating and you can do the same exact operation when you restart, and it doesnt crash. (weird) BUT this is not happening to everyones machine.(obviously not on Hash's machines)
Solution: someone has to bring one of these crashing bastards to Hash and let them take a look. Thats the only way I can think of that they would be able to fix it.

[3DArtZ]

Is just not acceptable. ESPECIALLY after a stable and robust v8.5 was for no explanation abondoned by hash.
But we still accept it. Why? My other apps never crash and are stable.
I feel that there are only 3 reasons....
1. This is the marketing machine at work. Psychological mind games. We are forever expecting the next version. This element mixed with our love and interest in 3d allow us (our actual production worthy time) to be taken advantage of.
2. Hash's programmers are suspect. What are thier qualifications? Maybe they just don't really know how to make a stable app. (yes, I'm calling you guys out, I don't care if you're pissed now - just fix the mother f#@ker.)
3. Perhaps its OpenGL? Maybe it has not gotten to the point of complete and total stability itself, which manifests itself in applications that rely so heavily on it.
I regularly use EIU. It never crashes. It is fast, stable, easy to use. But here is the one thing that keeps me using Hash, it's character tools superior to most others.

So I would like to ask this question..... Will there ever be a production worthy version of Animation:Master?

[John Keates]

I have to apologise for my little outburst there, sorry. I haven’t used the program for over a week now and I think I am getting withdrawal symptoms.

On the subject of random crashes, I think that memory leeks are one problem. I have tried to muck about in the modeller doing all kinds of operations and I just won’t get a crash, but if I use the program for longer (particularly if I use undo), then crashes happen. I once found a situation where I broke a load of splines and then un-did the breaks. AM would crash after anything between the fifth and the twentieth undo. It was quite a victory to persuade Steve to look at it because it was only kind-of repeatable. It wasn’t the same each time but it was definitely happening.

As for things being different on different machines, it is possible that it is this kind of bug that is causing it. Maybe some machines are more sensitive to memory leaks or something. I can only suggest using lots of ram and avoiding undo. Anyhow, after two years of bug reporting, I only have two examples of half-repeatable type crashes, so I doubt that the people at hash will bother to find more. From what I have read, memory leaks are easy to put in and hard to take out so AM will not suddenly get better.

I could be wrong with all this but good luck in sorting out the problem.

Oh, another tip is to copy/paste the model into a different window. That sometimes cures it. Oh, and try using break or delete rather than detatch, then re-make the spline. Detatch has a history of bieng goofy in v9-v10 so I stay clear of it.

[odinseye2k]

One thing I was thinking of the other day (I tend to try and magic up solutions to a problem, no matter how unlikely the implementation, cuz I can't stand to just sit back and cry about the world) is if we're all Hash's beta testers - and yes, this seems to be the operating model, much as it was for Ford and the rest before the Japanese began to spank them - why not go with the ground rules the Hash boys have seemed to lay out.

They talk forever about repeatability, but that means you have to remember what you did to the interface - and that's not really the program. Why not steal an idea from Microsoft (and whoever they got his from) and build an add-on for A:M that users can voluntarily download and patch in order to track the program operations. Thus, when something crashes, have it send out the operations being committed at that point, as well as the action list that is being built for undo anyways. That why, they can see the actual bit that is set in memory to lead to the crash as well as the 30+ (depending on settings) actions you set-up to get to the ugly spot in the first place.

It may not fix the problem entirely, but at least the 'insufficient information' problem that the support tends to cite would go away, and Hash would have a lot more data to use rather than scattered bug reports and a small portion of those that actually are written understanding what Hash needs.

[odinseye2k]

I also agree with John about the memory. I've also noticed from investigating post-crash model files that the things you think you've deleted (i.e. cp's, springs, masses, cloth systems) aren't always deleted, which must lead to corruption of data somewhere down the line, especially given how reliant everything is on ID tags.

[Kevin Sanderson]

Just to be clear, did you guys use the newer v105stuff.exe from the Hash FTP site or an older stuff.exe?

As for the continued use of A:M, everyone keeps going back to the animation tools, and low price. Those are probably the main attractions which keep most of us coming back. Not to mention it still runs on Windows 98SE and my ancient PC. I doubt there is any voodoo on Martin's part involved.

I kind of wish things had stayed the same as v7.1 (I liked its network renderer the best), but people keep demanding additional features and Hash tries to comply. I suggested a freeze years ago but I was in the minority and probably still am. I also thought it was a mistake to drop the price from $695 or so way back when, but Hash saw a much larger hobbyist/student base at the lower price point. I do however see the pluses of some of the recent changes.

Until the other companies do the price cuts that Corel, for example, is doing now (KnockOut 2 is now $99, Bryce 5 is only $79 among others...isn't that a 75% price cut?), I'm forced by a huge debt load to stay in the bargain basement world or scour ebay and half.com.

A:M has made good progress in the past year. Sure these dumps people are experiencing are frustrating, but someone will figure out why this is happening. A Windows issue is my very common guess.

[Kevin Sanderson]

Originally posted by John Keates


On the subject of random crashes, I think that memory leeks are one problem.

John, I think that's a definite possibility. Memory leaks have caused problems in the past and they are tough to fix. If I remember correctly, way back in v2, black spots in renders were caused by memory leaks or lack of memory. I couldn't afford much more memory back then...16 Meg was around $600 to $700 at the time...but the additional RAM did do away with most of the problem for me at the time. Sounds like it still might be a recurring problem, though, from what Wegg and others say.

Memory leaks were brought up often in the past as a possibility for many problems and eventually they were traced by Hash as the cause of some problems, if I remember correctly, and they were fixed.

I use FreeMemPro now to manage my memory and I can see A:M use up memory as do other programs (PhotoShop Elements 2 really eats it up quickly), but at least it does return most or all of it when closed, which is how it should be. I'll have to keep an eye on memory usage when I get more time to work with the program in a couple weeks.

[Hookflash]

Several times, I have requested an easier more automated bug reporting feature. Reporting bugs should be a matter of opening a bug report app and clicking "Send". This app could find the most recent "crash.log" (A:M would have to spit one out before it exits silently to the desktop) and send it to Hash, along with all the relevant user info. If Hash had a database of crash incidents along with corresponding user specs, it wouldn't be too hard to find the problem (whether it's hardware or software). Instead, we have to use this ancient, tedious email system... :banghead:

[michael-cawood]

Hi

I'm a new AM user and I've been able to get this dissappearing program bug through a number of different methods.
1) Starting a new project.
2) Closing a sub-window.
3) Pasting a mirror key frame.
but worst of all (and this one makes the program virtually useless)
4) Opening a saved file!

So at this point I'm feeling not just a little burned! I have tried 10.5a, 10.5e, 10.5f and I'm currently downloading 10.5g!
I've seen it work on a friends machine. And it certainly didn't appear to have this problem when I saw it being domonstrated at Siggraph in San Diego last month.

I'm tempted to upgrade my PC incase it's something hardware based.
Here's my specs:

AMD Athlon 1.2
ATI Radeon 8500 and Matrox Millenium 2
Dual Monitor setup
768 Mb of Ram
Windows XP Pro

Mike

:shame:

[Hookflash]

Let's try this:

Everyone who is experiencing this "dissappearing randomly to the desktop" bug, post your system specs!. Perhaps we will be able to find some common factor and send this information to Hash.

[John Keates]

The "dissappearing randomly to the desktop" bug is something that almost all users get. I have used AM on three different computers and get it on all of them. However a faster, cleaner computer with more memory will definitely do better. Never underestimate the importance of graphics cards iether. Often you have to go slow to let the computer catch up, but always expect crashes.

Maybe it is still a good idea to post your system specs though, and include with it a guestimate (or better still actual statistics) on how much the thing crashes per hour.

[John Keates]

Originally posted by 3DArtZ
2. Hash's programmers are suspect. What are thier qualifications? Maybe they just don't really know how to make a stable app. (yes, I'm calling you guys out, I don't care if you're pissed now - just fix the mother f#@ker.)


Hey 3D artz, I like the cut of you jib :thumbsup: I missed that post somehow. I was going to wait a few months before making this kind of statement but now that you are going for it I may as well join in.

I heard this kind of statement (about bad programmers) last time that there was a burst out on this forum. I didn't believe it then and I thought that it was just the size of the programming team that was the problem. Now I am not to sure.

I know this and that about optics (enough to get me through as a painter) and so when I see things that don't look right in AM renders, I send mails to hash about it. One example was the way that coloured reflections are handled and another is that the new hair casts coloured shadows where it fades off (if that makes any sense).

I KNOW that I am right on these matters (if I am wrong then I am not getting any feed-back on how) but I don't think that it is getting through. I think that one problem is Steve. I mean, what exactly is his field of study, because he knows nothing of optics and sometimes I think that he knows little about AM. Some of the things he comes out are just trash. He has said (on the list) that you shouldn't use four 5p patches next to each other. I have been doing this for years. I sent an email to the man asking for an explanation and he gave none.

Anyway, I am going to calm down and do some painting.

PS: sorry that I never got round to buying your tutorial Mike, but I didn't want to throw too much good money after bad until AM started looking like it was on the mend.

[Hookflash]

Just out of curiousity, why are so many die-hard A:M fans just now starting to lash out against Hash? 10.5 is much more stable than 9.x, yet many of you (if memory serves) were actually opposed to 9.x "uprising" that led to the creation of this forum.

[Wycoff3d]

Yep...

If you you arent happy with AM - why use it.

creationengine.com
journeyed.com

For the same price of AM, you can get C4d and maybe LW. This isnt a knock but if AM is crashing all the time, why let it get you down? C4d is supposed to be rock solid. I would hate that a talented artist might not get their art out because of buggy software. Go where you can make art. Period.

[eboy]

i think the point is most here prefer the workflow of AM, i've used C4D and LW in the past and i just find their whole approach/gui less intuitive especially for animation. Alot of AM users are just getting tired of the endless promises of a stable (read C4D) version of AM why should we have to move on when Hash should make good on their side of the deal?

[Wycoff3d]

Eboy I cant deny your feelings. But my point is this-since it looks like they havent kept their promise-how long are users willing to wait for it? I started using AM around the end of v9.X Which was pretty bad. But I said I will wait to see what happens with 10.X Which has been much better. But beleive me-if v11 turns to be a crock, Im outta here. Im willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. But Im not going to hang around for a bunch of upgrades waiting for the promised land. Thats a long time sitting on your hands waiting while you could be doing your art. Thats my point-why wait-like many users have been for what? 3 years of upgrades! Not me. I think waiting instead of working is weird. Thats why I said for the users who are fed up with AM, and I undersatnd them, get another app and create art instead of screaming and waiting. Be a artist and not a slave to the tool. Im waiting to see what happens with C4d and LW8. If I feel that they can make it easier for me to make art then goodbye AM.

[eboy]

i agree its better to be productive - if the fbx plug for CD4 ever materializes then - motionbuilder + C4D could be a very good combo combining animation ease of use and render quality. I've been holding out for the AM OSX - but its so far away from being remotely viable - maybe 6 months to a year.

[Wycoff3d]

I thought Messiah supported C4d? Couldnt that work? And if your eyes can handle it LW8 and maybe messiah? But for me and now Im going to stick with AM.

[eboy]

i've checked out messiah and its too complex for me - motionbuilder is a lot easier to use something like AM+setup machine - but i will be hanging in with AM OSX till 11.0 at least.

[Hookflash]

What's wrong with C4D 8's character tools?

[John Keates]

Just one week ago I threw my copy of AM in the back of a drawer.

AM had been looking good and getting better. A lot of important bugs were starting to get fixed and I realy felt that hash was listening to us. But when I was un-able to make any progress for two updates because of bugs that never used to be there , I decided to give it a miss for a few months. I am a painter too and so I am not wasting to much time.

I put a LOT of time into bug reporting over the last few months so I didn't want to do anything to damage Hash unless things hadn't improved after the two month stand-off, but since you are all Kicking off I thought I would join in.

I just can't afford anything else for the mo but Cinema 4D is looking pretty darn good although the modelling looks a little poor on it. Is it any good at importing from other programs?

However I would like to go with an industry standard so I am learning Maya.

[eboy]

>What's wrong with C4D 8's character tools?

Nothing at all, but they are an order of magnitude more difficult and
cumbersome in my opinion than AM - if you havent checked out Motionbuilder do so - its possibly even easier to animate with then AM and using the fbx format you can can go back and forth between C4D,LW,Max or Maya for rendering. The personal editions only 100 bucks too.

[Jo B.]

sorry for not reading the whole threat carefully. but we are currently using the latest 10.0 version (Win 2K), it works out quite good. and it works with 10.5 models as well. maybe you'll try that one...
but don't forget to save often anyway....
greetz.

[Wegg]

Originally posted by Wycoff3d
Yep...

If you you arent happy with AM - why use it.

creationengine.com
journeyed.com

For the same price of AM, you can get C4d and maybe LW. This isnt a knock but if AM is crashing all the time, why let it get you down? C4d is supposed to be rock solid. I would hate that a talented artist might not get their art out because of buggy software. Go where you can make art. Period.

Because nothing compares for AM for what its good at. C4D has only just gotten its first generation bone system. LW's character animation tools are improving but. . . they are far from intuative. AM has had all of those tools from the beginning. It is the most refined well thought out character animation package on the market bar none.

"Pro" users know that. . . but they have also known about the instability and until recently. . . disappointing render quality. I'm guessing thats why not all of them have migrated to other packages/communities. The hope of things to come. . .

[dfaris]

Originally posted by John Keates

I just can't afford anything else for the mo but Cinema 4D is looking pretty darn good although the modelling looks a little poor on it. Is it any good at importing from other programs?


For anyone that would like to know about C4D and messiah I can tell you first hand that the modeling tools in C4D are fantastic. I was part of that 9.x uprising and have since bought C4D, I have not crashed it once in the 3 months since I got it and I have done all kinds of things that I'm sure were not intended for me to do. The new release of messiah and the C4D connection are working fine and messiah is not that hard to learn once you have some good tuts, Joe Cosman is doing tuts for messiah now http://www.joecosman.com/messiahtuts/ and with this tut I can rig a character in just under an hour and be animating it. I have checked out his face rig tuts (should be ready this week) and all I can say is DAMN! this is going to be sweet. The tuts are pretty cheap too like $50

C4D's modeling tools really are good the Subd's work really well. The work flow with C4D Version 8 is as close to AM as I have found, there is no switching from a modeling window to a layout window it is all one app just like AM. There are more plugins around that make built-in tools better or just add to them. You can even model like you do in AM if you wish. C4D has cp modeling or face modeling or edge modeling whatever you want. You can add CP, faces or edges. You can get the hang of it pretty fast, If I get it anyone can get it.

You can get the base C4D package for pretty cheap then add stuff as you need to. The base package is pretty robust so I don't think you will need much when you start. You can fin messiah on the messiah list for cheap also, you will find people selling extra copies on there all the time. I got messiah studio that way and its all legal.

If Hash is still doing this I cant ever see them really changing. I started with version 4 and it has been the same forever. It was hard to move to a different app but man am I happy I did and I dont think I could go back to AM untill they catch up to the rest of the 3D world in modeling and rendering. Sstaying with AM just for the animation tools is not even an issue any more as messiah can do everything AM can you just have to learn how messiah does it and in most cases there is a lot more power with messiah and it works without crashing.

Theres my rant and I feel for everyone that is getting pissed off and dont blame you. Have you seen all the threads on normal mapping? you need a renderer that will support that does AM support that yet? if not how long do you think it will take if they cant even fix the same bugs that have been around since version 5?

[ewdean]

Im moving to C4D too, though, I still prefer to use AM for animation until I can get Messiah. So far exporting a BVH file from AM comes over clean, but the thing is you have to use FK only in your rig. I haven't gotten any progress working with a model that has the Anzovin rig and being able to import a BVH file from one of those actions. It's probably the constraints that's making C4D puke.

Anyone here ever successfully import a BVH file in C4D, that was created with an advanced rig in AM?

[Wycoff3d]

For now Im sticking with AM. I think they learned from the horror thats v9 and it looks like its getting better. But if v11 bombs and looks like they are just re-hashing the same problems then Ill go to LW or C4d.

[Ran13]

Originally posted by ewdean
Im moving to C4D too, though, I still prefer to use AM for animation until I can get Messiah. So far exporting a BVH file from AM comes over clean, but the thing is you have to use FK only in your rig. I haven't gotten any progress working with a model that has the Anzovin rig and being able to import a BVH file from one of those actions. It's probably the constraints that's making C4D puke.

Anyone here ever successfully import a BVH file in C4D, that was created with an advanced rig in AM?

Have you tried baking the action first ("create new unconstrained action" from the action menu...that's the v8.5 terminology...hopefully that's still there in 10.5, but I haven't gotten the app to stay up & running long enough use it )?

Then export the BVH from the new "baked" action?

Let us know how it turns out.

[ewdean]

Originally posted by Ran13
Have you tried baking the action first ("create new unconstrained action" from the action menu...that's the v8.5 terminology...hopefully that's still there in 10.5, but I haven't gotten the app to stay up & running long enough use it )?

Then export the BVH from the new "baked" action?

Let us know how it turns out.

That was the next thing I did and I got the same import error message in C4D. I'm gonna start stacking constraints on the FK rig I used and see what happens. If I get an error from simply adding constraints to the rig, then that's getting closer to the prob.

[ewdean]

Originally posted by ewdean
but the thing is you have to use FK only in your rig.

This is wrong, I meant to say you can use both IK and FK because that's what I was using when I created the motion file. It's the constraints that I think are illegal.

[Ran13]

If I get an error from simply adding constraints to the rig, then that's getting closer to the prob.

If you exported the BVH from the baked action and it still failed, then your problem isn't constraints...because a "baked" actions shouldn't have any constraints...that's the whole idea of "baking"...producing a new action with keys set only on bones that actually have geometry attached to match the positions that the bones achieved via constraints in the original action.

I'd say your most likely problem is the BVH format itself. The way I understand it, BVH is a based on a rather loose format spec, and not a a standardized proprietary format...so different apps support BVH in different ways, and support (or not) different features available in the BVH format spec.

As an update to the actual purpose of this thread:
I updated to 10.5f and verified that I indeed had loaded "v105stuff.exe" and not some other "*stuff.exe"...but no joy. A:M still tanks incessantly. :thumbsdow

If Hash would dump their renderer, all the physics crap (soft and rigid), the materials/texturing tools, just give me the ability to import/rig/animate poly models and export the actions in a portable format Motionbuilder or Messiah-like, and do so without crappin' all over itself every 5 minutes, I would be willing to pay twice the asking price for it!!!

[3DArtZ]

I would just like to hear what the reason for the software crashing on so many different machines is.
If the programmers from hash can't even ans. that, well, then that means that stability is not in our future.
What I'm saying is.... I want to hear, "yeah, we isolated the problem down to memorey leaks, and we are going through the code to tighten some of this stuff up." You know, get rid of some global variables and use something more temporary and reliable to hold the programs data. I'm not anything more than a low lever programmer myself, but I'dl like to hear some sort of "we tracked the problem down to this......" type of stuff.
Otherwise, I just have to believe that they don't have a clue as to why the software crashes.
Is it possible that they don't even think that there is a stability issue?

[John Keates]

They have certainly said that they don't have any stability issues. They did so on the list just after the uprising. What do they mean by that exactly? I mean, why do they fix bugs if there arn't stability issues? If they can't admit to having problems with bog standard bugs and glitches then they certainly won't admit to a more general form of instability, particularly when they can just blame peoples machines.

I think that we need some programmers input on this one as I also just don't have enough knowledge.

[koon69]

What about a online petition signed by the users who are having problems and their system specs. Then email the link to Hash and let them see that there are a bunch of users having problems. They cant ignore a boat lod of people!

[Ran13]

They cant ignore a boat lod of people!

They do, they can, and they have been for years!!!:annoyed:

[dfaris]

Originally posted by Ran13
They do, they can, and they have been for years!!!:annoyed:

True, True and True.

The last uprising I thought may have changed them and I'm still going to see what they do. I'm banned from the list so I dont see the day to day stuff anymore and only get info from here.

but from the sound of it it looks like they are getting back to the
"its the users fault" mentality

Good luck folks.

[John Keates]

Try here:

http://venice.killernuts.org/animaster/

You can see what is going on on the list by choosing to Search by date then typing 2003. Wait for about ten seconds then press on the stop button on your browser and you will gett X amount of the last posings.

There are one or two people complaining about this and that from time to time but not that many.

[binder3d]

The list has een alot of fun the last few motnhs. Steve has written alot of times with tips and tricks and other stuff. Even cracked a few jokes! :)
When someone mentions crash Steve asks them to send them the prj file and a step by step guide. He didnt go on a warpath or anything. Nice change! I think Hash is doing a great job!:applause:

[Wegg]

Cool. Good to hear.

[Dalemation]

Ofcourse, you could approach it from another view and say that only a few people (out of the thousands) who participate on this list have complained about crashes so maybe it`s not as widespread as you think. I could be wrong, I don`t know.

I can only speak for myself , ofcourse, but I haven`t had a crash since 9.5 when I had renderlock on as I tried to save my work. AM crashed and I lost my model! That experience certainly encouraged me to save often and so far (I`m touching wood here!) I haven`t experienced a crash using AM on my laptop or desktop.

[John Keates]

Originally posted by binder3d
The list has een alot of fun the last few motnhs. Steve has written alot of times with tips and tricks and other stuff. Even cracked a few jokes! :)
When someone mentions crash Steve asks them to send them the prj file and a step by step guide. He didnt go on a warpath or anything. Nice change! I think Hash is doing a great job!:applause:

Yes, I noticed a change after 10.5 was released. I even got away with joking that I was virtually writing the thing by sending in so many bug reports. Steve gave me a light hearted telling off then I wrote a mock piece of code that would fix everything. Ken Bear joined in by fixing the bugs in the program.
I have also been contacted by Noel Pickering out of the blue who gave me some advice. I started to feel like part of the gang.

I got fed up though when the thing just kept crashing on me(repeatably).

[Bugle]

I've been progressively getting unhappy about the weekly upgrade and attendant bughunt, so I've gone back to 10.5b which seemed stable at the time and certainly seems to have at least one bug less (In the latest iterations cloth wizard in action window causes crashes - anyone can confirm? This doesn't happen in b).

I'm through with the bug hunting unless I find a bug I can't workaround.

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Bugle

I'm through with the bug hunting unless I find a bug I can't workaround.

Well, that's the sort of attitude that perpetuates A:M's bugginess. Yeah, it can be frustrating to spend half an hour looking for & reporting a bug (especially when Hash refuses to provide an easy, automated way of doing this), but it's the only way to improve A:M's stability. Too many users think "Bah, I'm sure someone else will report it". If we all reported every bug we found, Hash might wake up and start fixing them.

[Bugle]

*long rant deleted*

A:M's future is Hash's business, not mine.

I'm cautiously satisfied with my upgrade from 8.0 even though I'm having to rework all models.

BUT....

following the weekly update makes working with the program akin to walking on quicksand. I'm opting out - at least this way I'll know where the ground is likely to give out from under me.

Far better for my blood pressure :)

[Hookflash]

Just for the record, I agree that the weekly update is a bit excessive, especially when you never know whether it'll be more or less stable than the previous release. I wish Hash would have a more effective beta cycle, then release a new version of A:M every few months or so. These "releases" should show consistent improvements in stability. But, until then, the only way we're going to see increased stability is if we report all the bugs we come across. Imo;)

[3DArtZ]

Guys, at this rate, we will never see a stable version of AM. I think that I am one of the most understanding people when it comes to hash stability. I have learned to get my system running so that it provides AM with the most stable environment to live in.... but it is still not enough. the new software still crashes.
Why is the software so fragile? Thats all I want to know. It must be a programmer issue. And it is definately not a user issue. EI is able to produce software that is stable on most users systems.
Mike Fitz

[Hookflash]

Mike: I think one of the biggest problems is that Hash has no real motivation (from a business perspective) to invest time, money, and energy in bug hunting (which is probably one of the most tedious, draining parts of the development cycle). They know that A:M is one of the best, cheapest character animation tools out there. Anyone who wants to do character animation on a budget doesn't really have too many options besides A:M. Hash owns this niche of the market (I'm almost tempted to call it a monopoly). The only way Hash will ever listen is if the whole community takes initiative and starts reporting every bug they find repeatedly until the bug is fixed. Also, I think we should all refuse to renew our "subscription" until Hash stabilizes the current version. Whatever we do, it has to be a concerted community effort. Imo

[3DArtZ]

Originally posted by Hookflash
Also, I think we should all refuse to renew our "subscription" until Hash stabilizes the current version.
HookFlash, in business terms, they have to feel the knife. This is the only way they will listen.
For the short run, I still use AM, but as I am moving onto new projects, AM is playing a smaller and smaller role.At this point I don't forsee AM having a big part on my hard drive within the next year or so.

[odinseye2k]

I wish Hash would have a more effective beta cycle, then release a new version of A:M every few months or so. These "releases" should show consistent improvements in stability. But, until then, the only way we're going to see increased stability is if we report all the bugs we come across. Imo

Isolated bug squashing may make things a bit better (a lot of allocation/deallocation core functions come to mind - the ones that probably got mashed during the v9 container rebuild and are evident from file corruption and empty container spewing in model files), but there are deeper issues in the overall software design architecture and philosophy. The fact that there is so little control over various aspects (i.e. programmer's interface, import/export) that should be contained speaks a little to this.

Why is the software so fragile? Thats all I want to know. It must be a programmer issue. And it is definately not a user issue. EI is able to produce software that is stable on most users systems.

Again, I think it is a design philosophy issue, not an issue of basic competency. 3d software would definitely qualify as a complex system, and as such, there are some good ways to approach the problem (before ever touching a keyboard) and there are bad ways. Hash and his fellows seem to be good algorithm developers (they're damned good at the math and know about things like tesselation of geometry and the other neat tricks - their ability to design a clean and straightforward interface also shows a great deal of skill), but not the best at looking at other big picture issues. Things like design for quality require a lot of methodology and definition up front - and this is not a discipline that computer programmers are often introduced to.

The location/nature of most problems (i.e. memory, video issues, poor configurations causing problems) bely that stability was not a major requirement. The reasoning is that encapsulation/abstraction should be useful for making the low-level stuff like this robust against problems by going through Microsoft's channels in the OS. Of course, they may well have gone for this route, and that is the source of troubles. Either way, forethought to interfacing (along with proper documentation) may have helped this one out.

Without any code in front of me, though, this is all speculation based on program behavior and what I am coming to know about complex design.

[odinseye2k]

To clarify the earlier post - what I am trying to get at is that things like stability must be decided on and designed for up front - the only other way is to squash bugs as you go, and that takes quite some time (many full revisions/years) before the bugs are all dead. No matter how good you are at catching/fixing them, if you are reactionary, you will have problems.

[John Keates]

I can kind of accept that the method that hash have chosen involves using its users as beta-testers. They couldn't provide such cheap software otherwise. It is wrong though that they don't advertise this fact and provide a much better system for sending in reports.

Also, there is the rub that the best people to send in bug reports are those who are really pushing the program and those people are the same ones that don't want to spend their time reporting bugs.

I think that there is a kind of slackness about the way that things are done. For instance they introduced the feature to mirror smartskins. I tested it out and it worked, apart from that when I put another smartskin on the bone only one copied across. I sent the report in and it was fixed by the next update. OK, that is fast but they should have thought of it themselves.

Maybe the fix cycle should vary with time. Just after Beta it could be weekly then when things are looking resonable they could change it to monthly and do some internal testing before release. If there are major bugs that need fixing urgently then they could release an update mid month.

It is wrong to let stability deteriorate after an Ok release (as they are at the moment). It makes bug reporting seem futile.

[RKanyama]

It really pains me that this program started on the Amiga, had all of these problems then, and now, many years later, it still has the same problems. WOW! I started using the program way back in the Amiga days and on the PC back in 1995. I upgraded and then gave up due to the MANY bugs. I then went to another package, angry, that such a great tool was so flawed. I have been out of the A:M scene since 1996, and thought I'd check on it through the forums. I'm amazed that this is still an issue.

I'll never forget the day at the Chicago Comic convention that I met Mr. Hash (Didn't know it was him), and told him that the program was great, but it suffered from bad programming. I then walked over to another area on the convention floor and noticed that they had some PC's set up and were showing people how to use the software. After the class, where A:M was crashing left and right, I went up to talk to the guy giving the class. He said, "You know, Martin Hash does the programming of the software, would you like to meet him?" I agreed and as luck would have it, I was introduced to the person who I just finished telling, that the programmers are at fault. “DOH!"

Okay, there is a point to the story. It seems that no matter how much we tell them that the software is buggy, they won't listen and each day they will get a new user ready to purchase it at $300 a pop. I feel so sad when I see a new user post about how excited he\she is once they have placed their order. And then they check the UPS tracking number each day, only to finally receive the shiny new package of good, but flawed, software. Simply amazing… I’ve heard of “Walking on egg shells”, but “Animating on egg shells”? And I want this software to work normally sooooo bad too. :arteest:

[daft]

It´s all just so sad:cry:

[3DArtZ]

Sorry I just had to use that Bill & Ted's quote somewhere.
I'm not sure if this is the right place for a post like this.... or if there is any right place at all....
But I'm feeling like I've been living with my head in the clouds for a while. I've had the electricimage modeller for over 4 years and I never really sat down to use it cause I thought AM's modeller was better (crashes and all).
But over the last month I really have been using it alot and I feel like I really have missed out by not using it.
What's my point? Don't know but the organic models are smoother than anything I've built in AM. These polygon model are smooth as all heck and I'm building them in record time. Ie.... nose model in hash- at least a half hour. Nose model in EI - 10 to 15 minutes - smoother and I don't have the expertiese level yet that I have with hash.
I'm really starting to question this software.
Mike Fitz

[Roger Eberhart]

I hear ya Mike. I recently did a similar experiment. I built something in Hash (crashing once), then built the same thing in Lightwave. Guess which was quicker and better looking? Also, I didn't crash once in Lightwave. Also, from what I saw of Newtek's video streams from Siggraph, character animation is going to be a snap in LW 8 (especially rigging). So it looks like AM gets relegated back to a box in my garage until I feel nostaligic again.

[Bugle]

If you folks are so serious about the bug squashing maybe we could have a sticky thread with outstanding bugs and running commentary from other users who also experience it or to announce when it's dead. A sort of "independent verification" if you will.

It would probably really piss hash off, but well, tough titty.... ^_^

Or rather than a sticky, which would get unmanageable, I propose a thread format. Post a new thread with the header [BUG] then only people who can reproduce it respond to it. If the bug is one person's private property the thread dies out naturally, if it isn't then it should get the attention it deserves, ideally. Threads would be capped when the bug is fixed

...Or reopened when the bug comes back (Wish I didn't have to say this ^_^)

Doesn't account for the dreaded "just crashes at random" bug but it would be more proactive than just going off and buying lightwave (Which I'm also considering, BTW)

Also the threads would serve to give workaround advice and general "No you are not crazy" moral support.

Any takers?

[3DArtZ]

Originally posted by Roger Eberhart
I hear ya Mike. I recently did a similar experiment..
Hey Roger, thanks!!!!! I thought I was the only one!!!
I woke up this morning with sometime to mess around more with EI's modeller and I felt something I have not felt in a long time..... Excitement to use this(EI modeller) software. Something I use to have with A:M.
Mike Fitz

[Wegg]

We used to have a bug hunt sticky thread. But it just wasn't pupular or really any use. AM changes so quickly that your better off just starting new un-sticky threads when you want someone to verify a repeatable bug.

I for one can't repeat any of my crashes. They are just random visits to my desktop. Even right after saves.

[3DArtZ]

Originally posted by Wegg
I for one can't repeat any of my crashes. They are just random visits to my desktop. Even right after saves.
Worded very funny!!!!

[Hookflash]

Speaking of Lightwave, you can get SplineGod's Intro to LW coarse ($295) + LW 7.5 Edu ($395) for $690. I've been thinking of going this route. I love A:M, but it's been giving me a hard time lately (I've started experiencing the dreaded "random crashing" bug). I think Hash's programmers are just plain lazy. Implementing new features is fun, but squashing bugs is one of the most boring, tedious things a programmer will ever have to do. Looks like Hash decided to skip that step (except for cases where the user does 50% of the work).

[Roger Eberhart]

Originally posted by Hookflash
Speaking of Lightwave, you can get SplineGod's Intro to LW coarse ($295) + LW 7.5 Edu ($395) for $690. I've been thinking of going this route. I love A:M, but it's been giving me a hard time lately (I've started experiencing the dreaded "random crashing" bug). I think Hash's programmers are just plain lazy. Implementing new features is fun, but squashing bugs is one of the most boring, tedious things a programmer will ever have to do. Looks like Hash decided to skip that step (except for cases where the user does 50% of the work).

I'm in Larry's (splinegod's) Intro Class. It's a fast way to learn Lightwave. He's very good at answering questions promptly. I've also met him in person. He's a regular at the LA Lightwave Users Group.

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Roger Eberhart
I'm in Larry's (splinegod's) Intro Class. It's a fast way to learn Lightwave. He's very good at answering questions promptly. I've also met him in person. He's a regular at the LA Lightwave Users Group.

Since you're a LW user, what do you think of LW 8's character animation tools compared to A:M's?

[daft]

Originally posted by 3DArtZ
I've had the electricimage modeller for over 4 years and I never really sat down to use it cause I thought AM's modeller was better (crashes and all).
But over the last month I really have been using it alot and I feel like I really have missed out by not using it.
What's my point? Don't know but the organic models are smoother than anything I've built in AM. These polygon model are smooth as all heck and I'm building them in record time.

It just amazes me that Hash has not developed more polygon support. I think it would be a good advantage to combine these splines with polygon tools. Just think about if we could start of by modeling in splines and then convert over to polys for more detail.
A:M and Wings together in the same package.......... :drool:

[JTalbotski]

And then there are those of us who would rather not have to deal with a polygon, ever. Keep 'em out I say.

Jim

[daft]

And then there are those of us who would rather not have to deal with a polygon, ever. Keep 'em out I say.

Don´t see that it could hurt the program in any way, would just give more possibiltys.
I would like to keep the splines in, but get poly tools as a add-on
and that would give the user a free choice to deal with them ore not.
Just the way I see it!

[koon69]

Id love to see your stuff from EI. Especially how you got the smooth models. I played with the demo and no way could I figure it out. You said you had worked on some recent models can we take a look? Please! Ubernurbs just get me all confused. Ive looked at EI and LW plus C4d and cant decide. Any help!? No this is not to replace AM-not yet anyway! :> Just thinking about learning more apps.

[3DArtZ]

Originally posted by koon69
Id love to see your stuff from EI. Especially how you got the smooth models. I played with the demo and no way could I figure it out. You said you had worked on some recent models can we take a look? Please! Ubernurbs just get me all confused. Ive looked at EI and LW plus C4d and cant decide. Any help!? No this is not to replace AM-not yet anyway! :> Just thinking about learning more apps.
Hey man, what's up? I have nothing to share yet. I have been starting out with solid primitive cubes and converting them to ubernurbs. Then I'll hide the back part of the ubernurbs cube and start molding it too look like a nose. I must have done/repeated this 100 times in the last 3 weeks just to get myself aquainted with the program.
But making the jump from Hash's modeller to something like EI modeller is a difficult mental task.
Working with Hash's modeller is pretty much being incontrol of every control point in the model. Working with EI's modeller is like working with clay(Ubernurbs stuff). Basically you are given a solid virtual lump of clay and you can push, pull, add detail items, add control points all with the intention of manipulating this virtual lump of clay into the shape you want.
After you are finished and ready to export to fact format you are given a couple of export options with are designed to give you the smoothes possible mesh. Once I get something worthy, I'll share.
But the one thing I noticed was how difficult it was for me to make the mental jump from hash splines to ubernurbs. Everything else in the EI modeller is pretty straight forward.
Mike Fitz

[ewdean]

Originally posted by 3DArtZ

But making the jump from Hash's modeller to something like EI modeller is a difficult mental task.


You ain't kidding! I'm trying to get a grip with Wings right now and opening it for the first time while reading the docs was something drastic. But you can make the bridge between most of the modelling concepts. Edges are splines and verteces are control points. There's just more ways to modify geometry in wings than there is in AM.

[Obnomauk]

Originally posted by daft
Don´t see that it could hurt the program in any way, would just give more possibiltys.
I would like to keep the splines in, but get poly tools as a add-on
and that would give the user a free choice to deal with them ore not.
Just the way I see it!

Well... Let me give you a likely scenario. A:M's current animation toolset is designed around and based on the spline modeling tool set. In order to add polygons to the modeling toolset a fundamental change in the way the animation toolset works would have to be made. Which would basically mean a ground up re-write of the program (v5 anyone? v9 anyone?) And the change to the animation tools would likely be not for the better... more complex, more levels of abstraction to deal with etc....

SO... you would like them to mess up the absolute Best aspect of the program (and arguably the best animation tools in any program available bar none) to add tools to a part of the program that really has nothing too terribly wrong with it IMNSHO... No thanks I'm still recovering from the changes in v9.

See this is what cracks me up. In one thread we have people saying "change the program!" and in another thread we have people saying "it's not stable! quit changing things" Hash has the most schizophrenic user base out there I love you all dearly but honestly some days you give me a migraine :scream:

Again IMNSHO there has never been anything wrong with the modeling tools, i have never had a problem working with them. The only aspects of the program I think people could consistently agree was problematic was the render (which is much improved) and for us mac folk lack of an OSX version (which is slowly but surely becoming a reality.)

So i'll just put my vote into the keep the polygon modeler out of my app camp.
:)

Heck I'd like them to get the polygons out of the renderer too...go back to rendering directly to splines.... Mmmmm splines.
:thumbsup:

-David Rogers

[3DArtZ]

I know this thread has taken a completely new turn at this point, but it's root is in the performance of the AM software at this point. For me, looking at other options to go along with my AM stuff is what I'm looking at.
I talked about being able to model quickly and get smooth results with EI's modeller.
I built this nose this morning. to the tune of 10minutes. It is not as detailed as I'd like,but it's pretty good.
I would have never gotten this level of smoothness this quickly in AM. And I can build pretty good with AM, so it'snot me not knowing the AM modelling software.
this was made in EI's modeller and rendered in EIuniverse.
http://www.3dartz.com/WIPS/Nose.mov
Mike Fitz

[John Keates]

I find that in 10.5 I can get my models looking nice and smooth. I can also get a fair bit of detail into them. I realy like organic modeling in AM but having said that, I havn't realy given those meta subd nurb poligon whatsits a realy good go yet. It is quite a hurdle.

ROLL ON THE AM->LIGHTWAVE TUTORIAL WEGG!:p

[Bugle]

Hmm. It seems I got 0wn3d by Hash again, if I'd waited a month to upgrade I would've seen this and thought twice about it.

Still, what's done is done, I can't afford LW and the upgrade DOES have several improved features.

So... people weren't complaining about stability last month, so let's all migrate back to LAST MONTH's iteration. And bugger the bughunt for a game of soldiers.

Can we all agree on a more stable update to park on? 10.5b is mine, but I'm not 100% certain. Some folks speak highly of the 10.0 version, maybe I should try it

(What's pissing me off right now are the wonderful bugs that get saved with your models, like the wonderful contagious spring system infestation, or the hiding geometry mistery. Oh my god I just found another bug while writing this paragraph... bounding box in normal mode makes CP's scale instead of translating...)

*cries*

[Roger Eberhart]

Originally posted by Hookflash
Since you're a LW user, what do you think of LW 8's character animation tools compared to A:M's?

I can't say for sure, because it hasn't been released yet. What I saw from the live streams at Siggraph was very promising. Rigging looks like a breeze. Also, they stole a few pages from Motionbuilder's play book. You can, for instance click on the shoulder joint and tell it to stop the IK chain there. Also, you can switch from IK to FK on a frame by frame basis. Also, the IK solver is much faster now. That was a big problem for a lot of LW users and why quite a few of them were using Messiah and Motionbuilder instead. I'm really glad I didn't shell out for Motionbuilder because I expect LW 8 will be more than adequate on it's own. Also, I'm not a big fan of having to switch back and forth between applications constantly. I have enough hassle getting my LW models into 3Dds Max at work.

[pequod]

Tiny detail modelling such as ears and nostrils which have to flow seamlessly into areas which need to be flat and smooth have usually been fairly tricky with splines, but now we have a porcelain that works. This means you can add a greater density of splines to help describe the form and not worry about lumpiness. Looking at the close ups of some of John Keates models as well as others like Jim Talbot's have certainly persuaded me of this.
It might take slightly longer with splines than sub D's to accomplish this type of task and the end result might still not be super duper smooth, but for organic modelling it's pretty darn good.
However, the true power of splines for me, is the direct and accurate feedback you get when it's time to manipulate those patches in animation. Do the polygon people have anything that can compete in both power and simplicity with smartskin? Heck, I get so many pass throughs in my animations I don't know where I would be if I couldn't just fix them real easy in muscle mode.
Sure the program is totally frustrating most of the time, I'd really like the features to work reliably and I'm not sure exactly when I signed up to be a beta tester, but the alternatives have yet to convince me, weight mapping anyone?

[Roger Eberhart]

Originally posted by pequod
Do the polygon people have anything that can compete in both power and simplicity with smartskin?

Yup. http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81812&highlight=smartskin

[Hookflash]

I would rather see Hash improve the existing modelling toolset than switch to a whole different paradigm (ie, polys). There is much room for improvement in their current implementation (little things, such as a cut/knife tool, better selection tools [ie, select spline ring], etc.).

[3DArtZ]

Other applications are slowly starting to incorporate all the tools that make/made AM so powerful. Soon, the only thing that AM will offer that others don't is instability.
:thumbsdow

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by 3DArtZ
Other applications are slowly starting to incorporate all the tools that make/made AM so powerful. Soon, the only thing that AM will offer that others don't is instability.
:thumbsdow

On the other hand, this could just be a temporary hiccup. 10.x was quite stable at first, so we know the Hash programmers are capable of producing stable code. Now if only we could talk them into maintaining it...;)

[koon69]

I think making it stable will make current users happy that they have it. But the problem is getting new ones and maybe keeping the old ones to. Before like 3DartZ said AM was the best at animation and rigging. So AM had a leg up. But it seems others are catching up. Look at C4d and Mocca. LW with 8 looks real nice. Then you have messiah to. Why would someone use AM when it crashes when they can get C4d or LW? AM doesnt have a real powerful reason to keep it ahead of the others anymore. Maybe next year will be their real last great year. By then I think the other apps will be where AM is now but they will work better and offer more. AM needs more reasons or they will be eaten alive by the others. Its only a matter of time.

[Obnomauk]

Originally posted by Hookflash
(little things, such as a cut/knife tool, better selection tools [ie, select spline ring], etc.).

Zevel a free plugin will add a new spline to a mesh much like a cut/knife tool would, but can be kind of hard to control, the new stitch tool, however works a treat even if it's less automated.

select a spline ring: select any point on the spline, hit the comma key. this selects all points on the given spline.

-David Rogers

[Hookflash]

Originally posted by Obnomauk
Zevel a free plugin will add a new spline to a mesh much like a cut/knife tool would, but can be kind of hard to control, the new stitch tool, however works a treat even if it's less automated.

select a spline ring: select any point on the spline, hit the comma key. this selects all points on the given spline.

-David Rogers

Yeah, I really like the stitch tool. Another useful addition would be a knife tool that allowed you to draw a spline and use it to cut a mesh based on the projection of the spline onto the mesh i the viewport.

As for the spline ring, I was referring to the ability to select all the splines that ring (iow, run perpendicular to) a given spline. However, this probably wouldn't be such a useful feature now that I think about it;).

[John Keates]

Originally posted by Roger Eberhart
Yup. http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=81812&highlight=smartskin

Can these smartskins be made on the fly whilst animating then mirrored with a menu option?

I am not familiar with the LW lingo and so couldn't work this out.

[daft]

[i]Well... Let me give you a likely scenario. A:M's current animation toolset is designed around and based on the spline modeling tool set. In order to add polygons to the modeling toolset a fundamental change in the way the animation toolset works would have to be made. Which would basically mean a ground up re-write of the program (v5 anyone? v9 anyone?) And the change to the animation tools would likely be not for the better... more complex, more levels of abstraction to deal with etc.... [/B]

Polygon tools in A:M is simply a wishful thinking of my part.

[i] Hash has the most schizophrenic user base out there I love you all dearly but honestly some days you give me a migraine :scream: [/B]

Dealing with all the instability and issues that A:M brings with it, it´s bound to reflect soon ore later on the users health. :)

[koon69]

I dont let it get to me. When AM does crash-I walk away and cool off. Come back and start again. But alwasy careful to save! :> When IE was at v3 and very very crashy I left and used Netscape. I wont let an app make me batty. I have friends and family who do that better! lol!!!

[Roger Eberhart]

Originally posted by John Keates
Can these smartskins be made on the fly whilst animating then mirrored with a menu option?

I am not familiar with the LW lingo and so couldn't work this out.

I'm pretty sure they can be made on the fly after you've already started animating. It requires a trip back to modeler to set up the morphs. Then when you're back in Layout you can tell LW to use those morph targets at certain bone rotations. There are at least two plugins available that mirror morph targets.

I wouldn't say this system is as elegant or simple as smartskinning in AM. However, you'll probably make up the time by not having to save every ten minutes.

[michael-cawood]

Solution!!!!!

For anyone that was getting the disappearing bug when they opened a file, closed a sub-window or started a new project here is the fix:

Go to the options menu and switch the default 3D driver from Open GL to Direct 3D.

It solved my problem. I'm amazed that Hash's technical help couldn't offer that solution to me when I first complained!
I haven't had time to really have much of a go with it though so I'm not claiming it will fix all similar bugs.

At least I didn't end up upgrading over something so stupid!

Mike:buttrock:

[runejw]

From my 8.5 days I have 3 theories about why AM is unstable:

1. Memory management routines are not tidying up memory after use or allocating memory robustly when using it. This is a set of housekeeping routines which are often overlooked because of lack of knowledge or because the programmers have much more exciting things to program than this relatively boring stuff...

2. The Graphics card does matter. I had a 3Dfx card back then, when I much later switched to a Geforce card many instabilities disappeared. I believe the programmers only test their software on one type of graphics card - it would be beneficial for users to know exactly which - but back then, no such information was published.

3. A famous quote from A. Einstein:
"Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them."
meaning I think it would be sound with either additional programmers, or if they hired external software auditors/testing.



Cheers,
Rune

[Wegg]

meaning I think it would be sound with either additional programmers, or if they hired external software auditors/testing.


Why should they bother doing that when they have an ever changing army of loyal users testing their software for free with all sorts of different hardware.

[runejw]

Wegg: there is a huge difference of the "trial & error" approach which the user-base can assist with, compared to having able persons audit the source code itself.

The first approach lets the users discover many bugs, and the resources needed to qualify and backtrace a particular problem are much greater. This will either mean resources are taken from new development to bugfixing, or that the bugs stay.

The second approach is proactive and eliminates the majority of bugs. Ultimately it is also the most cost-effective approach as fewer errors reach the finished product. Those are two definite bonuses which will make customers happy, generate repeat business and free resources from reactive bugfixing to use on new development and testing instead.



Cheers,
Rune

[Wegg]

I was being a little sarcastic on my last post. I fully understand the benefits of having a testing team go over the software before it is released to the public. But. . . I think that is happening less and less in this industry. Max 5 crashes on me left and right. . . Lots of people are calling lightwave 7.5c the "crash" version.

Its a real shame. :-/

[Kevin Sanderson]

Originally posted by runejw
From my 8.5 days I have 3 theories about why AM is unstable:
<snip>
2. The Graphics card does matter. I had a 3Dfx card back then, when I much later switched to a Geforce card many instabilities disappeared. I believe the programmers only test their software on one type of graphics card - it would be beneficial for users to know exactly which - but back then, no such information was published. <snip>

Cheers,
Rune

ATI was their card of choice for a time in the mid-to-late 90s, then they tried some things with an early nVidia card, though that was limited. Their use of ATI lead me and many others to that brand years ago. I don't know if they still use ATI. It wasn't officially proclaimed or endorsed back then but it was rumored and I believe confirmed.

I think ATI communicated the best with the Hash programmers back then...they weren't always blaming the program like some now defunct video card brands were (one brand comes to mind but I can't seem to remember their name right now...just a box color)...and the ATI tech guys allegedly tried to fix drivers to make the cards get along with A:M. At least those were the stories told on the old AOL and CompuServe boards. I still use an ATI card I bought 3 or 4 years ago.

Since then, other cards have been touted on the list as excellent but it seems best to wait and see how things go for about a year before plunking down your money. It seems to take that long for drivers to stabilize and for enough people to give them a work out to see if they're any good for A:M or not. You would think one size fits all but it never seems true in the PC world. Too many different ways of doing things.

Kevin

[Kevin Sanderson]

Originally posted by Wegg
<snip>I fully understand the benefits of having a testing team go over the software before it is released to the public. But. . . I think that is happening less and less in this industry. Max 5 crashes on me left and right. . . Lots of people are calling lightwave 7.5c the "crash" version.

Its a real shame. :-/

That is a shame. And I think we'll see more of it. The whole computer industry is having a tough time and people are being let go constantly it seems...the whole economy for that matter. Fewer programmers to test bugs and with the market demanding lower prices, but stock holders/investors demanding higher profits, you're going to see less quality control just to save money.

I work in radio, as some of you know, and we are seeing the same thing happening in my main line of work, but it's due more to companies expanding too much & too quick and not being able to afford the talent. Thus you have voice-tracking and cyber-jocks running rampant just to save on overhead and make companies look good with the bottom line. You don't dare rock the boat for fear of losing your job and it's tougher to find one now than it ever has been.

[3DArtZ]

Originally posted by Kevin Sanderson

we are seeing the same thing happening in my main line of work,
What, the radio stations crash for no reason?
Just kidding a little.
Mike Fitz

[Kevin Sanderson]

Originally posted by 3DArtZ
What, the radio stations crash for no reason?
Just kidding a little.
Mike Fitz

Heh, heh...more than you know! Most stations in large cities in the U.S. now are computerized. Used to be smaller cities were where you found most of the automated stations and satellite stations, especially when I started in radio in 1972. All the songs, commercials, jingles, sweepers and many times the DJs are running off a server. Some stations are only "live" in the morning and afternoon...all the rest of the time it's just a computer. If you have Clear Channel owned stations where you live, chances are some of the jocks are from out of town...one jock in one city doing 2 or 3 shifts on stations in other cities via the internet. I work for Metro/Shadow Traffic Networks and work offsite (which means I work at a station, instead of the Metro office), assigned to an Infinity owned station, Smooth Jazz V98.7 WVMV, Detroit (http://wvmv.com). I read news and traffic, run the control board and produce the morning show every weekday. I also jock on Sunday mornings.

We get our share of random crashes...bugs that get squashed, new ones appear and old ones come back, there was an issue with memory leaks at one time that still may be an issue. And it's very expensive radio automation software (Enco D.A.D.). Of course, when it crashes, we get dead air until we can slam a CD in a player, reboot the system and find where we were on the playlist so we can have some continuity. It's happened more than I like. They used to be more frequent...sometimes daily, sometimes a couple times a day...but with more memory and bug fixes...it only crashes once or twice every week to two weeks it seems. And no crashes for a longer time if the Chief Engineer or Production Director takes the time to reboot and resync the servers and all the workstations. But the Chief and Production guy are now splitting time at a couple stations (saving the company money), so they have little extra time.

[PJC]

Just wondering how stability is for everyone now that 10.5h has been out?

I, for one haven't had much crashing at all in the "h" version, or the "e" build as well, and I was doing hair, Oren-Nayer shading, facial posing, actions and blending actions and chor actions...pretty stable... :applause:

...now if you are using older (8.5) models there is still some wonkiness bringing them over. The .44 magnum model from 8.5 just didn't like 10.5 when I brought it over, but a quick trip to 9.5 fixed it. I didn't like doing that :thumbsdow

[hoochoochoochoo]

now if you are using older (8.5) models there is still some wonkiness bringing them over.
Patric, that shouldn't be the case if you are bringing mesh only model files over?

Copy>Paste(into new file)>Save As (different file name)>Open in higher version.

[John Keates]

Originally posted by PJC
Just wondering how stability is for everyone now that 10.5h has been out?

I, for one haven't had much crashing at all in the "h" version, or the "e" build as well, and I was doing hair, Oren-Nayer shading, facial posing, actions and blending actions and chor actions...pretty stable... :applause:


Well, I have taken a break from AM for a month now. I was going to make it two but I was inspired by the above to give 10.5h a go.

Here is what hapened:

Load up a model,

Make a pose,

Go into muscle mode,

Move part of the face,

Close pose window,

***CRASH***.

That is after thirty seconds.

I thought that I would check to see if it was repeatable and it was. Am I going to report it to Hash?... AM I F***!!

I will wait another month and give it a go then. I don't owe them any more beta (or should it be alpha) testing.

So, in answer to your question - no the latest version of AM is not stable.

[dfaris]

John,

I feel your pain brother. My advice is to get yourself wings or if you can swing it a different App all together like C4D and put AM on the shelf and wait and see what happens. You will save years on you life not dealing with being a paying beta tester every time Hash tries to put out a new verision.

[PJC]

Originally posted by John Keates
Here is what hapened:

Load up a model,

Make a pose,

Go into muscle mode,

Move part of the face,

Close pose window,

***CRASH***.



Which model? If you give us some more details, maybe we can help figure out what's going on. I, for one continued on my project last night with little to no problem


Just added a bird flock system of 65 bats with a flying action and no problems... 10.5h

- pjc

[John Keates]

Dfaris,

Thanks for the sympathy. The advice is good but Wings crashes on me unless I dissable my ATI card and use software 3D. I cannot afford Cinema 4D and I still havn't seen much in the way of character animation come out of it (allthough it looks bloody good, er, I mean stable). I had a phone call from a critic/curator the other week so I am inspired to paint whilst I wait for AM to get programmed.


PJC,

Well it is my own model. It isn't all that complex but it has oren-neyar and glossy (toon nation) shaders and these have choked AM in the past. There arn't any textures on it or anything. Just a little roughness on it here and there. It didn't even load into the last update that I tried it on without a crash (can't remember which update that was).

I could go through systematicaly erasing parts of the model to see what is causing it but I made a promise to myself not to bother with that kind of crap any more. Why should I?

If you want, I could send the thing to you for you to see if it crashes or whatever. I would be very gratefull if it could be sorted out as I have only ever finished one project before.

[John Keates]

I went against my own principles just now and had a play to see if I could work out what was causing the crash on closing the pose window. It seemed more likely to happen if I had other windows open but I still often got a crash with no other windows open. The crash happens with other models also.

[phil3d]

John, I see you are using an ATI card. Have you tried using an older ATI driver to see if the issue stops? In my case I couldn't even close a maximized modeling window (without a desktop crash) until I went back to a driver from back in May. It looks like some of ATI's latest optimizations for other apps, have led to some issues being created for AM, and possibly Wings also! I never did test Wings with the latest drivers, it (Wings) works fine with the old one I use for AM.

With the old driver, OpenGL works fine, while Direct3d tends to have refresh issues, so I don't use it .

[Ran13]

ATI Radeon 9500 Pro 128mb.
latest Catalyst 3.7 drivers.

I use Wings3D constantly and for very long seesions (> 6 hours).
I can't remember wings ever crashing on me. I generally don't use the newer features like AutoUV, but, for modelling, I've never had a crash one. Wish I could say the same for A:M.

I haven't tried the 10.5h version. I probably won't. I'm done with it. I dont have the time, nor the desire, to jump thru hoops to get A:M running when other apps do just fine. I'll miss A:M's animation tools, but the hassle of rigging/animating in other apps pales in comparison to the hassle of just getting a 1/2 hour session out of A:M without a crash.

I've run the following for extended sessions with only an occasional hiccup:
3dsmax 5.1 30-day trial
gmax
MayaPLE
Lightwave Discovery
XSI Experience
MilkShape3D
POVRay
Wings3D
Truespace 3.0
OpenFX
Anim8or
CharacterFX
AutoCAD LT
Poser 4
ZBrush 1.55b Demo
A:M v8.5L (volumetrics broken, black spots in renders)
Nendo 1.1
ProDESKTOP
PaintShopPro
Lithunwrap
Infinity Textures
MS Office '97 Pro (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, & Access)
(I mention the Office apps because of the letter Billy got from Mr. Hash...comparing the A:M layout being "standardized" similar to a normal MS app like "Word"...but then again, I've never found Word to be the most stable app around either. :p )

...among many others.

Some of these apps are "big boys" (or at least the free versions of them), but many are freeware or very low cost. Absolutely nothing on my machine crashes as regularly nor as often as A:M 10.5!!!

I'm not trying to say that no one can get it to run...just that I can't get it to run. And that Mr. Hash has gotten the last dime out of me.

[phil3d]

Originally posted by phil3d
John, I see you are using an ATI card. Have you tried using an older ATI driver to see if the issue stops? In my case I couldn't even close a maximized modeling window (without a desktop crash) until I went back to a driver from back in May.

phil

[My Fault]

Originally posted by John Keates
Dfaris,

Thanks for the sympathy. The advice is good but Wings crashes on me unless I dissable my ATI card and use software 3D.

Uhh, it sure sounds like you have some serious graphics card issues. What are you running? While I have had Wings crash on me, it is very rare and usually involves a new feature.

If you need someone to test your project send it my way and I'd be happy to. Wouldn't it be nice if everything on a computer just worked.... ahh to dream :)

[John Keates]

I am using the driver that came with the computer so it is about six months old. I am considering playing with others but I am a little scared. I will give it a go though.

[My Fault]

Yeah, try updating DirectX as well. Wings is a pretty solid little app and I rarely see crashes in it. Would hate to see you miss out on using one of the nicest modellers out there. Good luck and keep us posted!

[John Keates]

Originally posted by My Fault
Yeah, try updating DirectX as well. Wings is a pretty solid little app and I rarely see crashes in it. Would hate to see you miss out on using one of the nicest modellers out there. Good luck and keep us posted!

Will do. I remember when I heard about wings. I though "hey, this way I get a realy good app that I can learn to model with and use in any program and it is free!!". Then I try it and it takes my whole system down. Not even a crash-to-desktop, the whole system closed down. :banghead:

Thanks for the support.

[Ran13]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by phil3d
John, I see you are using an ATI card. Have you tried using an older ATI driver to see if the issue stops? In my case I couldn't even close a maximized modeling window (without a desktop crash) until I went back to a driver from back in May.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



phil


Uhmmm...that would be the driver I was using when I started this thread...the first thing I did to try and stop the crashing was upgrade the driver...to no avail. No reason to go BACK to that driver, every thing else seems to like the new one just fine.(...even the MS Office apps. :p )

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