Current state of AM

#15

There are several ways that you can make dynamic constraints work better. There is an angle limit and all kinds of controlls. Also, you can have the dynamic bone control poses or smartkins or whatever so you can model the flesh how you would like it in different positions and just leave the DC to determine when and in what diriction the wobble happens.

#16

Yeah, it’s inconsistent. When I wrote that I was getting the wrong pivot all the time, today I also got it but after closing and reopening a window it started behaving properly again. It might be related to having multiple instances of the model open

#17

Send it on in to AM Reports and get it fixed for you and everyone.

#18

Has anyone compared the render speed of AM vs something like Cinema 4d?

Also,is it stable on XP?

Looking for a less expensive animation alternative, but i fear getting AM and then runnng into stability issues.

#19

Don’t know about render comparison (the new one will have render layers) but it’s stable.

#20

I think the odd pivot point thing might be caused by having the model in an open choriography window. I’m sure it will get fixed as soon as someone works out what is going on and sends in a report.

#21

Tried that, report was discarded as it was unrepeatable.

Well, it’s not always repeatable for me, but today it’s there so I made a couple of quick animated gifs from some screenshots:

It’s not a major thing, but it’s is pretty annoying when you are tweaking a CP closeup and “zip!” your model dissapears from view and you have to find it again.

Of course posting about it here is a complete waste of time since no one from Hash is reading and it’ll never reach their eyes this way either… cough

#22

Oh yeah. I have that too…the odd time. It’s gone since I followed Johns advice of closing the open chor (Thanks John). It looks like you have some open.

#23

I have had this happen to me as well. But. . . its not really a show stopper so I never worried about it much. You should probably submit your findings to Hash directly though. Those are some pretty clear images describing the problem.

#24

workaround: group select some CPs, and it should rotate.

#25

Something else I wonder if they’ll ever fix is the dimples caused by hooks in toon render

Obvious workaround: Don’t use hooks. :slight_smile:

#26

I have had this happen too, the problem is if your hook is not directly in the middle of the two control points.
Right now your hook is closer to one than the other.
Just detatch and reattach closer tot he middle ofthat spline segment.
Mike Fitz
www.3dartz.com

#27

Good call Mike. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this dimple effect…but I usually put hooks in the center.

#28

That’s strange - when I group select a section and turn the model, I find that my model finds another pivot.

BTW, I have only the modeling window open, and the model is centered exactly at the zero point.

Strangely enough, when I select a single CP, it stays centered. ( !?? )

Do any of you have advice for modeling with multiple ( modeling )windows open ? ( Front, side, top etc. )

When I do so, I find that moving a CP in one window causes totally erratic CP movement in the other views.

Has this been fixed in the current version ?

Thanks

#29

Yeah, I believe the 4 window thing is fixed in the latest version. I had the erratic pivot point a while ago but not recently.

#30

I realize that there will probably never be a Linux version of A:M, but have there been any mention of Netrender for Linux?

#31

Ooo, so it is. Thank you, I have centered hooks that don’t cause this, but I’d never made the connection.

Cool.

#32

Here’s a couple more little issues: When I render a frame range different from 0-end, say for example I render 0-40 then 40-90 the on screen playback for the rendered file does not work, AM sticks on 40 and will not playback. It’s simple enough to just open the file in mediaplayer, of course.

Then there’s some sort of focusing issue that is probably related, after I render the play button is greyed out. Actually, I think it’s related to the greyed out button, to get it to un-grey I have to click on a model window to “unfreeze” it, and when I go back to the choreography the playback is running through the timeline.

Anyone else get this?

#33

No.

Of course Netrender has 3 components: Server, Messenger and Renderer. I assume you mean just the server component? I shouldn’t imagine it would be too difficult for a competant programmer to replicate the functions of the server but since the Renderer is still PC based - well what would the point be?

Cheers

#34

No, I’m talking about the Messenger and Slave. The documentation is a little fuzzy imo, but I’m assuming that you can have unlimited Slaves for each Server? If so, I don’t want to buy copies of XP or 2000 simply to do one thing, which is render. I can buy the actual rendering hardware nowadays for less than a Windows license. Furthermore, all production network rendering has a Linux option it seems.

But then I read the Hash faq about Netrendering "Hash does not like to sell NetRender. Setting it up requires knowledge and experience well beyond the competence of most casual computer users. Also, fixing bugs in NetRender is our LOWEST priority. HOWEVER, NetRender is part of the “Big Picture”, (you know, someday we’re going to make another movie), so we continue to work on it.

 Well, at least they're honest. :)