I’d really like to know having uninstalled version 9 / 9.5 off my systems…
Is the $100 worth it to upgrade to v10. On one thread “SketchyJay” questions the lack of “render shaded” which I remember being missing from v9 (yes, that far back)
However “Kalimol” says he’s getting over 10hours per day, crash free.
I’ve been on board since version 7, mainly stick to v8.5. I wouldn’t ask on the list as I don’t want people thrown out but should I spend my money elsewhere or is v10 worth the money?
I look at it like this: Are the major reasons I had problems with the software improved? For me the answer is yes. The multi-pass feature all but kills the AA probs and the renewed vigor they are showing for killing bugs has made it very stable (comparitively). Do all the gadgets (cloth, dynamics, various effects) works exactly right? Maybe yes maybe no. Has overall image quality and stability improved since 8.5? absolutely.
Kikiriki claimed over 10 hours a day. I’m the one who said it’s the most stable version of AM I’ve used, but still less dependable than, say, Internet Explorer…
Add to that that I’ve never used the now-legendary stable 8.5. I don’t have a clue what I’m missing. But I do know that the advance from 9.5 to 10.5 is huge and all positive, save for that stupid render shaded preview bug. Stitch and selective join, saner treatment of action drivers, percentage porcelain that actually shows up in shaded mode, options that no longer reset themselves at random, toon shading attributes that work, access to bone visibility in poses, and the option of turning toon lines completely off on a specific object all made the upgrade well worth it to me even ignoring the stability boost.
I’m betting that the shaded render thing will be fixed shortly–you may be talking about a different feature than I thought you were, but the problem I had was with trying to render an animation out in shaded mode as a preview, which did work in 9.5. I assumed it was a beta thing.
I’d say that it’s worth it to upgrade… unless you can wait another six months and get the 2004 CD 
I used 8.5 for loooong time. I just bought my upgrade a few months ago. The stability is good, though it’s still not quite up to the high watermark of 8.5.
I haven’t done any animation (other than camera moves) in 10 yet but when I’m modeling it’s pretty solid… I think I had two crashes in about 20 to 30 hours of modeling.
The only regular crashing I get right now is when I’m playing with Materials… but bear in mind that I’m just learning what materials can do and I push just as far as AM will let me. Fat material trees with lots of nodes and every sort of procedural and gradient that I can find… it’s so fun.
I wonder what the problem really is with Animation Master. I have used it since it was on Amiga, then I stopped for about 5 years. I look at the forums today and find that it is still suffering from the same issues. WOW. It’s too bad. It is such a great program. Are the same people doing the programming. Is that what’s wrong? Does anyone really know?
-Ron K.
There are fewer programmers now but that is all I know. An ex AM programmer showed up here a while ago, he might know more.
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