I respect your accomplishments and art. I like everything I’ve seen of yours. But I think your arguments are extremely biased in favor of Hash, and I have to disagree with some of what you’ve said and implied.
A:M, at that version, and for what you did with it, was great for you. If everyone who bought it would simply restrict themselves to animations of relatively simple models of hairless, one-eyed aliens, using A:M v8.5p, or whichever one is currently the best, then this thread may very well not even have ever come into existence.
Unfortunately, that is not the case. People buy A:M and want it to perform all of the things Hash PROMISES it can do. They want to make complex models and texture them, and then render them, without enduring a truly amazing number of crashes, and the possibility of a corrupted file. They want to create the detail of the human face and animate it without artifacts that ruin its realism. They want to make a decent Depth of Field shot, or add some motion-blur to their scene, without strange rendering artifacts. They have the unmitigated gall to actually try to use the cloth and spring dynamics in an animation. (YES, it IS possible to use all of these ‘features’ in a limited or specific manner, with satisfactory results! – if you can endure the crashes, creases, and corruptions – AND if you never try to go beyond those limits!) And if you bring up the fact that it doesn’t quite do what it promises in one or more areas on the company email list, then you’ll likely be kicked first, and sent a snitty email second.
One of the main problems I have with your post, Victor, is that you entirely skipped over the problems of v9 through v9.51e. v10 has only just come out. Users that have stuck with 8.5p may soon all be upgrading to v10b or later. That’s great. But most of what you are reading here is due to experiences with v9.5. Can you imagine what the users of Maya or LW would be saying on their lists if their applications went through an entire year of upgrades and updates that were as crash-prone as A:M? (They would probably start coming up with names for their applications like “Animation:Maya” and “Light:Master”.) Even now, you get statements on the A:M list like, “A:M v10 is great: I used it ALL DAY and it only crashed three times!” And they’re not being sarcastic. They love A:M v10 because it only crashes ‘rarely’, it’s so much more ‘stable’ than it used to be.
If you know that the list rules forbid talking about the problems with Hash, Inc. or A:M, and you know that the rules forbid referring to other A:M forums, then you should be able to see that the list is purposefully setup to be a nice little self-reinforcing fantasy world where A:M is wonderful, and any problems you have must be the fault of your system, or your actions, or your ignorance, or your astrological sign. (Regarding the ‘technical support’ referred to in the list rules, which has been talked about some on here, it can only be surmised that it is meant to be of the sort that helps you to do something that should have been explained in the manual, not the sort that helps you deal with a bug. And that support on the list is supplied 100% by list members. Why aren’t there any Hash employees involved in answering questions about their software on the list??!!)
The latest beauty from the A:M list is the guy that actually implies that the fact that the A:M ‘manual’ is so skimpy is a benefit that will ‘force’ a user to learn the basics and become better at using A:M than he would have otherwise. This is insane. Has every A:M flaw and wart become a virtue to the A:M myrmidons? By this logic, Hash should produce no manual at all, in order to guarantee the most accomplished users. Oh wait, I think that as of v9, they DID stop producing manuals!! If I’m not mistaken, as of the current A:M 2003 version, the only Hash document that mention the ‘flatten’ capability of A:M is the A:M 2001 reference manual!
I agree with Arthur that they have a right to run their list how they see fit, but I have a right to come here and complain about it. Some of you are missing that point. Just because they have a right to run their company a certain way doesn’t mean that I don’t get to say anything bad about them. I see what you guys are saying about knowing the list rules and abiding by them. From one point of view, it would be strange to go to work for a company that everyone knows is a slave driver, and then constantly complain about the hours. So yes, it would be something similar to complain about being kicked off the Hash list after I’ve been on it for several years, as I have, and knowing the rules and practical consequences to breaking certain ones, as I do. However, I think it is something entirely different to look at and discuss the whole Hash situation, including the company strategy, the application, the ‘manuals’, and their list.
Good luck with v10 folks,
Jay
all of the other programs on my vaio combined have crashed far less than a:m.