Anim8or Community

i'm not sure exactly what spicy was thinking, but he's given me an idea here - how about the ability to play back another video within anim8or's scene mode, with the playback set up in such a way that you can play, or step forwards or backwards, in both the anim8or scene and the other video simultaneously?  i.e. you advance one frame in the anim8or timeline, and the video also advances one frame, etc etc.  that could be helpful for loads of stuff, because you'd then have an easy way to match your animation (e.g. lip movements, or even some types of physics simulation) to a live-action reference.  from what i've seen on behind-the-scenes documentaries, it looks like the pros (e.g. at pixar) do that sort of thing all the time.

- colclough

i only discovered the joys of the PNG format quite recently, but i really like it now.  i'll jump on the bandwagon and join in the request for PNG implementation in anim8or.  *jumps*

- colclough

i'll second kubajzz.  put 'reflective' in the 'specular' slot.

hi all
i'm working on a short movie in anim8or, going to be about 6 minutes long, and it has some scenes of a medical nature.  i've already built all the sets and characters, and some of the props, and i've animated more than half of the film, but i still need one more set of models, which is a selection of innards, for a scene in an operating theatre.  i need 5 pieces, including a beating heart, and i'm not really sure how to go about making that sort of stuff.  i usually do geometric stuff... 

i was wondering, has anyone else out there modelled internal organs and might be willing to share them, or does anyone know where i might be able to find some, or if not, then is there anyone who's good at modelling organic stuff and would be willing to make them, or offer me some advice on how to do it?

i don't need them to be photorealistic, as the film has a rather stylised, geometric look, but they still need to be organic-ish, and recognisable as body bits rather than abstract reddish-purple blocks / blobs.

i guess it's a bit off-the-beaten-track and all, but if anyone can help on this, it would be much appreciated.  you'd get a mention in the end credits, of course 

thanks in advance!

- colclough

hm.  if you're using a decade-old computer, then the chances are it won't be able to handle uncompressed renders at dvd quality... for my short-film projects, i render everything uncompressed at 1024x576, which is the correct format for PAL widescreen (can't comment on NTSC frame size really, although i did think it was a bit bigger than 852x480), but i can get away with that because i've got a shiny new machine with a quad-core processor and 500 GB of hard disk space.  if you were using a higher-spec machine, then i'd advise you to do the same, but if it's 10 years old, then it'd probably take one look at the massive file sizes (i had a 32-second clip that was over a GB once), curl up into a little ball, and die with a pathetic whimper...

personally, i like the microsoft mpeg-4 codec, it always worked fine for me, irrespective of aspect ratio, but i still use uncompressed for major projects, just to get that extra level of image quality.

- colclough

i had a similar issue back in 2006 when i rendered a shot of a city for a short movie, because i had textures on all the tower blocks, rather than bothering to model all those hundreds of windows  .  here's a still, with AA on:

(sorry, don't have a non-AA available!)

i didn't have any bump maps, but i still got a significant difference between AA and non-AA renders.  i suspect it's an issue with all types of texture, but perhaps more so with bump maps due to the fact that they actually change the shape of the object surface?

- colclough

(Staring at computer dumbfounded by intenseness of the model)

tanzim, i know exactly what you mean!

- colclough

would love to see a video, he looks like he could be a very entertaining character.

"Chivalry and Alcohol - in cinemas summer 2008" 

- colclough