Anim8or Community

Quote from: davdud101 on June 21, 2020, 02:48:20 pm

Is there any way to select two points and have Anim8or basically cut across/connect them like the Topo knife?

I wondered about this for a while, often times to avoid weird geometry issues I end up needing to cut across faces to create more lines on a model. Sometimes this can be unorthodox with setting the right view angle.

Why not use the connect points tool or maybe select the edges and use the connect edges function?

Quote from: davdud101 on June 21, 2020, 02:48:20 pm

Is there any way to select two points and have Anim8or basically cut across/connect them like the Topo knife?

I wondered about this for a while, often times to avoid weird geometry issues I end up needing to cut across faces to create more lines on a model. Sometimes this can be unorthodox with setting the right view angle.

Why not use the connect points tool or maybe select the edges and use the connect edges function?

Woah!! I've been looking for something like connect edges for a while. Tbh all these years I've been thinking it was supposed to be similar to merge points. I've been using Cut Edges and then drawing across with the knife tool.. that'll save some time, thanks!


As far as connecting two point across a face, "Connect points" seems like it'd be the name of the exact function I'm looking for. but I can't find anything with that particular name. Hopefully I'm describing it right - this happens on faces with 4 or more points. when they are not completely flat, or when there are curved profiles and such, like in the photo I attached to this post (I realize this isn't a "valid" method of modeling objects, but I use Anim8or a lot for CAD as opposed to rendering so I often just want to rough out a profile)

Is there any way to select two points and have Anim8or basically cut across/connect them like the Topo knife?

I wondered about this for a while, often times to avoid weird geometry issues I end up needing to cut across faces to create more lines on a model. Sometimes this can be unorthodox with setting the right view angle.

That's some real good stuff johnar!

Gotta say Steve, great implementation, this couldn't have come at a better time (right when I'm messing around with lipsync on a character). Excited to see what else the community does with it!

@ENSONIQ5 Been a while!!

That's a decent CPU for a laptop. I think that the main issue is that those are very high face counts. You really don't need nearly as many faces. And each level of subdivision increases the face count by a factor of 4. The subdivision is done in software after skinning, which is faster than the opposite order, but it still takes time.

For my part I'm finding I just need to learn to downscale all my subdivided objects to more of a 'preview' quality and it gets me a lot closer to framerate. I can imagine it'd be the same situation for any graphics application. Seems weird saying this because I realize I have sooo little experience doing actual animation in Anim8or xD I use Scene mode a lot for making quick renders for mockups but it's been years since I actually tried animating a character, haha!

I had the same issue some time ago, and a good nVidia graphics card did the trick.
 Have got a slightly better PC now, and first thing i did was put a decent graphics card in.
 /*snippety snip*/
 Another thought. Anim8or is easy portable, maybe you could copy your project to a usb stick and try on another pc with different specs

Good thoughts johnar. I’ve actually got a pretty decent GPU in here so I doubt that’s the issue 🤔 I might try to do the actual animation from my laptop which has a good Intel processor but no on-board graphics.

Well it's all about how complex the scene is
I have a dell precision m6700
i7 3840qm(~3.8ghz)
k5100m
32GB

And dell xps 13
i7-10510U (~4.9ghz)
Intel® UHD
16GB

I pretty much get low fps if the scene is complex...and subdivided
But if I remove subdivision I can get +-32fps on both machines

How complex do your models/scenes get as far as number of points and number of objects in a scene?
I can get it to maybe 15-20fps if I set my subdivisions to 1, but of course going down to 0 makes the model too low-poly to really see what’s happening (I guess I mentioned that before).

When you do it do you usually have the timetrack showing? That seemed to be the second-biggest factor in determining the playback frame rate.

(What made you go with more RAM on the slower processor btw? Or is it a desktop and laptop for example)

How complex are your scenes? How large are your models, how many, do they use morph targets or are rigged with deforming figures? Also, what CPU do you have?

The character I'm working on is a subdivide, but only 556 points altogether. I get (of course) better framerates when displaying him with fewer divisions and particularly when the Track view is collapsed (which I never realized.... seems like the track fully re-renders of something every time the marker moves a frame?)

Also I guess with that I found out it IS playing in realtime, but dropping most of the frames to gie a total of those 6 - 10fps (with the track opened up and a high-ish poly model with low divisions)

He DOES have 10 morph targets for facial expressions and I like to try to zero them ALL out any time I'm changing multiple aspects of the expression, so plenty of key frames :S


My CPU is an AMD FX-8300. Does Anim8or lean toward Intel? Or possibly newer-gen CPU types?

{EDIT}
Messed a little more with the geometry and I'm a LOT happier with the kid version's face from the front view, and managed not to compromise the side view! The older one still looks a little too 'human'... something about the jaw, maybe it's too big or square? Or overall head not round enough? anyone able to see something I can't 


(He looks like the adult characters from Arthur... I'm going for more Zootopia  )