Anim8or Community

Arik , you're alive !!! Still waiting for the wireframes of that submarine though

Super! I wonder why people don't post ALL their work created in Anim8or . Time by time people past by and post some wonderfull stuff.

Nope, Trevor, no glossyreflector on the walls. Basic Anim8or material. The blue light comes from 6 local lights ( 3 on each half ) above couch, behind the vases,for decoretive purposes. The noise is generated from the shadow size ( =10 )  of the 3 local lights (yellow color ) near the window ( one infront of the panel curtains, to produce the shadow on everything inside the room and two behind the curtains to create the shadows on the wall, above the couch and ceilling, to give that kind of a sunny day light. Although I used 64 AA sampling, it's still too rough, so much more samples needed. ( so more time too, >>15 min of mine )

A light under the bulb works only when the bulb is under an untransparent lamp cover, so the shadow created on the ceiling is actually what you see in reality. But you still get the shadow even when the bulb is under a semi transparent material, which is not the way the light behaves in reality. So, actually no work around available yet. The only way is if Steve can add some code.  I can't resist to mention it ( though, I 'll post a detailed message or two, in the forum when it'll be the right time to do so ) : read in the forum, in some old topics, Steve said that he actually ( I thought it's impossible at all, due to the rendering algorithms choosen at begginings ) to work on the photon mapping rendering method (!!!) with all the goods (caustics e.t.c ) but it would just take him like 3 - 6 months. 3 - 6 months ... it's actually like nothing ( Steve disagrees  ) !!! I don't mind to wait 3-6 years !!! ( Steve although would  )

Project update : almost finished the whole pre-final stage thing.

As I replied on the other topic, try to change the shading settings. View-> Preferences -> Shading turn it off at all or just change to the old ARB Fragment Program. It's set to the new GLSL by default I think, there's some kind of bug I guess, if that's the problem actually.

fefe01 : I guess you haven't seen $imon's work   

So, I will pause a little bit. Did just some tweakings, added chairs, vases ( man, everybody knows that dielectric class is awesome ) , some boxes. Did some traditional curtains, but man, it's a pain ... I'll continue with the panel curtains. Looks fine.
It's like the final stage left. I don't feel at all to try to mess around a lot with textures. Just fine if everything looks satisfactorily.
There are, still, some strong limitations ( with my noobiness at top ), as it goes with the lighting, rendering. For example can't put a light into the lamp, so it could light through it. So had to remove it ( the lamp ). It creates ugly ( unrealistic ) shadows also ( even if the light is  scaled, so the lamp gets located inside the light ). The first image is with the lamp ( no lights near the lamp ). Not the worst of the results I had , though.

Trevor : I'm sorry I disappointed you  , but those are not fine renders. Instead of posting a screenshot ( PrintScreen ) of an OpenGl working window, I just rendered a scene with a single local light. I used ART ( !!! ), since scanline doesn't give good images ( don't use it at all, and since ART was introdused, alonge with the OpenGL renderer should be removed from the list of renderers ? ) As I said before, actualy , maybe I should not post any images before I'll finish some parts of the whole project, but I still posted them. 
As about your settings, I'll try them, but later, since there's no point changing a lot of materials just to test an unfinished thing.

fefe01 : As I mentioned, nothing special, just a test and no special "technique" used at all . Rendered with ART, with a single local light ( casts shadows, ray traced ) above the center of the carpet. Default material settings. Environment: "basic" white solid background. No Attributes, nothing.

Hm, yes I thought about it. Then I should say that "t" shortcut should be removed from Point Editor instead, like the " l " shortcut too.

Steve restored it, yay ! It is actually practical since there's the option to switch between PEF extended selection. So when  it's turned off, there you have the "Selelect Face Edges" command ( "t" - hotkey ) through the Edit -----> Select menu. Then you can switch from edges to points ( verticies ) just by deselecting edges and leaving points being only selected.

If there's no problem I'll post some stuff that popped up.

1) Following what I said about "Select Face Edges" command and the PEF Extended Selection particularly : as was mentioned from others, sometimes you don't want all the mess that is created by switching components ( PEF ) with the "PEF Extended Selection" enabled,while right after you would like to use it, then again to select something with the PEF Extended Selection" being off etc., it would be very practical if user could switch it on or off somewhere on the component panel beside ( left tool bar ) and not going through the Configure UI menu every time.

2) About the Coords Systems, I think Steve mentioned it, but I say it again. In the Object Mode all three Coords Systems work perfectly !!! In the Figure, Sequence and Scene modes the rotation of the bones is also perfectly relevant to the Coords System choosen, but for the objects we have the old behavior. Object Coords System behaves as World, with Z-Y axis reversed, for move and rotate commands.

3) Following that, is it possible to add something like buttons under Coords Systems for the World Coords System only,in Scene Mode, to reverse:  Y - Z axes ( currently they are ) <----- one button
                           X - Z axes  <------- second button
While the LMB ( Left Mouse Button ) stands for the movement in Y and X axes reversing everytime Y or X with the Z axis, for the move command only ( the buttons under Coords become selectable only when "move" tool activated) , user could "slide" objects on the ground ( Z - X plane, Y - Z axes reversed in World Coords------what actually happens currently, since in Scene mode Coords not fixed ) and " to hang a picture on a wall " ( Y - Z plane, X - Z axes reversed and Y - X plane, with no axes reversed ). In Perspective, ortho and other, not "currect" views, it would be ( maybe ) usefull to have the ability to move things in two-axes-planes with the use of a single mouse button ( LMB ).

4) One thing I dealed with, is that you can't change the name of an object folder. If there are more than 1 objects inside the folder and you trying to change the name of the folder for the particular selected object, then that object becomes "orphan", located outside the folder. If there's only one object and you rename the folder, after hitting OK the object becomes again "orphan" but the folder gets deleted ( maybe "empty" folders should be allowed, so later you could put enything inside them. Anim8or has no problem with "empty" objects inside folders though ) .So , if you think the name of a folder doesn't fit anymore to the contained objects, the only way you can go, is to create a new folder with the desired name and manually relocate all ( !!! ) the objects.  It seems Anim8or can't delete and create new folder when you are trying to rename the " old " one. Being able to simply rename a folder is ( seems to be ) very practical, but I guess Anim8or can't access ( and chcange ) object's settings on folder belongingness ( OMG what did I write )

5) Find out this very important and maybe not difficult to implement. Layers. First when they were introduced, couldn't clearly see how helpful they could be. Everything works great, only some tiny fixes and it's perfect ! Something mentioned before, about grouping things in the same layer. They should stay in the same layer. Currently they go to the default, but if you working on any other and the default is invisible, grouped items from other layer become invisible too. Shapes being grouped from same layer should stay on that same layer, the group should not be put in the default layer automatically. When you ungroup things they return to their original layers though, even if shapes were in different layers before grouping. Although I see that it can be difficult, maybe, to code, since everything new created goes on the default layer.  Another thing is that Sphere, Cube and Sylinder as a parametric shape when created, while default layer is not the "0" one ( nothing created still ) , goes on that default layer ( "1"- "2" -"3" whatever ) but the "0" one ( not underlined though since not default ) becomes visible, though doesn't contain shapes. Then you create another Parametric Shape or bring up the shape settings window and the '0" layer goes off. The "0" layer is too jealous, you know.
The last and the most important : I think "Working" instead of "Default" layer maybe is a better title, since it's "the currently working" layer. And following the previously said, while working on something I felt the need for being able to switch the "working" (  ) layer on the top panel using the ( only available ) MMB ( Midle Mouse Button ). Currently users "lock" and "hide" "unhide" layers with LMB and the RMB, using the Options menu to change the "working" ( ok, ok "default" ) . Will speed up the workflow a lot, on complex objects, with different items on different layers.

6) Since mentioned the "hide"-"unhide" thing. Very usefull commands. Being able to hide selected items is pure gold. The "show all" command is good too. But, I think, if possible, the "show selected" command( with the use of the "item list" ) would be pure platinum ( or what's the next after the gold  ). Picking an item/items from the "item list", from those hidden, making them visible again, without the need to use the "show all" command and select again all the shapes you want to keep hidden, exept those you want to stay visible. Frustrating . 

Last one, since the new Arc Rotate Tool introduced, you need to click 3 (!!!)  times on the view mark ( left upper corner ) to change the view. Numpad and view menu works fine. Only on workspace window the problem exists. On previous versions user even could clicking on the view mark and while holding down the mouse button dragging through view options and releasing the button on the desired view option. Very quick way to select views. Good if it can be restored.
And to remove the ability to split solids in Point Edit Mode with the use of "loop cut" command, since "Split Solids" command was implemented in the Build menu in the Object Mode. When nothing is selected ( edge loop ) in Point Edit Mode, while hitting "l" or from the Edit menu, an aware window should pop-up and remind that " no edge loop is selected" instide of splitting solids. Splitting Solids should be available only in Object Edit mode through Build menu.