Anim8or Community

New to 1066 Texture file search Anim8or now searches sub-directories of the base Texture directory for texture files when loading projects. It also loads all 6 cube faces when the names end in {xpos, xneg, ... zneg}, {posx, ...} or {right, left, top, bottom, front, back}.

i tried this feature, creating a set of .jpg images named "Cube Faces Test xpos.jpg" etc, tried creating a new material in build 1066 using one of the six jpegs, and got... nothing.  Well, the same old cube texture behaviour we've known and loved for years; nothing new, and certainly no sign of auto-loaded alternatives for the different faces, although the files did exist in the same directory.

renamed the jpegs to "Cube Faces Test {xpos}.jpg", in case you'd meant those squiggly brackets to be part of the file names... still nothing.

checked i'd set the default texture library properly, and finally reset the jpegs to their original file names, and... still nothing.

am i missing something, or is this a bug?

*creeps back into the forum, tail between legs*

hello again, long time no post.  my bad.    i haven't been ignoring you all on purpose, i've just been tied up a lot with other work lately.

anyways, i'm now starting work on my dissertation project for by BSc Media course, which is a mockumentary about a couple of students trying to make a sci-fi action-adventure feature film, with psychotic alien hamsters trying to take over the Earth.  although it's primarily a live-action project, there will be a few CGI elements, including big scary hamster battle spaceships, and the interior of the Hamster Parliament, all done in guess which program

i'll try and post WIPs of the project's progress on here over the next few months.  for starters, here's the title graphic (i might do a new version with stars in the background later), and the very much unfinished battleship - please forgive the ghastly psychedelic colour scheme, it's only a temporary thing i'm using while i build the models, to help me keep track of which bits are which.  details such as gun turrets are still to come (plus proper textures, of course).

- colclough

not content with Scanline, OpenGL and the awesome ART, i'd like to suggest the addition of a fourth renderer. 

seriously.

i guess i'd better explain, hadn't i, before you all think i've run stark raving mad...    i'm thinking, how about a wireframe renderer?  we have 3 renderers to output faces, with all the associated paraphernalia of materials, textures, attributes, lighting, shadows... you get the idea.  but what if we wanted to output the edges instead?  okay, so it would be less used than the face renderers, but it'd be a cool feature to have, and i know i'd definitely use it if i had it available.

i imagine it would be quite simple to write compared to the existing renderers, as you'd be able to just ignore all face, material and light data.  all you'd need would be the edges data, a background colour (presumably the same as the scene's default), a foreground colour (you could have this default to the opposite of the background, i guess), and the antialiasing-or-not option.  and away you go!

the attached still gives some idea of the sort of output i'm thinking of - i made it by changing GUI settings (including turning off 'Transparent Faces'), using PrintScreen, and manipulating it in Paint to get the colours right.  so, i guess it's sort of doable without a built-in renderer.  however, if one wants to make a wireframe video, it's a slow, laborious process, and antialiasing is pretty much impossible, so it's far from ideal.  so i think a wire renderer would be very cool. 

what does everyone else think?

- colclough

earlier today, after noticing how messy the welcome screen is on the Anim8or 0.97c preview, i started wondering, "what would the welcome screen look like if i was responsible for the anim8or GUI?".

when i tried to answer the question, the first thing i thought of was, "that robin should be in there somewhere...", followed quickly by "robin is red... yeah, red would be cool."

anyway, i started doodling in anim8or and GIMP.

and an hour or two later, here's what i came up with... what d'you think?

i've also attached a preview of what the piccy would look like in situ within the program, and you'll notice the text at the bottom of the window has been removed, as most of it has been incorporated into the image.  makes it all look a bit tidier, i think.

- colclough

hi all
i've just started work on a new CGI short film called The Machine And I - it's going to be a bit more arty and metaphorical, and maybe more soul-baring, than any of my previous Anim8or output, and i'm expecting it to take at least a year to produce.  i plan to do at least 90% of the modelling and animation in anim8or, but i might end up using a different modelling program for the small bits of organic stuff which will appear towards the end of the film, and i might end up picking a different program to render the scenes.  i'll see how things go before finalising any non-anim8or software choices.

anyway, it begins with a sequence called 'The Factory', where we see the final stages of construction and activation of the utilitarian vehicles, one of which is the focus of the movie.  unlike some previous projects, i've decided to start at the beginning on this one, and so far, i've nearly finished modelling and animating the first two shots, except for the vehicles themselves, which are still represented by simple green stand-ins in the attached renders.

the second still took about 16 minutes to render with scanline, using a single local light casting non-soft raytraced shadows, so i'm not sure if i'll be able to get away with using shadows, as the movie should be several minutes long, and the shadows would just make the render times an absolute killer.  if anybody knows a good rendering program which can handle animations from anim8or (not just stills), and is significantly faster than the anim8or scanline renderer, then i'd love to hear about it!

well, that's all for now, i think.  i'll be posting more WIP renders on this thread, maybe also wireframes, and perhaps the odd question, as the project progresses.

also hoping to release my previous CGI short on youtube sometime later this week.

- colclough

i was wondering if it would be possible for the next update to include options for the default frame rate, and the default aspect ratio and resolution of renders, in new projects?

for example, i usually work at 25 fps (PAL tv standard, i'm a brit), and i render most stuff in 16:9 widescreen, so it would be useful for me if i could set anim8or to default to 25fps with limited playback, and a 16:9 camera frame and render resolution, when i open a new project, rather than 24fps, 4:3 / 400x300px.  at the moment, if i want to make the camera frame in scene mode go to a widescreen shape, i have to render something.  it'd make life a lot simpler if either there was a switch for the aspect ratio, or it could be made to default to widescreen whenever i open the program.



- colclough

hi all
i haven't tried ASL myself (yes, i know i should, really, but i'm kinda busy at the moment), but i was just wondering if some of the more scripting-savvy people out there might be able to write some scripts for various special effects that you might find in an industrial environment, eg. showers of sparks, wisps of steam/smoke coming off things, etc.

i'm aware that it's possible to do this sort of thing by using other programs, or in high-poly ways (i seem to remember seeing a particle-based smoke test once, and the creator said there were x zillion particles in there), but i was wondering if ASL might offer a simpler, perhaps more lowpoly, in-anim8or way of doing things.

for the wisps-of-smoke thing, for example, would it be possible to create a lowpoly model with a transparency map and several morph targets, and use scripting to manipulate the targets in a way that would approximate real smoke movements?  so, rather than positioning the object and then spending ages playing with morphs yourself, you could just run a script, specify the object's location, and let the script do the animating for you.

like i said, i haven't really explored the possibilities of scripting yet, but if anybody thinks its doable and wants to give it a shot, your efforts would be much appreciated

ta

- colclough

hi all
i've been working on this little VB6 game for a few months now, i'm currently on version 4.2, and i just thought i'd post it here since versions 4.0 plus have some anim8or renders built into the interface - yet another different thing i've found to do with anim8or!    the program icon is also based off a small anim8or render.

anyways, here's the link: ClikEmDead download package.  i've tested successfully on Win98SE and WinXP, and unsuccessfully on Vista.  any feedback on functionality (or lack of) under other OSs would be much appreciated.

version 4.5 is already in development, i'll post the update when it's finished.

enjoy  

- colclough