Anim8or Community

Hi guys, I'm back again working on a project that popped into my head, and I just thought of a solution to a frustration I've had ever since I started making more complex models.

Once the wireframe gets this complex, it gets SO HARD to see what you're doing and fine-tune things in this spiderweb of dots and lines.


So I thought, what if (similarly to bones in weight-painting mode) each mesh could have a randomly-assigned color while in Wireframe view? This would of course be excluding the Pink and Green that we already use to tell if our edges are connected or not. Or alternatively, have the mesh you're currently working on glow in a different color than the rest, the way they do in Object/Edit mode.

I realize this doesn't help when the mesh you're currently working on is so complex on its own, but when you're working on different parts of a body (in my example, adding a beard to a face), it would be SO much easier to see what you're doing if there was some visual distinction between the wireframes of the meshes.

So yeah, it's been a looong time since I've made anything with Anim8or. I've used it to help with my 2D art and animations, but Anim8or hasn't been the full focus of any of my recent projects for years.

Well, recently I was listening to this music while I was at work, and I saw this place in my head. I was walking up some metal stairs, looking up at this big window. There was a ceiling fan hanging from the roof beams, and every single surface was painted landlord-special style in thick, chunky light blue paint. I didn't know where I was, or what it meant, I just knew I had to recreate it.

At first I didn't plan on doing anything super special with it. I was going to do my usual thing and make a simple 3D model to lay the perspective groundwork and then paint over it. But then I decided... I was too tired and lazy to do it that way.

I decided to add the rest of the details and render the image in Anim8or:


And this gave me another idea... I could make one of those Backrooms Found Footage videos! It's not very long, but it's perfect for TikTok and other platforms I post to. With some color correction and effects added in Vegas, I think it turned out great!

Hey guys, long time no see.

I've mentioned before that I haven't been active in the Anim8or community much, as I've started focusing on Traditional animation now. However, I still borrow Anim8or once in a while because it's still helpful when I need guides on perspective. (Heck, I should post some of that work so you can see)

Anyway, I was inspired the other day by an image that popped into my head, and decided instead of drawing it, I was going to render it entirely in 3D.

Now, back in my heyday of Anim8or usage, I focused far more on animation and wasn't really interested in making realistic renders of still images. But now that I've actually tried it, I realized not only does rendering still take a super long time after all these years, but now that the processing power of the average computer has improved exponentially since then, the renderer isn't even taking advantage of the resources available.

This image which I rendered took around 30 minutes at 1080p using Scanline, raytraced shadows with softness, and anti-aliasing. It contains 4 lights, 3 are casting shadows.


Now I realize 30 minutes is nothing by industry standards. But what concerned me is that while Anim8or was rendering, it was only using 12-13% of my CPU and not even touching the GPU!


For reference, this is my setup. Certainly far better than that old Dell Latitude I used to have back in the day now that I do a lot of high-end video editing:

(Total RAM is 32GB)

Certainly my PC is capable of faster and more powerful rendering. Has anything been done over the years to make it possible to boost it?

I made this as an icon for the Anim8or Discord Server (Join here). It turned out pretty cute so I thought I'd share it.



Although... he is missing his signature Flamingo legs.

How would the group be used?

Would it be casual visits or structured around events, e.g. demonstrations / tutorials, etc.?

Mostly casual chatting/showing off and a way to get quick questions answered immediately. It could have most of the same channels as we have here on the forums.

I don't know what 'discord' is other than what I see by glancing at their webpage, not sure that I get it.  If you have a multiplayer game then I can see that voip and shared scene views improves the gaming experience.   How would Discord be used?

Discord is the new, better group chatting program opposed to Skype, and it's knocking Skype out of the water as far as performance and features go.

The site's description can be misleading. Yeah it's good for gaming, but its primary feature is a group chat system with categories.

As opposed to Skype, you can make different "channels" in your group with different topics where people can chat about different things in different rooms, all on the same group. You can even add permissions on who can post where and see what.
Voice chatting is immensely improved as instead of one person calling everyone to chat and bothering everybody, there's a voice chat channel always open that you can click to join and talk to anyone who happens to also be in the voice chat room.

Hey guys, here's a finished clip! I actually posted this some time ago, but I hadn't posted it here!

I'm not sure if that's even the right word, but it seems like no matter how far I'm zoomed in and I try to rotate something, it always rotates at the same increments.

When something isn't aligned exactly parallel to the ground, my instinct is to rotate it until the lines are straight. If it moves too much, then I zoom in and think it will move at smaller increments relative to how far I'm zoomed in. But it seems to be rotating the same amount no matter how far I'm zoomed in, or how slowly I move my mouse.

Is there a setting to change this sensitivity? I'm guessing not, but I thought I'd bring it up because I can't fix this and it's driving me crazy: