Anim8or News

March 5, 2021 - New Anim8or Book

Ian Ross has just released a book on Anim8or. The book contains 295 pages; it is a super nanny guide for first timers learning 3d animation and modeling.

It is a step-by-step tutor course, which teaches the up to date version of anim8or including the new sound developments. The book has been written with the objective to give the reader confidence to create their own mini movie studio.

Here's a link with more details about the book:

May 29, 2017 - Anim8or v1.0 is ready!

Version 1.0 of Anim8or is ready to download. Check out the new look and improved modeling and animation tools. Get your copy here.

January 7, 2014 - Space Slice - Indie game using Anim8or.

runter announced that codevikings' new game will be available on January 11th! All models and animations have been made using Anim8or. He gives a big "Thanks" to all the community for making Anim8or so tiny and big at the same time.

Check out www.codevikings.com for screenshots and ingame videos of Space Slice! Hope you enjoy it!

November 28, 2013 - Cannadian High School Class in Anim8or

Jeff is a high school graphics teacher in Ottawa Ontario who has been using Anim8or to teach 3d modeling, animation and graphics to his students for the last 5 or 6 years. He has a wonderful set of course tutorials available here: http://cyberdog.wikispaces.com/Anim8or-Saucer101

November 20, 2013 - Anim8or v0.98 Released

Anim8or v0.98 is now available to download. Get your copy here and try it out. Here are a few of the new features:

• A ray tracer render called ART for Anim8or Ray Tracer. You can use it to render all Anim8or materials plus reflections, transparency with glass like index of refraction effects, glossy surfaces and more. Here is a link to some initial documentation on how to access these new features: ART Raytracer
• Autosave that perodically saves a copy of your project.
• You can copy and paste materials with Ctrl-Shift-C and Ctrl_Shift-V.
• .MTL file input and output support (for .OBJ import and exported files)
• Holding the Control key down when selecting shapes in an Object or faces, points or edges in the Point Editor allows you to click-drag the mouse to select or deselect multiple things. If this is popular I may make it the default and use the Control key to select just one thing (as it does now).
• Add user attributes to Objects, Figures, Elements and Scenes. These are typed, named variables of int, float, point, orientation or string type. For example you can define a float attribute called mass and set it to 10.5. Currently they are only useful by programs that parse the .an8 format but will be accessable from ASL scripts in the future. You define these with the Object→Attributes command.
• Add Cubemap Backgrounds to Scenes. Any cube map texture can be used as a background in a scene.

August 16, 2011 - Anim8or

Ian has created a fantastic video course on Anim8or. It show you step-by-step how to make models, characters, movies and more, all using Anim8or, naturally. There is a short introduction on the web and you can download the full tutorial.

May 6, 2008 - DotAn8 Magazine

The e-magazine DotAn8 is publishing again. Kevin has created 2 issues starting this past April. They have articles, interview with featured artists, letters to the editor and tutorials of all levels.

April 14, 2008 - Tyson Ibele Interview

The very talented Tyson Ibele started using Anim8or in 2000 when he was 13 or 14. It was the first 3D animation program he used. He is not a professional working at Make Visual in New Zealand. Here is a link to a video interview with his that shows some of his amazing work.

Tyson Ibele Interview

April 14, 2007 - Anim8or Used for Short Films

An Anim8or user made two short films with Anim8or. "A Song of Thread" is 12 minutes long and has been shown in the Nothrampton Independent Festival in Northampton, Massachusettes and the DC Independent Film Festival in Washington, DC. "Emmaline (who lived by the sea)" is 19 minutes and is currently under consideration at several festivals. Here are some stills from the films. Click on them to see larger views and some more pictures:

March 31, 2007

There is a problem with V0.95 that can show up the first time that you run Anim8or that disables textures, the grid in the working views, and other useful features. I have found the cause and am testing a fix. I will post it soon if it works.

If you can't see textures, transparency doesn't work, etc. then here's how you get them working:

• Open the View→Preferences dialog.
• In the "OpenGL Workspace" section check all these boxes: "Textures", "MipMaps", "Transparency", "Fog", "Backside". If "Use Shaders" is not grayed out you can optionally check that one.
• In the "File Output" section, which controls the render, check "Textures",
• "Transparency" and "Fog". Optionally check "Shadows" if you want to render scenes with shadows but it can be a lot slower to render this way.

If you can't see the corner labels, background grid, etc. then here's how you get them working:

• 1. Open the File→ConfigureGUI dialog.
• 2. In the General section check everything: "Show Grid", "Fast Focus" and "Show Labels".
• 3. In the Wireframe Views section check everything: "Show Creases", "Show Axis" and "Transparent Faces".
• 4. in the Solid Views section check these two boxes: "Bounding Boxes" and "Flat Outline"
• 5. In the Render Preview section check "Show Progress".

January 7, 2007 - Anim8or Art Covers a Book

Daniel Oberle's book Semantic Management of Middleware published by Springer features 3D art on the cover and in numerous internal graphics that was made using Anim8or.

November 4, 2006 - V0.95 Released

Anim8or v0.95 is now available to download. Get your copy here and try out these great new features!

• Graphic material shaders. These show more realistic views of materials in the working views and can be used for very rapid image and movie generation. They are available on computers with DX9 level and above graphics cards.
• A scripting language, called ASL. Useful for modeling tasks and advanced controller functionality.
• Plug-ins. Anyone can add new object export formats and parametric shapes by writing a plugin in ASL.
• Simultaneous shaded and wireframe views. You can set the viewing parameters for each window independently.

March 31, 2006 - V0.95 Update

The next release v0.95 is getting closer. Major new features are:

• Shaders for the working views so everything will look more like a final render.
• Very fast preview movie generation. The working views can be rendered directly to a move or still image.
• Scripting language. You can write a program to modify your objects, etc.
• File export plug-ins. Anyone will be able to add support for new file formats. Text format only for a start.
• Controllers can be expressions.

Stay tuned for when the beta will be out.

December 5, 2005 - Student Wins National Award using Anim8or

Jamie Castle a former student at the Royal High School in Edinburgh won first prize in a national competition to find the best '3D environment' created as part of the Advanced Higher Graphics course, offered by schools in Scotland. His work titled Jungle Rocks is in the gallery:

"Jamie was competing with work produced in professional level software packages," reported Jim Black, his teacher. "Delegates to the TTA conference were surprised to learn that Jamie had used a piece of free software." There's currently an item about it on the 'competitions' page of their web site:

http://www.royalhigh.edin.sch.uk/departments/departments/CDT/competitions.html

January 29, 2005 - V0.9 Released

Anim8or v0.9 is now available to download. Get your copy here and try out the new features!

November 16, 2004 - V0.9 Beta Released

The long awaited beta of v0.9 is now available to download. Get your copy here. It has many new features including Morph Targets, Edge Extrude and Painted Skinning Weights, plus improved Splines, multiple figures and cameras, hot keys, and more! Be sure to read all about it on the download page.

August 2, 2004 - Anim8or Magazine

rufsketch1 has published the first two editions of his new e-magazine .an8. It has tutorials and articles on using Anim8or, a variety of images from users, and even an interview with me. How can you resist? Get your copy while it's hot from:

dotAN81.zip         dotAN82.zip

June 2, 2004 - V0.9 Getting Closer

V0.9 is getting closer. There's a lot of improvements in the animation tools plus several other things that you've been clamoring for, so stay tuned. There's also still a lot of work left but with luck it will be ready for beta testing mid summer. Keep your fingers crossed!

May 20, 2004 - Anim8or on the Cover of 3D User

Anim8or continues to be featured in computer magazines. V0.85 is on the CD and the cover of the April 2004 issue of 3D User, a Taiwanese publication. It's also been in several other magazines including the April issue of Videomaker Magazine. Anim8or is also being included in a Polish textbook for secondary schools that will be published sometime in the future. Cool, isn't it?

September 6, 2003 - V0.85 Released

V0.85 is now ready to download. Check out the new modeling features in the Release Notes, and the get your copy now from the download page!

August 10, 2003 - V0.85 Beta Release

The v0.85 beta is ready for testing. There are still a few rough edges left for me to smooth over but in general I think it's in pretty good shape. You can find a copy at download/beta along with the manual and a description of what's changed. Please restrict all posts about it to the Beta forum. Grab a copy and have fun!

July 14, 2003 - Anim8or in the News

Anim8or is getting a lot of press these days. It's currently included on CD's in the June issues of the German magazine c't (#2003.14) (http://www.heise.de/ct/03/14/006/) and even on the cover of the French publication FreeLog (#45) (http://www.dppresse.com/fl.htm) Check out this cool cover:

June 29, 2003 - Next Release Getting Closer

The next release is getting closer to reality. I still have a number of things to clean up, and the manual to update. When those are done I'll start a beta testing period where anyone is free to try it out. There will be many new modeling tools and a host of other scattered improvements. Stay tuned for more information.

January 19, 2003 - V0.81 Release

There is a minor update, V0.81, on the download page. It fixes a few annoying problems that are present in v0.8. The main changes are:

• Fixes some rendering problems and crashes for Figures, particularly those using bump maps.
• Fix minor fog rendering problems, and add Radial fog to renderer.
• Add control over distance of near clip plane.
• Compute camera FOV properly when set by users.
• Increase maximum size of rendered images to 4K by 4K.
• Fix bug where "edge creased" property wasn't saved to .an8 files.
• Fix .3ds export bugs that caused MAX to reject some files with "Improper File Format" error.

Get it here and give it a try.

August 4, 2002 - V0.8 is releaased

The V0.8 release is ready. Get it here and have fun!

June 30, 2002 - V0.8 Beta

The V0.8 beta is ready. Get it here and give it a try. Comment and bugs should be reported on the V0.8 Beta forum. Remember this is a beta so if you use it for production work make plenty of backups. Have fun!

June 27, 2002 - V0.8 Beta Release This Weekend ???

I think I can get everything ready to release V0.8 beta this weekend. No promises. I still have a couple of bugs to fix, and I have a final pass over the documentation. But it's looking good. It will be Sunday at the earliest so don't wait up all night waiting for it!

April 1, 2002 - V0.8 Status

Work on V0.8 is progressing. The main emphasis is on improving the renderer, with perspective correct textures, spotlights, shadows, etc. There's lot of other surprises, too. Right now shadows are giving me a hard time but I'm sure I'll win in the end. So be patient and I'll let you know when I have an idea of the release date.

April 1, 2002 - Record Downloads in March

Thanks to a bit of exposure (Anim8or was a featured site:-) in the Lockergnome newsletter (http://www.lockergnome.com) there were a record number of copies of Anim8or downloaded in a month this March at over 12,000! The previous record was just under 8,000 last October, and the normal rate is just over 7,000. That's a lot on Anim8ing if you ask me!

October 31, 2001

Happy Halloween! V0.7 is now officially ready to download. Get it from the download page now! It has many new animation controls in the Sequence and Scene editors, and improved .avi rendering.

August 30, 2001 - V0.7 Status

Version v0.7 beta is out! Take a look at the new V0.7 Beta forum to see what's in it and how to get your copy. The manual is still being written but it should be along in a few days or so. Have fun!

June 18, 2001 - V0.7 Status

Version v0.7 is progressing. It's still a ways off, but it's beginning to take shape. The main focus it on rounding out the Scene and Sequence editors so you'll have much better editing tools and control of animations. You'll be able to animate the position, orientation, visibility, and size of things, the field of view of the camera, and more. Plus it will have lots of bug fixes and other new things. I'll post more news as it progresses.

June 18, 2001 - V0.65 PDF Manual

The v0.65 version of the manual is now available in .PDF format. Thanks again to Trent the Thief for making it. If you want to print a copy of the manual, this is the best way to do it. But if yo do you'd better have a lot of blue ink handy! It's on the download page. Check it out.

June 18, 2001 - Anim8or on the Mac

I've been told by one very talented user that Anim8or runs quite well on a Macintosh. VK reports that he uses Connectix Virtual PC to emulate Windows on his Mac. He has created some wonderful models that way. If you want to see the results, check out the gallery!

March 5, 2001 - New Lighting Effects Tutorial

There is a really fantastic new tutorial by Laszlo Korosi in the tutorial's section. He shows how you can make glows, star bursts and atmospheric effects all within Anim8or. I couldn't have done these if you'd asked me to, that is until I read his tutorial. Check it out here. (It's actually been there for a while but I thought I'd put a pointer in the News so you don't miss seeing it.)

December 24, 2000 - New Springs and Coils Tutorial

Lloyd has written some notes on how to create Coils and Springs. Check them out here on the tutorial page.

September 12, 1999 - New Tutorial Section

I've added a tutorial section. It has one tutorial than shows how to build an Eggplant model like the one I made at SIGGRAPH. I've also included the final model and some intermediate positions as objects in an Anim8or project file for you to download. Take a look at it and let me know what you think of the first Anim8or tutorial!

August 15, 1999 - SIGGRAPH Fun - 3D Printing

They had the most amazing, hands-on demos of some new "3D Printers" at SIGGRAPH. What they do is "print" a real world, 3D copy of almost anything you can model in 3D Studio, SoftImage, or even Anim8or. I spent about 15 minutes designing a stubby little "Egg Plant" using Anim8or (they said stubby had a better chance of working than "thin"), and this is the result:

    

Honestly, can you tell which is real, and which is the fake?

July 27, 1999 - Thanks for the Support

I never imagined that I'd have such positive comments! Everyone's been so supportive Almost 100 different people have downloaded Anim8or so far, which is more that I thought would try it. So, keep it up and let me know about any problems you find in the program or docs, enhancements you'd like to see, etc.

July 20, 1999 - Anim8or Introduced

Anim8or was introduced to the public via. a newsgroup announcement in comp.graphics.packages.3dstudio.