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General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: Blick Fang on November 16, 2012, 01:54:33 pm

Title: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on November 16, 2012, 01:54:33 pm

Hi All

I was wondering if I could twist someones arm (ENSONIQ5, Kreator...all the other greats) to write an Anim8or book. Youtube and the dead tute links aren't helping me. Need something to have and to hold and to reference and to swat a bug with.

I have a Barnes and Noble giftcard burning a hole in my pocket! LOL ;D

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: ENSONIQ5 on November 16, 2012, 07:08:35 pm

There is a book... kind of. The Anim8or manual (available via the link at top left of the screen) covers all the basics and should be used as the first reference. ART attributes were introduced in a preview format and have not been fully integrated into the GUI or manual, information on this area is available via the 'v0.97d Preview' link.

In addition to these basic resources there is a wide range of Anim8or-related info available in the Resources link, and if you haven't already done so join up at www.anim8orworld.com for everything from beginner tutorials to advanced help and contests. Although this Anim8or forum is way slower than it once was it is still haunted by many experienced users who are more than happy to help with specific questions, though often using the search function will yield immediate results (you can be guaranteed that you won't be the first person to ask any Anim8or question you might have).

The resources above cover just about everything you need to know about Anim8or, so I guess any Anim8or book would be mostly going over old ground. It would also be a massive undertaking, just collating the existing info without authoring anything new would take an awfully long time, and it could also be argued that there ain't much incentive to do so since Anim8or's development appears to have stalled.

Lastly, as I've said many times, experimentation cannot be valued highly enough. Although I have used most of the resources available from time to time the majority of what Anim8or understanding I have was gained through jumping in and having a go. Nobody should expect to make the next Star Wars or Call of Duty as their first project, keep it simple to begin with and challenge yourself with each project.

Anim8or is a relatively simple program with a relatively comprehensive manual (check out Carrara for the reverse situation!), with the resources available and the knowledge you'll gain through experimenting I have no doubt that one day I will be purchasing the definitive Anim8or book, authored by Blick Fang!

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: lppena on November 17, 2012, 10:21:01 am

:-\ You want confusion try giving Blender a closer look. Anim8or, is pretty damn simple to figure out with a little patience. The Anim8or manual is a good starting point, but it too is far from complete. It needs more documentation and updating. Feel free to post questions as this forum is quite friendly and an answer is usually obtainable just by asking. This forum and the Ultimate Anim8or forum are probably your best bet for gleening tons of little tips and tricks for using A8. I also have a A8 forum with some of things that I've learned about using the software. You can also do a web search for Anim8or as there are quite a few sites that have at least a few informational resources about using the software. I love posting articles about Anim8or and will probably never stop using it although my favorite modeling software will always be Caligari Truespace 6.6 a bridged component of TS 7.61 Beta. However, Anim8or is probably the best overall choice for casual 3D model makers from all of the titles that I've come across so far. If your serious about writing a book then it could be a project you could start and ask others to collaborate on with you. ;D

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: kreator on November 18, 2012, 02:17:50 am

I was writing a book for anim8or, but have now shelved the idea due to the lack of support for anim8or now both here, and on our own site.

I have decided rather wisely, now to take up Blender which I admit is now much easier to use now.

I thought it would be nice to start using Blender 2.64 ( yes I know another Learning Curve!!) but its pleasantly suprising it is now, much more intuiative,

And this Manual makes it a lot easier ! Written by John M Blain.

Its in our Anim8orWorld Public dropbox Folder so head over there and pick a copy up ( in pdf format)

And start the learning Process. We also have a new Blender and Maya board for beginners so hop over and get involved.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/26y219g78rfr5d2/LeiCSWXtmV

Anim8orWorld (http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Forum) Anim8orWorld Knowledge Base (http:// http://www.anim8orworld.com/Forum/index.php?action=kb) Blender at Anim8orWorld (http://www.anim8orworld.com/Forum/index.php?board=41.0) Anim8orWorld Shop (http://www.Anim8orWorld.co.úk/prestashop)

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on November 19, 2012, 10:36:00 am

Thanks guys for your input. I am kind of torn between Anim8or and Blender.....

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on November 19, 2012, 06:10:16 pm

I notice Kreator's site requires a subscription. Boy, I'd hate to spend money on that just to learn Kreator is not doing Anim8or any longer! :-)

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: headwax on November 19, 2012, 11:26:44 pm

hya ensonq5 et al

yes the anim8or manual tells it as it is

print it out and lug it around, read it from cover to cover
and make things,
just model till you drop

the only short cut is to do it, there's no other way

there's plenty of tuts in modelling on the net
most of the tuts can be used in anim8or

sorry to see you go kevin, dunno why you don't stick with carrara and anim8or
anim8or went into cardiac arrest because of dilution of the forums

not because Steve didn't make an anim8or version 1.1 or whatever

each to his own of course,

blender is good program from what I can see
good luck in your endeavours
I'm sure you will rock!

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: kreator on November 20, 2012, 06:48:45 am

Andrew: Hav`nt gone at all, far from it, there just seems to be a permanent Hiatus on any progress with Anim8or, we are now looking at four years since any Preview, the last I heard from Steve G was that he was working on a realtime mirror, but that was around that time. Blender has come on in leaps and bounds with inbuilt Sculpting, UVmapping and Skeletons (ready Built ) whilst we are always scrapeing about working with umpteen tools to get a decent result. And don`t forget this is free as well.

Carrara is a stop gap I have not used it for sometime now, But Blender in its present form is, I think, better than even Carrara.

Whilst its early days and I`m just following the latest tutorials hear are just some of the bits I have done over the past week with it

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/BurlapTeddy_001.png)

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/Hog6.jpg)

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/reindeer5.jpg)

The last two are WIPS which I hope to have completed and animated by the end of the week.

So at this moment in time, I will concentrate on blender until such times as there is an anim8or update.

Blick Fang: You don`t need a subscription to see most of the stuff on Anim8orWorld , members are allowed to view most threads guests are not ( Which is usual for most boards including this one)The Subs are for Downloads and such in The Media Gallery. I noticed you were one there just the other day. We need input, not comments on other Forums.

In a nutshell I have not gone just having a Hiatus myself. I will always support Anim8or on Anim8orWorld.com (http://www.anim8orWorld.com/Forum) for the foreseeable future.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on November 20, 2012, 10:49:29 am

Man, you guys have great input! May I present to you what I think is the best Anim8or tute, this side of the Atlantic

https://cyberdog.wikispaces.com/Anim8or

You make recognize a certain flying saucer! :-)

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: headwax on November 20, 2012, 10:18:08 pm

Quote from: kreator on November 20, 2012, 06:48:45 am

Andrew: Hav`nt gone at all, far from it, there just seems to be a permanent Hiatus on any progress with Anim8or, we are now looking at four years since any Preview, the last I heard from Steve G was that he was working on a realtime mirror, but that was around that time. Blender has come on in leaps and bounds with inbuilt Sculpting, UVmapping and Skeletons (ready Built ) whilst we are always scrapeing about working with umpteen tools to get a decent result. And don`t forget this is free as well.

Carrara is a stop gap I have not used it for sometime now, But Blender in its present form is, I think, better than even Carrara.

Whilst its early days and I`m just following the latest tutorials hear are just some of the bits I have done over the past week with it

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/BurlapTeddy_001.png)

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/Hog6.jpg)

(http://www.Anim8orWorld.com/Images/reindeer5.jpg)

The last two are WIPS which I hope to have completed and animated by the end of the week.

So at this moment in time, I will concentrate on blender until such times as there is an anim8or update.

Blick Fang: You don`t need a subscription to see most of the stuff on Anim8orWorld , members are allowed to view most threads guests are not ( Which is usual for most boards including this one)The Subs are for Downloads and such in The Media Gallery. I noticed you were one there just the other day. We need input, not comments on other Forums.

In a nutshell I have not gone just having a Hiatus myself. I will always support Anim8or on Anim8orWorld.com (http://www.anim8orWorld.com/Forum) for the foreseeable future.

nice work Kevin, the interface looks much cleaner than it used too!
For me, the most modelling I do at the moment is taking apart other people's (purchaesed) models and canabalising the bits. :)
Oh what joy to have some fun with other people's bits.....
But seriously, looks good for organics .

The only thing I ever really missed in anim8or was an easy to use soft select.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: lppena on November 21, 2012, 12:14:16 pm

I have to agree that Blender has really started to get a bit easier to use; previous versions usually had me sratching my head most of the time. One version really got me confused as the menu windows would actually disappear as you moved the mouse cursor around. I've tried both 2.63 and 2.64 and have them installed on my 64bit laptop. Hopefully, someone can write an Anim8or exporter someday for Blender or maybe an importer. It would be really cool to be able to work with animated A8 scenes in Blender to help increase the usefulness of Anim8or too. Kreator, do you post on the Blender forums and under the same user nick? Leroy.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on December 06, 2012, 10:24:29 am

For a couple of days, I was gridlocked with the choice of going to Blender and forging ahead with ANIM8OR. Couldn't do either. I am also a semi pro musician so I escape into the music. The smoke has cleared and I am forging ahead with ANIM8OR.

I want to thank everyone for the words of wisdom and the kind offerings of assistance. I hope I do not become to much of a nuisance.

Ironically, one of the things I could not handle with Blender was the constant revisions and the major make over.

With ANIM8OR, it stays true. Which for me is good. :-)

I have a new project in mind. Just a model. I'd tell you what it is but you would beat me to the punch and have it in the "Finished Works" ;)

Peace!

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Blick Fang on January 08, 2013, 07:31:10 pm

I am going to cross train in Anim8or and Blender. To make my Blender experience more familiar I have opted to have the 3D window the same color as Anim8or

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: CrashDrive on January 09, 2013, 12:48:31 am

Ha ha. Seems I'm not the only one that made Blender look like Anim8or
to make it feel more comfortable. I run Vista but have all my settings
set to Classic for the same reason.

Love modeling in Anim8or, but the renderer now is really outdated.
That's why I model in Anim8or and render most scenes in Blender.

cello95, I export from anim8or as an obj. file (no subdivsion). It leaves the mesh in quads, whereas
.3ds converts to tris. It's size is more limited though, so I never try to export a
whole scene at once. Just import your objects to Blender, set up your lights and camera.
Importing Anim8or animations to Blender is a bit trickier.

Wish we had a permanent thread for using Blender (other software) with Anim8or, but
Steve probably wouldn't appreciate it.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: kreator on January 09, 2013, 03:45:56 am

Quote from: CrashDrive on January 09, 2013, 12:48:31 am

Wish we had a permanent thread for using Blender (other software) with Anim8or, but
Steve probably wouldn't appreciate it.

Thats why we have one on anim8orWorld.com.

The only problem with exporting scenes with anim8or is that they must be in 3DS format there is no option for .obj Then there is the problem of figures they are not exportable and with characters that are sub-divided the software hangs with a too many faces exceeds limit 65535 error.

My only solution is to make the scene in object mode and export as .obj then import characters seperately and re-rig them . BTW Carrara has a faster renderer than both Anim8or and Blender.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: CrashDrive on January 10, 2013, 02:14:52 am

Quote from: kreator on January 09, 2013, 03:45:56 am

"The only problem with exporting scenes with anim8or is that they must be in 3DS format there is no option for .obj Then there is the problem of figures they are not exportable and with characters that are sub-divided the software hangs with a too many faces exceeds limit 65535 error."

That's what I meant by limited size. Just got my wording a little screwed up.
I also found an easy way of importing armature and animation. (Blender_SMD_Tools)
Maybe I should drop over to anim8orWorld.com.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: cooldude234 on January 12, 2013, 05:06:41 pm

Ah yes, Carrara has a dreamy renderer ;P

But don't forget anim8or can export scenes in it's own format, but only anim8or can use it so far (hint hint) ;p

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: lppena on January 13, 2013, 05:01:46 am

Quote from: cooldude234 on January 12, 2013, 05:06:41 pm

Ah yes, Carrara has a dreamy renderer ;P

But don't forget anim8or can export scenes in it's own format, but only anim8or can use it so far (hint hint) ;p

The nice thing about the native Anim8or format is that it is a plain text format. I'd love to see some kind of conversion utility to use the output for post processing into other text based formats like X, OBJ, ASE, X3D, DAE, etc. Blocks of texts could be moved around, rearanged, and renamed to conform to other model formats. I'm actually very glad that Steve kept things human readable as binary while more efficient for machines is absolutely horrible for the humans that created them in the first place.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: cooldude234 on January 16, 2013, 05:06:32 pm

Encrypting files wouldn't make things any faster, if anything it would make them slower.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: lppena on January 17, 2013, 01:36:42 pm

Quote from: cooldude234 on January 16, 2013, 05:06:32 pm

Encrypting files wouldn't make things any faster, if anything it would make them slower.

Actually, I think that's why many formats are binary to make them more effiecient and render quicker using machine code.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: Claude on January 17, 2013, 02:27:02 pm

3D binary files are not encrypted files.
In 3D binary files,the numbers are stored in the same format as on the computer.
In 3D text files,the numbers are stored as text 3.1416.So they need to be converted
when they are loaded.
3D text files are slower to load because mainly of the conversion.
After loading is completed,there's no difference.So,rendering is not affected.

Title: Re: Need an Anim8or book
Post by: lppena on January 18, 2013, 04:30:34 am

I guess I misread the definition for binary verses encrypted; neither however are human readable though.

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General Category => General Anim8or Forum => Topic started by: Blick Fang on November 16, 2012, 01:54:33 pm