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Not that this has anything to do with what the software is doing, but some of the differences between the two images are similar to what you get when you compare a portrait taken with a wide-angle and one taken with a telephoto. There's a reason why wide-angle lenses usually make poor portrait lenses. They exaggerate apparent relative distances on the Z plane, with bulging eyes, lips, and nose, and too-small ears. Judging from the look of her face, I'm guessing that the original was taken with a wide-angle. If so, the difference between the image and how a person's eye would see her is going to be the same kind of difference this software generates. The face is distorted, but easily recognizable. I'd go so far to say that, with so many portraits now taken with camera phones and the like, the distortion has become commonplace and looks normal.

http://www.hash.com/users/jsherwood/tutes/focal/focal.html

This is perhaps the biggest problem of Elephant's Dream. Has the script been under some sort of review, I don't think it would have passed.

I think there's some irony to the fact that on virtually every level except as an good movies, Elephant's Dream is a huge success. As a demo reel for Blender, a way of making the workflow more usable, a means for enhancing the viability of Blender... a huge success.

But as a film... Not so much. It doesn't really tell a story, and the plot (such that it is) doesn't make sense. If this is all being imagined on the part of one of the characters, there's really nothing to let us know, and the "real" world fails to intrude. Who is this other character, and why are they together in the first place? It just doesn't work.

Project Peach takes a similar approach - while all the outputs of the project will eventually be open to the public, the actual process - plotting, character choices, storyboarding - are closed to the public. In theory, it's to prevent the "surprise" of the story from being spoiled. I'd argue that film experience something like "Cars" and "Toy Story" was just as good for the people who worked on the film as it was for those who didn't. In some cases, it was probably better, when they could finally see the fruits of their work come together.

In contrast, have a look at Animation:Master's Tin Woodman of Oz. Although they're a commercial project, the model is much more open than Blender's. The discussions are open on their boards, the animatics have been posted, and there's constantly open discussion about the project. Any member of the community can join in and contribute, from design, rigging, voice acting, music and animating. There's no "secrets" to the project.

Of course, you've got to be a paying customer to actually have a copy of Animation:Master in the first place, and their boards were notorious for banning people who complained about their products. It's also forbidden to discuss competing software in their forum.

Still, I think it's a model worth looking at, especially as a counter example to these so called "open" projects that Blender embarks where the end result isn't revealed until the end.

Yes, I'm aware that stuff is released on the blogs. Note that these often have censored bits, so particular bits of information about the film itself isn't leaked. Technical details are much more open.

I'm not arguing that the results - other than perhaps the video itself - aren't great. But I have to disagree strongly with the use of "open" tag as applied to the process itself. And TWO shows that a more open model is certainly viable in some forms (which put other constraints on the project, like increasing the time to market).

I'd think the development of an "Open" movie - much like Blender's Elephant's Dream and Project Peach - only more ambitious, would be more interesting to Slashdot readers.

I'd think the development of an "Open" movie - much like Blender's Elephant's Dream and Project Peach - only more ambitious, would be more interesting to Slashdot readers.

I'd think the development of an "Open" movie - much like Blender's Elephant's Dream and Project Peach - only more ambitious, would be more interesting to Slashdot readers.

I'd think the development of an "Open" movie - much like Blender's Elephant's Dream and Project Peach - only more ambitious, would be more interesting to Slashdot readers.

I think one of the most overlooked tools for an amateur filmmaker is Martin Hash's Animation Master. $300 (cheaper for students). True, it's sold as an animation product, but you can load up your video as a rotoscope and animate (or just plain tinker) over the top of it. People sell "titling" software for more than that, and you can assuredly do the most whizbang titling you can imagine with this feature-jammed package, plus a whole lot more.

On the downside, any full-featured animation software is darn complex, so you need some geek attitude to get into A:M. OTOH, there's plenty of amateur talent that uses the package, so if you have any budget at all, you might be able buy the work you need.

Disclaimer: I sound like I own stock in the company, but they actually cost me money, since I tend to buy a new upgrade every year. All I get in return is that the relatives actually ask to see my home movies instead of fleeing the room when the DVD goes in :-).

I'll put in a plug for Animation Master. I use it for 3D animation, but I've seen some good examples of 2D animation and "cut out" paper-doll type stuff done with it, too. It's a really good package for $299 ($199 educational).

I have a friend who swears by ToonBoom, but I haven't done much with it myself.

I'm just finishing up some cutout animation (Monty Python-style) for a science museum. I considered Flash, but ultimately went with Animation:Master. A:M is actually a full-featured 3D character animation package, with a price closer to Flash. The advantages on this project were an excellent animation interface, forward and inverse kinematics with bones, rigging, smooth interpolation with many options, motion blur, and glow effects. On the flip side, building a character by applying texture maps to a bunch of parallel planes tends to take a while (about an hour per character, plus the time to cut them into pieces with Photoshop), A:M can be unstable, and animating with line art would be a whole different process -- although I'd be curious to see what someone could do using the .ai importer. Since I'm basically rendering a bunch of planes, with no lights or shadows, the final render took only a few second per frame.

If you're comfortable with a 3D package that's geared toward character animation, there are advantages to using it for 2D animation. If not, the learning curve is probably not worth climbing unless you're looking to branch out into 3D.

No, Pixar has its own proprietary software and has used it since the beginning when they were still part of Lucasfilm. If you want to play with something resembling Pixar's software, try Martin Hash Animation Master. Both use true splines and patches as opposed to NURBS and Polygons.

Animation Master is a very cool application. Only $299 supports Mac and PC. Its animation tools are brilliant. However it is spline only tool which takes some getting used to. Check out AM Stills and AM Films for work done with the product.

Animation Master is a very cool application. Only $299 supports Mac and PC. Its animation tools are brilliant. However it is spline only tool which takes some getting used to. Check out AM Stills and AM Films for work done with the product.

Animation Master is a very cool application. Only $299 supports Mac and PC. Its animation tools are brilliant. However it is spline only tool which takes some getting used to. Check out AM Stills and AM Films for work done with the product.

You're thinking of Makoto Shinkai.

"She and Her Cat" was his first award-winning short film. Just featured his animations, he and his wife's voices.

"Voices of a Distant Star" was his second. Same deal on the voices. Some cleanup was done on the animations, but that doesn't change the fact one guy put the film together.

Great films, both. Here's a fan site: http://daike.hp.infoseek.co.jp/

I feel I should also plug Animation:Master (http://www.hash.com/) because those guys are doing everything they can to put a full studio on your computer. I used it all through art school.

I don't doubt that there are people that would rent MS Office. There is one company that has a yearly release schedule for major versions that I have upgraded every year since 1995. I do this because the new features are worth the upgrade price and because I support the company (they're less evil than google). I'd imagine almost all their customers do the same too.

The company I work for has a subscription to MSDN and it would be very likely that we would subscribe to any latest and greatest dev software (maybe not things like source control but for things like compilers and IDEs, yes, as long as they're actively being developed).

The renting model is better for certain software. The first company I mentioned is almost like a renting model (except the software is fully functional and there is no requirement to upgrade) and they release bug fixes and other minor updates 1-6 times a month. Renting almost naturally lends itself to that kind of release schedule.

OS X almost has that kind of release schedule except without the more timely minor updates.

And yes, it exports to POV-Ray.

Oddly enough, the author of A:M relates that Microsoft actually owned the source code to Animation:Master some years back. Apparently, he got pissed off, quit, and filed a lawsuit to get the code back. Microsoft strange story #298.

Oddly enough, the author of A:M relates that Microsoft actually owned the source code to Animation:Master some years back. Apparently, he got pissed off, quit, and filed a lawsuit to get the code back. Microsoft strange story #298.

I ran across it cruising through Freshmeat to see if there were any good 3D animation programs that I had missed.

Really, there's not much out there. Blender is the best and most capable, but (despite many advances) it's UI has a steep learing curve. But if you stick with it, you can do amazing stuff, and to be fair, the UI is way better than it used to be, and promises to only get better.

Anim8or is an Windows program by Steven Glanville. (It works fine under WINE.) It's free, but closed source, because Steve doesn't want to deal with people bugging him about unofficial releases - I understand the sentiment! It's a great modeller, and I think the scanline renderer is underrated, but the animation features are a weak - for example, it doesn't yet have IK. However, the next release promises to include it, so it's definately something worth watching.

Art of Illusion is an open source Java program by Peter Eastman, and I suspect that most people - if they've heard of it at all - know that it's a full-featured raytracer, but don't realize that it supports animation. The bones based animation uses a 'pin and drag' interface based on Animanium, and it's very cool. Unfortunately, you can only do animation via pose morphs in the current release, but the next version promises support bones animation on a seperate IK track. By the time 2.0 comes out, I think it'll be an excellent program for doing character animation.

There have been rumors that some day Björn Gustavsson's Wings3D would support animation, but so far, that's only rumor. Wings3D started out as an open source version of IzWare's Nendo modeller, but has in many ways surpassed Nendo since then, so it's possible...

Finally, there's Sascha Ledinsky's Java based JPatch program, a successor to Mike Clifton's now abandoned sPatch program. Although it's currently only a modeller (the beta should be ready by the end of the month), it has designs to support animation - sort of an open source version of Animation:Master. It may not look like there's much going on at the site, but I've had a chance to play with some of the development versions - it's worth keeping an eye on.

If anyone knows of any open source/non-commercial programs capable of producing character animation, I'd love to know about them!

Don't overlook Hash's Animation Master. It's inexpensive at $299.00, works on PC or Mac, has a great modeler, a decent renderer -- network rendering optional, and can export DXF.

-sid

A good option for doing 3D modeling and animation is Hash's Animation Master. Last I checked, it was priced around $300...much more affordable than the professional software people have been listing here.

I don't do much 3D animation work myself, but I've been told that individual artists often use this product to make demo animations, until they get some sort of break and are able to buy professional software.

I don't believe there is a Linux port, and the Mac version is terribly unstable. Still, the Windows port is pretty solid.

Animation:Master.

Screw that, man...I want Sound Forge. I want ACID. I want Vegas Video. I want Martin Hash Animation:Master. I want ProTools.

Figure out how to make apps like those run on Linux, or write NATIVE apps like those on Linux, and I will happily de-assimilate one of my Windows 2K boxen. Happily.

Now if only Martin Hash Animation:Master would port to Linux...that would make me a happy camper...

For hand-editing, the character animation software in Maya may be a good place to start. Or, look at any of the "bipedal toolkits" for other 3D animation packages. There are packages designed specifically for facilitating hand-animation of humanoid figures. Still, you're talking several grand and a relatively beefy computer for this.

I believe that AnimationMaster has basic support for this stuff as well, and it can be had as cheaply as $299. Possibly worth some extra investigation there.

Martin Hash has a product called Animation Master. It's spline based and cheap. Find it here. It's got a little bit of a learning curve, but it's quite full featured and comes with a nice book. "We make software even an artist can afford." It's $299 for a new copy, and $99 for an upgrade. They release a new version about every year or two. They have versions for both Windows and Mac.

Take a look at Animation Master's Site This is a very good low priced animation package that rivals the big boys. It was used to create Alien Song and the unforgettable animations by our own Rob Malda

It is a good example of what your average Joe can come up with.

Take a look at Animation Master's Site This is a very good low priced animation package that rivals the big boys. It was used to create Alien Song and the unforgettable animations by our own Rob Malda

It is a good example of what your average Joe can come up with.

Besides, trying to use a cracked version of Autodesk products usually doesn't work. From a warez mailing list:

"Off the top of my head, 3D Studio Version 3.0 came out ages ago, people wrote crack after bad crack for it, and finally a group came out with a "100% fully working crack" which seemed to work perfectly. Months later, people using the cracked version of 3ds3 noticed that their files were getting missed up - things would shift over just a slight bit.. Not noticable between one version and the next, but completely ruining their work if they'd been working on a project for any length of time. If I remember correctly, they didn't even notice it until 3-4 months after the crack was released, at which point it was too late for those effected:) Also, the software was "old" by that point, so I don't think anyone ever bothered writing a good crack for it."

The original protection system for 3D Studio was very clever. The key idea is that it's possible to implement copy protection in a way such that no one can ever be sure a cracked version will work reliably. This destroys the commercial value of cracked versions.

But this doesn't work for entertainment content, because it only has to play adequately. Ongoing use isn't an issue.

Hash's Animation Master is a full-featured 3-D modeling, animation and rendering package with an available render farm option for only $700. You might want to check it out.

But that doesn't have to mean that people who don't want to pay for their software won't benefit from it.

This reminds me of the vaguely similar work ethic of a non OSS company named Hash. They make a 3D modeling package. They sell you a one-year subscription of their software, which means that you get all the updates they release in that year. And they release a lot over a year. They follow their own agenda, so if there's a feature you really want, you can either wait until they think that it would be a good idea to have that feature, or you can pay them to program it. But they will make sure that every user of their program gets to use that feature, not just the person who paid for it

Now, I don't see them crossing over to OSS any day soon (you can read about it if you seach amongst the latest Martin's Minutes you have to go up to number 297. BTW the last article is about their dealings with M$) BUT if you look at the OSS projects that have corporate backing, you'll see that it's actually the same model.
Right now, these large companies are backing Linux so that Linux can become a more viable desktop option (for their own reasons). But we all benefit from it. And I think that in a not too distant future smaller companies will pay OSS programmers for 'just that one extra feature in MySQL that will make our company more efficient'. They'll pay for it, because they really need it, but in the end we all can use that extra feature, and OSS software will become even more robust & packed with features, and more people will see OSS software as a viable option ....
Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic. So sue me. heh - In the following weeks we intend to prove to the court that the defendant has shown traits of optimism on a public forum

But that doesn't have to mean that people who don't want to pay for their software won't benefit from it.

This reminds me of the vaguely similar work ethic of a non OSS company named Hash. They make a 3D modeling package. They sell you a one-year subscription of their software, which means that you get all the updates they release in that year. And they release a lot over a year. They follow their own agenda, so if there's a feature you really want, you can either wait until they think that it would be a good idea to have that feature, or you can pay them to program it. But they will make sure that every user of their program gets to use that feature, not just the person who paid for it

Now, I don't see them crossing over to OSS any day soon (you can read about it if you seach amongst the latest Martin's Minutes you have to go up to number 297. BTW the last article is about their dealings with M$) BUT if you look at the OSS projects that have corporate backing, you'll see that it's actually the same model.
Right now, these large companies are backing Linux so that Linux can become a more viable desktop option (for their own reasons). But we all benefit from it. And I think that in a not too distant future smaller companies will pay OSS programmers for 'just that one extra feature in MySQL that will make our company more efficient'. They'll pay for it, because they really need it, but in the end we all can use that extra feature, and OSS software will become even more robust & packed with features, and more people will see OSS software as a viable option ....
Maybe I'm a bit too optimistic. So sue me. heh - In the following weeks we intend to prove to the court that the defendant has shown traits of optimism on a public forum

well let me start off by saying I hate poser with a passion (crappy interface, weird oddities with its IK support, way to impresice)

with that out of the way...
there are severl NURBS modeling programs for linux. Blender (which has bones support if I remember, though I freaking hate the interface), and some other NURBS modeling program (search freshmeat)
POV-Ray has a macro called blob man that builds a human figure (more like a cartoon IMHO) out of blobs (also known as metaballs)
there is also 3dsmax with character studio, maya
and hash's animation master (which is regarded as one of the best programs for character animation under $5k www.hash.com )
not sure if hash has support for motion capture data files, but I am sure the other highend programs like 3dsmax+character studio or maya have that kind of thing

and what was that thing about poser using viewpoint datalabs? I thought all the models were done by zygote? (oh btw if you check the viewpoint site there is a place where you can buy models they made for use with 3dsmax)

I was gettin pretty excited when I read the headline. I thought "Alias|Wavefront moving to linux? I may not be able to afford it, but this sounds great!" Then I checked out the web site, and, alas, it's only the network render client.

Maybe I shouldent be griping, if my favorite modeler/renderer/animation package, Hash's Animation:Master released a render client/server for linux, I'd be one happy puppy, cause the less time I spend in MacOS and the more I spend in linux, the better.
-Ben

I thought I saw this on the Hash mailing list about a week ago, pretty cool stuff.