Animation:Master Question
 

I was just reading up about Jeff Lew’s Animation Training video, which I am going to buy [btw, does anyone know when it’s out and where I can get it in the UK]

Anyway, to my question. He uses Animation:Master in the video and I’m thinking of buying it as it’s only $299, which is around £200. That’s amazingly cheap. I could also get student discount, which would make it even cheaper. Does anyone use or as used Animation:Master. I just wanna know what’s it’s like to work with and can you import your Maya Poly/NURBS/Sub-d models and animations…etc over to A:M and visa-versa.

Thanks

Never used it but there web site scares me. That would turn me off on the spot, but if you can get educational discount why not. 100 bucks or something is not bad. From reading there brochure they do not seem to be feature rich like Maya. I think the big down fall is only one type of modeling tool available.

I think A:M is a good animation program. Fairly optimized and easy to use, IMHO. The patch modeling takes a little getting used to if you're coming from another program (like Maya), but you do learn to appreciate the easy-of-use and flexibility of patches. They're fairly similar to NURBS without some of the funkiness. I actually wish Maya had A:M's patches.

Rigging in A:M is a breeze. Fast, easy, and it works. Not quite to the technical nitty-gritty of Maya's rigging features, but they work just fine. In fact, I originally learned how to rig and animate characters with A:M. It was pretty easy to learn.

I'm not really a big fan of the interface, but people seem to like it. Too many floating windows and not enough customization allowed. Maybe I'm just too particular in my work habits. :)

Overall, it's not a bad program to learn. Unfortunately, it has a reputation of being a hobbyist's tool and isn't used a lot in mainstream production. It's also a program that is constantly being patched and updated, which is a good and bad thing. Good in that bugs are fixed regularly. Bad in that you have to do a ton of updates on a regular basis, and, as with many software updates, new bugs have a tendency to show up regularly. For the price, though, you really can't complain too much.

A:M is a very nice program, i used it for a short while before i came to maya, but not for very long

and im gunna get that DVD as well, looks soooo coool :)

Did you read the interview the guy who makes it? And what about Killer Bean.....:D

Maya is still my baby, but seeing as A:M is so cheap, It cant do any hard learning another software.

Jeff Lew is an incredible artist and animator. There's good reason that he worked on The Matrix Reloaded. :)

Gotta check it out. i saw the "flight of the osiris" preview.. and the animation it stuck in my head how fluid the gymnatics were... amazing.

I hear its full of bugs.

.... ask gazza

I thought flight of the Osiris was done by Square?

Anyway, AM is pretty cool for what it does. My only beef with it was the instability of it. When it finally comes out in OS X I might upgrade the software. From what I've seen done with it, it's animation tools are quite impressive. I agree with Danny that the patch modeling absolutely rocks. That's where I learned to model, and I am glad I did too. It's probably the best modeler out there, IMO. Only thing I don't like is the bumps of the model. But of course you could just import the model into Maya as a polygonal object, then smooth. But I digress, AM is quite capable to learn from, but IMO it isn't a software I would use professionally. Way too unstable.

A:M will work for you as long as you know what you're getting into. I own a copy, but haven't used it much since my switch to maya. AFAIK, a:m and maya are not real compatible. ie. importing models back and forth. If it's character animation what you're getting into, that's what a:m is for, but maya does it just as well. In my opinion, a:m has too many problems, even for $200+ you will get frustrated for a while before you can acheive quality status. It's a fun little app, not sure if it's worth the pain though.

With that said of course, it's the artist, not the program .. etc... :)

Many people like Jeff Lew, Victor Navone(alien song), Anzovin(www.anzovin.com),
www.eggington.net (have recently switched to messiah:animate) have done amazing stuff with this little app.

Keep researching, go to the cgtalk.com A:M forum, and I'm sure you'll get an earful of how much a:m sucks/rocks :)

hope this helps,
George

oh to answer your question about whether you shud buy it, i dont see the point really, i mean, jeff uses A:M which is all fine and dandy but im positive you can translate everything you need into maya :)

and yes ive read the interview, lol, ive seen killer bean 2, its funny, matrix style :)