Gigayoda

Thanks for the link to the older post. I read the other post with SuperNova as well I believe it was Scott regarding similar concerns. Did the plugin solve your extension mapping? Based on Ian it seems bmp and psd are the new norm for exporting still renders. The main problem is that I was able to use img files in quicktime. Now they are not loading. If you guys can tell me if img files still works in quicktime in SL then I'll work on it otherwise I'll go for plan B as suggested in the post. Thanks,

Sorry for a partial obvious question but my mac now considers all img files to be part of the OS disk image program. I'm running Lion in one machine and SnowLeopard in another. I've had the telegraphics file for quicktime 7 but I guess I may have the component in the wrong directory. Right now neither QT7 or QTX can open to preview any img files. Can any of you shed some light as to where the component should live, or if QTX can load an img at all? Currently I have to right click and open in imageplayer but I'd like to just double click and either QTX, QT7 to play the file. AE works fine of-course but I had a setup through get info where i changed all my img files to open in qt7. Changing that now keeps reverting back to disk image app. P.S. migrating to the newer OS is adding headache but pushes me to get with the times i guess.

Hey Richard, I worked on the beta test on bonzai it is powerful being a formZ user myself I enjoyed it but it was always lacking something I can quite put my finger on. Since beta I have to admit some UI changes seem to have been implemented. I'm also beta testing Rhino3D. Rhino was intuitive without really knowing anything about it. I just started clicking and modeling. Waiting on any other votes on ViaCad I'm surprised that already some life is out there for the program.

Hi Gang, I was wondering if any of you all replaced EIM for mac long ago and if so which modeler you all switched to. In particular I was wondering from your experience which modeler resembles and improves upon EIM? I was looking at VIACad but they don't market the program enough to get a feel for what it can do. I do use modo & C4D but EIM was my quick and dirty modeler. Any word if EITG will still launch a 3d app? Their site is down and haven't seen or heard anything in a long time. BTW I'm looking for sub $500 modelers. Silo hasn't evolved for me to fully trust. Strata has some toys, and Moi last I checked was PC only. Thanks for any links or suggestions.

Other than the great tree tools for free on the ipad Autodesk released a new app for free (for now). http://123dsculpt.com/ The only catch that I see so far is that its really a hobby tool and it doesnt allow you to export the 3d Volume. Where o where is Amorphium.... :D

Any news on EI and Lion now that its out? So far only heard of minor issues with Adobe products.

Thanks guys. I'll be on stand by and wait for Lion release. Alex I to am waiting on some receivables to upgrade my mac and FCPX bundle is in cue but looking at the purchase triggered my concern about full compatibility as Juanxer mentioned Rosetta is supposed to be eliminated. I did read Apple is working with quicken to have a "built in Rosetta" emulator to run Quicken 07 since so many user like it so much. Similar to Win users liking XP still over Win 7. I will try to update my status as well as I upgrade. Thinking of partitioning my drives so I can always fall back to Snow Leopard.

Hi Gang, I was wondering a few things. First and foremost has EI 8 & 9 been tested in OSX Lion. Reason being is that I attempted to purchase Final cut pro and my video card was not up to par I have a 2008 mac 3,1 and the video card doesn't support Open CL. I'm guessing that part of the Lion enhancement will be with drivers. This leads to the second question, is the new EI Open CL and Open GL enabled? (Open CL for fast interface since that seems to be one of the speed bumps I real the old discussion about pros and cons) Now for a question that I've asked over the years. Has anyone had a chance to test EIM in Lion beta? What modelers have you tested in Lion that work? This is one of the deal breakers for me but I also work on apps that will require me to upgrade to Lion. I saw Silo, Shade and Strata is selling now through the App Store and that is a bit of a relief in knowing that being in the App Store I can be anywhere and access my app without a dongle but an online verification method. I don't own any of these but I'm curious if you guys see EI's roadmap heading in that direction at all? Finally, I was reading Final Cut pro formats and I was wondering with the new version it seems some formats either need to be ported or are no longer supported. In any case for those of you who currently use FC Studio do you still use image, png sequence or quicktime + alpha? What do you guys recommend for FCP or Motion editing? Thanks a bunch.

Hey guys, I just kept noticing this topic was constantly toward the top of the latest items. Frank & Diego these steps are great! I'm curious about running my copy of blender and learning it. I have the magic mouse and navigating around in most of my 3d programs for middle click is a hit or miss. I'll keep an eye for IE9 developments as the suspense for a better model import sound to be the key to making this workflow a bit more seamless. Can say it enough I like these videos.

You guys I was just browsing for 3d apps on mac and I found out that Hexagon is going through beta! http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=163436&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=bd237cbb54a3ca0f5b64dfc8ef67bda4 I registered and downloaded the beta and it seem the current serial will expire next month. When you purchase the free beta it shows that they plan on testing until 2012. Quick highlights solved 225 bugs. Updated the code. It works on my 3mo old Intel mac pro running S.L.

Great find key moment at 21:24 for Star Trek rest from there had me hooked.

I did $40. I don't know why. Their portfolio is outdated and I haven't heard anyone confirm testing exporting animation to EIAS. In any case since I use Modo I saw a good write-up and video on how they play nice with each other. I was surprised since I posted a question about toon animation and some guys in the past that I've liked had used Messiah as an animation pipeline. More learning curve. Arg. looks like 75% in source view now.

I've worked with Modo into EIAS ever since I saw eterra studios create Falling water. It was easy to hop on Modo since I was familiar with Modo and EIM. Funny that the tools are similar to various 3D apps. The various export methods from 3ds, maya and obj have worked for me. The only thing is that I have not painted models within Modo to export to EI. I use modo for hard surface / smooth bevel objects. EIM is still my tool of choice and on the mac after I mapped multiple shortcuts to the program I'm a happy camper in keeping similar shortcuts from Modo to EIM.

Diego & Scott, Thanks for your expertise guys. I'm currently implementing a projection approach similar to what you described Scott. Post is where I'm more comfortable in creating the "look". I took some clips out to Flash since it has a similar look to Illustrator to autotrace. In any case there seems I have to stretch my workflow to accommodate for a) pre sketched projection maps b) layered After effects with levels to push brightness contrast (technique used to toon in photoshop) c) the lighting plugin that has been mentioned holds potential I'll have to install and test. Thanks for your responses guys. Scott Sin City is a good comparison with the exception that I am looking to colorize the white ink. Texture mapping is a distant option as that is my current test.

Hey Rob, Wow! I thought I was good at writing the long books. Greatly appreciate your insight on this. Question, do you have 2 parts for the legs meaning if the camera where on either side of the model do you have a left and right leg? I noticed there was a toe that was higher than the other but didn't know if that was just one object or 2. As to your shadow and line crawling I've seen this in the past but haven't rendered anything recently with v8. That is part of the reason I posted the question I used a sphere with EIAS v4 and back then the term was faking it. I had better results rendering without shadows, compositing the foreground object with an expanded drop shadow creating an outline effect (BTW animated outlines in AE generate some odd noise). Thanks for your input and your shader recommendations. I will try to render my current model and post some of my test. I'd still welcome any tips or advice on modeling rendering. I was cruising the EIAS3d on Vimeo and found these clips that lend shed some light on the possibilities. tolerable crawling outline The robot portfolio piece is from: http://www.guet-apens.fr/ Any information on the space ship would make sense. I guess Rob described well formed geometry that the render can detect easier will help. My apologies for not using names on the creators of these pieces, I know I've seen them around for a long time.

Hi Guys, I'm working on a piece that requires 2D (comic frame by frame other artist) and 2d cell (3d - me) and regular 3D backgrounds (me). I was wondering if any of you have animated something similar to this: Animatrix - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exEO94Nflng&feature=related or (disregard the sound track) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83O79Iq8jRc&feature=more_related I have the DVDs for this series and my understanding was that XSI was one of the main3d apps with 2d cell rendering used. Or the Gorillaz http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw8PpYBiDsc (guitar closeups and drummer) If you have animated something similar, my question is for modeling and rendering. On the modeling front is it safer to model a character like SouthPark / paper cutouts? Or is it fine to model the full 3d element with volume whereas the 2d cell shader and outline assists in the look. How much of the look is in post? ( I know I saw a sketch robot in the gallery that has blue print turn into 3d with 2d cell, curious about the techniques used in that one) In some cases it seems like an after effects 3d layer composite. In the animatrix case my question is the cell "look" that the 3d objects cast in the beginning of the pyramid down to the street level and in the second clip the camera flythrough of in the begining showing the army and the robots (the robots cell / phong looking shader with outline on). What additional shaders if any are recommended for EI, or what plugins do you all recommend that may ease producing this kind of effect? I'm sure you all have busy schedules but any tips are very much appreciated. Best regards!

I'm no expert by any means but as I recall Intel is still trying to catch up to the real CUDA nvidia was developing with Apple along with openCL. So why did Lux go with intel as the advisory firm when they are still lacking GPU power? AMD or Nvidia should had been on that list. I do understand that the motherboard manufacturer will improve upon the bus that carries the data amongst all components but that review personally seemed a bit one sided. In the sense that Intel who is anti Nvidia would again prevent innovation after their Apple scuffle about GPU powered machines. In do time GPU AMD and Nvidia will be the ones that demonstrate what is capable. Intel has become bad a restricting other GPUs that are not their own. Hence CUDA is an Nvidia initiative and for LUX to use Intel as the company to test or gauge what CUDA can be is a major conflict of interest. My 2cents I do hope a solution from Nvida is released that will help refocus the GPU power that is hidden.

Hey Joe, I have the 2008 8 core 2.8ghz 800mhz bus and any more power would feel like overkill (can never have too much power). :) The new 1066-1333mhz architecture would benefit you in either case but what will matter most will be the amount of ram in your machine. Considering that "camera" will support multiprocessor/cores then your question may be better answered by the developers that may have a newer machine to tell you a V8 to V9 (new camera) test what would be considered an ideal machine. What is your current workstation? I recently used my friend's new imac core i7 27" and for some odd reason it feels a bit faster than my mac pro I attribute it to the faster bus but it might also have to do with the hyperthreading or revised version of using the various cores. In any case new imac or mac pro I doubt you'll be disappointed. If you want to improve your video rendering then the mac pro has new AMD/ATI cards that would improve visual performance but not necessarily rendering performance.

There is "no status" can be tops secret or not moving. I guess at this stage they may be going undercover to launch or not launch a 3d modeler. I've enjoyed Rhino beta for quite some time just had some trouble importing models. Good ol Form-Z, EIM and Modo are my tools. I'm still hopeful for a refresh EIM but if not at least Modo is evolving nicely. Richard what do you use?

This sounds like a nice feature. How do you envision the functionality/steps in EI? For instance in After Effects you can have a PSD placeholder and that placeholder is sync'd per se to any edits in Photoshop. I figure same problems in AE would be in EIAS when it comes to parenting. In some cases adding new geometry layers or objects (depending your modeling app) may not be detected in EI unless you re-import the entire model. So under hypothetical lamp 3d model: base body light socket light cord plug If for any reason the body has to be remodeled to become a moving arm instead of a stiff post then you may update your model to show. base body arm1 body arm2 light socket light cord plug I see potential error issues in the import or update. 1 is the naming convention "body arm1" may not sync EI (correct me if I'm wrong) may just hide that object / omit. 2 the new geometry may not get original parenting, scaling deformation that was used in previous options. All these "ifs" apply to textures. However in importing a model if you have one base object as the center of the universe then maybe from a functional standpoint we can have a "refresh model" button. This "refresh" would first try to sync, if object varies, an error would pop up with a comparison pane left pane "current model" right pane "import model". This would at least provide an option to manually sync new geometry. and at least have "body" sync to "body arm1". At the end of this pop up window you would have an option to "preserve current textures" and "preserve current deformations" finally maybe a tab for import new textures in case of the new geometry. I know Igors like details in the process and this is one I used to have a few issues with. Thanks for bringing it up. Do add step by step or best approach that may be available. I know PSD to AE is more basic but functionality on the back end must be a mission to sync information. my .02 cents. PS. I forgot the lamp shade. :)

I like this idea. I'm curious though, in network rendering to multiple processors I noticed that at the end the full sequence is stitched together. Where are each of those frames/slices stored and could we have a viewer to see each frame. from a UI standpoint an Apple Aperture approach would be interesting. http://images.apple.com/aperture/includes/overlays/zoomerlays/organize/01-20091020.jpg Where the year would be representative of the job being rendered. Each thumb represents rendered frames and there would be a silhouette with an hourglass representative of ongoing reder(s). This could be representative of amount of frames being rendered per camera. That arrow on the top right would state "200 frames" with a right arrow or even a bottom scroll bar to view the list. Just food for thought. I know I've had scenes where 1 frame or 3 consecutive ones would determine if I may need to re-render after ensuring those areas render correctly by tweaking that section with preview renders.

Hey Felix, Just heard another quake hit. Hope you were camping out and that you and yours are doing well.

Hey Igors, I really like this quote. This is as sincere and candid your approach towards the EIAS3D community and application can be. Wish politicians where this up front. Maybe its not the right forum to ask but, do you have a top 10 list on items you would like to implement for v9 that are not user wish lists? Best of luck as always.

Hey Richard, I tried going through the process you described f hoping versions but I have a gap from v4 to v8. All shapes were fact already not Uber/Standard. I recently took the leap and I'm re-learning v8 up from v3/v4 so I'm trying to re-render old projects in V8. I guess removing shaders, and plugins would be an option in some cases I just have massive parent child links that would be painful to re link. Thanks for the information through I already started re-importing old projects and using newer materials and learning the refined process. As you mention better than converting it.

Ian or 3d Toolkit users, Just wondering 3D toolkit from DV garage was one of my dongle free versions of EI back in the day and still works in Leopard. Just wondering is there a way to open those projects in v8? I've tried adding the prj extension and merging scenes with no luck. Is there a process I may be missing? Thanks for any suggestions guys (gals if any)