Sega Animanium?
Community Forums/Developer Stations/Sega Animanium?
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| Anyone tried it? It seems like the $100 version is all you really need for game development, which is pretty damn cheap. The truth is, I have zero talent for animation ( just check out those hugarian washer women or however parrot described the original Tennis Babes animations I did to find proof of this statement ) and I need a lot of animations. I could hire an animator, I could license them from a motion capture studio or I could have another go at doing them myself. Anyone tried Animanium able to suggest whether it's worth me investing some time and $100 in trying to improve my own skills? |
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| On the subject of talent. We all have some. I took up water color painting and produced crap for a full year and a waste bin full of expensive water color paper. But now I get about one good picture in 10. so keep going. Try Gamespace its pretty good. |
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| I already have 3dsMax and Character Studio. Quality software is not the problem. Unfortunately, I don't have a year to waste learning this stuff, which is why I'm interested in software which does animation differently. |
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| Have you already tried out the trial and the tutorials on their site? Greetings, taumel |
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| Yes, I have. It's pretty odd and counter-intuitive at first, which is why I was asking for anyone who's spent more time with it than me. Perhaps someone who uses it for work even, so I can find out just how much easier it gets and how different it is from traditional animation packages ( EG: Character Studio and 3dsMax with which I'm already familiar. ) |
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| why don't u just use 3dmax and CharcterStudio? theres nothing in Animanium that will make learning animating easyer, its just a different way of doing it. I don't think that tool will take off too well (probably the reason for the price cut) becuase its not very pipelineable and can only do simple bones systems. |
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| why don't u just use 3dmax and CharcterStudio? I thought I covered that already. Because I don't have a year to spend getting good enough that I could use what I make with them. theres nothing in Animanium that will make learning animating easyer, its just a different way of doing it. Have you even tried it? It's weird, but it's infinitely less complex than most animation packages. I don't think that tool will take off too well (probably the reason for the price cut) becuase its not very pipelineable and can only do simple bones systems. It hasn't had a price cut, they've just released a cut down version like SoftImage, Alias and Discreet have done. Not very pipelineable? It integrates into 3dsMax so well that you don't even have to save and reload. From the looks of things, it does the same with Maya, Lightwave and XSI. If I had a spare four grand, I'd just buy Endorphin and be done with it. As it is, I think Animanium will do just fine for me. I'd have liked to get some comments from experienced animators who've used it, but I'm only risking $100 so it's not too bad. |
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| I just had a look at the video tutorials and they looked good to me. Simple, fast and intuitive usage. I don't think it's weird or maybe i am too. On the other side most things look simple when you watch someone doing it who knows what to do... Only thing which is a little bit sad is the the cleanup function is not included in the light version. I think you will need it... Did you test the plugin with max7? I only saw plugins for 5 and 6. Greetings, taumel PS: I'm no experienced animator! :O) |
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| I don't think it's weird or maybe i am too. It doesn't look weird, I'll grant you. It's more the feeling when you start moving limbs around. It feels quite different to most of the other packages I've used. It is exactly what you say though, simple, fast and intuitive. I haven't really reached the point where I would miss the cleanup function yet. You might be right that I'll miss it, but probably not enough to persuade me to spring for the unrestricted version. I haven't tested the plugin with Max 7, as I still have Max 5 installed. |
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| I haven't tested.Maybe I'll do in some days, gab. I think though, that CAT plugin for Max is one of the nicest thing around for animation. I suppose it's expensive, but maybe not, And certain highend 3d anim pros I know tell me is all what should be CS. I can animate averagely well in CS and Max, indeed, been part of my work lately, in game jobs. But I know cs has quite some weird things that it shouldn't have and it has certainly room for improvement. there's where something like cat could win. yet though, once again, xsi was better solution for me. But if you aim to not complex stuff, that's then the worst way. So maybe animanium is not bad idea. have you guessed if you can export as x ? if not, is not of much use... |
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| I have read up on CAT, but as you say, it is a bit pricey. I think it's about $1000 now, which wouldn't be so bad if it was my primary occupation, but animation is a relatively small part of what I do. Anyway, I could hire an artist to do a truly professional job for less than that. have you guessed if you can export as x ? if not, is not of much use... It sends the animation data directly back into 3dsMax, so I can export to u3d, b3d or whatever I want, same as usual. |
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| Looks interesting...I guess you would need one of the high-end 3d packages to make use of it though (which I can't afford)? |
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| Just for info: The 6er version of the MaxPlugin works in both 3dsmax 6 and 7 (result from i mail i wrote them). Greetings, taumel |
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