Some old Animation Master cartoons

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GCharb
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Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

Hello everyone...

While posting on a blog I came across some old cartoon render I made while testing the new Animation Master v7 toon render back in 1999, was quite amazing for the time, and it still is in many ways, the renderer that is, not my tests! ;)

This one became sort of a classic in the community! :)

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/movies/lipsynctest.mov

This one I liked allot...

ftp://ftp.hash.com/pub/movies/rooster.mov
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AmigaMan
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by AmigaMan »

I agree, Animation:Master's Toon Renderer is excellent. I doubt many people would realise that rooster animation was actually 3D animation. It looks like hand drawn 2D. I recognised the lip sync test but I don't think I'd seen the rooster before. Excellent!
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patricia3d
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by patricia3d »

Hi CGSharp
This rooster one?
Is it 3D?
which software is used to create it/
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GCharb
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

Thanks Dale, was fun stuff!
patricia3d wrote:Hi CGSharp
This rooster one?
Is it 3D?
which software is used to create it/
Yes Patricia, it is, I made it with Animation Master in 1999!
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InfoCentral
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by InfoCentral »

AmigaMan wrote:I agree, Animation:Master's Toon Renderer is excellent. I doubt many people would realise that rooster animation was actually 3D animation. It looks like hand drawn 2D. I recognised the lip sync test but I don't think I'd seen the rooster before. Excellent!
That is what originally got me to purchase a copy. Then things started going downhill fast. The owner apparently drove the development team and the 3rd party developers away. Then they went to a subscription plan which they still have to this day. The main problem I had with it was it used a proprietary format that wasn't able to export for use in other software. Integration is a must and Hash never would try to make their assets compatible.
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GCharb
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

InfoCentral wrote:
AmigaMan wrote:I agree, Animation:Master's Toon Renderer is excellent. I doubt many people would realise that rooster animation was actually 3D animation. It looks like hand drawn 2D. I recognised the lip sync test but I don't think I'd seen the rooster before. Excellent!
That is what originally got me to purchase a copy. Then things started going downhill fast. The owner apparently drove the development team and the 3rd party developers away. Then they went to a subscription plan which they still have to this day. The main problem I had with it was it used a proprietary format that wasn't able to export for use in other software. Integration is a must and Hash never would try to make their assets compatible.
Hash patches are unique, and it is not entirely true that it could not be exported, as many poly games we're made with models made in Animation Master and several conversion tools we're build for it, but it is true that it did not play well with other software and that it was not meant to be integrated into a pipeline.

Also, it was pretty easy to use and was pretty much the best 3D character animation package for quite many years.

The main problem it had and pretty much what killed it for peoples like Wegg, Joe Cosman and the such, was its instability, as it was very buggy, especially around versions 6-7, but it was the forerunner of many of the tools and concepts used in today's most popular 3d application, and even though many tried to replicate the AM tools, they only succeeded to a point in many cases.

Another reason for its undoing was the fact that it was mostly used by hobbyists and that most of the work done with it wasn't up to its potential, which killed it for many professionals, not that I didn't try to push it here, but at no avail!

I still have my CDs and dongles here, much respect for the software even with its faults!
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heyvern
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by heyvern »

Wow! Animation Master...

I used that sucker for more than 10 years. I loved it to death. I was as devoted to that program as I am now to Anime Studio. I never used the toon renderer. I actually bought Anime Studio because it reminded me of Animation Master, same bones, similar type of industry defying "different" spline technology, same kind of actions, bone constraints... very similar. Learning curve was very low switching to ASP (moho).

I did drag out my 2010 or 2011 disk recently to do an animated logo video intro:



-------------
Fond memories of the "Hash Crew". I went to comic-con in 2003 and Martin Hash took me along with his whole crew and a bunch of other people to Tijuana and we all got drunk and had a blast. I believe one of Martin's nephews bought me a new hand made leather hat that I wore every day for 10 years and it became part of my "look". To this day I wear an identical type of hat every day, keeps off the rain, the sun, very practical. Ah! Those are the good memories...

I don't use Animation Master anymore. I have switched over to LightWave (steep learning curve... still struggling). The reason for this? Some years back I produced my own "commercial" for Animation Master for no other reason than my love of the program. I spent weeks on it. Just before a NYC comic-con I stayed up all night finishing rendering and burning dvds before riding a train to deliver a DVD to the Hash booth in NYC so they could use it to show off new features.



The very next day martin hash flamed me on the forum. He broke my heart. He accused me of awful things because I provided some constructive criticism about the film he produced with Animation Master "The Tin Woodman Of OZ" (to be brutally honest... it was so bad I thought my eyes would start to bleed. I did NOT say anything that honest on their forum). He never mentioned or expressed any opinion of the animation I did. it was like it never happened. One post on the forum and it was all gone. Of course, the forum was moderated with an iron fist.

All that being said... I still think Animation Master is an AWESOME application, it's cheap, easy to learn, has TONS of features and can do ANYTHING other 3D stuff can do... except... it doesn't support standard 3D formats very well.
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GCharb
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

I feel for You Vern, and as some may remember, I went through something similar when I made a post where I pointed out the faults of one of the releases (not certain which one) and then was banned from the community for 2 years, assorted with a very heated mail from Martin giving me hell. Same happened to those who approved of my assessment (over 30 users), and that included the maker of that year mascot, this is what killed the software for me, went to max and then Softimage from then on!

Still, Animation Master was, and still is a great piece of software, just too bad Martin never understood how to deal and develop a user base!
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AmigaMan
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by AmigaMan »

Yes, I think of Martin Hash as a bit of an eccentric genius :D He obviously takes any criticism very personally. I can sort of understand that but he does appear to over react on occasions.

I actually admire Animation:Master for daring to be different. I use Maya every day at work but every time I need to do some 3D at home I choose A:M. There are so many things I can't do in Maya, like rigging and texturing for instance (because I find it so ridiculously difficult) but I find really easy and intuitive in A:M so I just stick with that. I've also found it to be very stable now compared with previous versions.

Vern I remember the situation leading up to your reasons for giving up on the software. I thought how you were treated at the time was quite disgraceful and believe I told you so. However, I can also understand why Martin Hash would be so upset too. He'd spent a couple of years of his life on the Tin Woodman of Oz film. As far as I know it was never meant to compete with the likes of Pixar (how could it?) but was produced to allow enthusiasts of the A:M software the opportunioty of working on a feature film and developing their animation skills. A team of amateurs and enthusiasts aren't going to produce a cinema quality film. In fact, considering everything, I didn't think it was that bad at all. It would be unfair to expect it to be any more than an amateur attempt and I never expected it to be anything like Pixar quality and so judged it based on that.
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heyvern
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by heyvern »

The sad part was... I only posted in the private Tin Woodman movie section of their forum. It wasn't a public area. I suggested that they could have tried to include cloth and hair features and should have a SFX supervisor and even volunteered for that "in the next film" (there was talk of a sequel). I also suggested that doing a full length feature with the incredible burn out of volunteers was not "the best idea". (that's what hurt the production. Huge burnout and turn over of volunteers). The limited budget would be better spent doing a series of high quality short films produced in a short time.

What he said on the forum was NOTHING compared to the personal attacks he sent me via email. I was shocked at how little he actually cared about Animation Master or the people who used it. He literally didn't give a dang about the users at all. They annoyed him (which is why he booted people at the drop of a hat).

He had said to me personally that Animation Master was just a fun "hobby", a diversion and a huge waste of his time and money to support it. He said if it wasn't fun any more to support it, it would just "go away". If he died it would die with him. He didn't think of his software as a "real company" with customers who relied on the product. He described it as a wacky experiment for fun and if he got tired of it, it would just go away. That got me scared. I had to find something else that might not vanish on a whim. I have no idea if what he said was the reality of the company (a lot of the employees were his family and might change his mind) or what is going on over there now.

Oh well, it's water under the bridge now. it was Martin's loss and Anime Studio's gain! :)

I thank the stars everyday that Mike Clifton and the Smith Micro team are so completely and utterly the opposite of Martin's personality... it was so freaking refreshing! Like taking a long hot shower and putting on sweet smelling cologne when you've been rolling in mud and dirt and crap. ;) Anyone who complains about Smith Micro and the people who work on Anime Studio have NO CLUE how bad it COULD be. We have it GOOOD BABY. Way more acceptance of input and suggestions. :)
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InfoCentral
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by InfoCentral »

I watched part of that Tin Woodman of Oz film a few days ago for the first time. Even though I was very curious it was so bad that after about 15-20 min I couldn't stomach it any longer and left.
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GCharb
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

As I recall, Martin invested at least 100k in that project, to promote Animation Master, but it looks so bad, that I am sure it did the opposite.

He should have financed a professional short, one to show the great character animation potential of the software, not a crappy looking full length movie.

I agree with Dale when he says that the project was done by hobbyists, and that it is rather good in that perspective, but this is not how You sell software capabilities, just look at Blender Foundation movies, they look tons better, and they do sell Blender!
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heyvern
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by heyvern »

Yes, the people who use the software had more talent and vision than Martin did, and believe it or not, this is NOT a criticism of Martin's talent. He is a brilliant programmer. I saw an old video of him when he was very young, talking about Animation Master, and he sort of kind of reminded me of Steve Jobs just a tad ;). Animation Master WAS the FIRST consumer level 3D application. It was way ahead of it's time. So it is also the oldest commercial 3D application. That is kind of revolutionary. He was also a bit of a control freak. He fired the director of Tin Woodman because of "artistic differences" and made himself director. That was a shame because the original director had loads of experience directing full length animated features and had mad skills as a traditional animator.

I bought a live action Sci-fi film that has creature effects done with Animation Master. Very bad acting, B movie. Special effects were "ok" for that type of movie, but not great. They were a step up from guys in rubber suits and toy ships on wires. Typical type of "dark, low lighting" outer space monster attacking ship kind of thing. Very dark to hide "quality" issues. This is an OLD film straight to VHS. Don't know if they ever put it on DVD.

Myself and a group of other local Animation Master users become friends and started hanging out in "meat space" because of Animation Master. We called ourselves the MAAM Squad, Mid Atlantic Animation Masters users group. We would meet up and share stuff we did in Animation Master, talk about it, theorize on the next version, dream of the killer machine to run it. Loads of fun.

I have to admit that those years using Animation Master were so much freaking fun. I constantly kept trying to get a first place in the darn monthly image contest on the Hash forum. I would spend hours upon hours working on an entry... and only get 2nd or 3rd place (forum member voting). I have bunches of award plaques but I wanted the first place "trophy". I think I got first place once, and martin sent me an extra bonus! A fantastic Buzz Lightyear telephone! Thing is huge and posable. I still have it.

Some of the original MAAM group still sort of get together but we don't talk about Animation Master. The official MAAM Squad is no more :( . Now we just hang out, watch Sci-Fi and geek out over the new Doctor Who and the latest Apple gizmos. Those guys play with iPads while I draw on my Newton. :)
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by ruscular3d »

I had no idea about Martin coming down on Gcharb! But I do remember version 9 being a total waste, and broken. The problem was that the program would freeze up when trying to do simple things that you were able to do in version 8. I am so sorry about that. I did see a lot of people being booted for critiquing the software or mentioning another software. Once Martin took a back seat and let someone else run the show, then we were able to talk about exporting. Which finally open up to exporting to game engine, and obj and MDD file to lightwave and Messiah3D. I think Martin hold us back and not being able to discuss work around and mixing software solution.

Now Microsmith is the opposite in that regard. It embrace plugging in to other software. I kind of manage to end up buying all of the product, and use them interchangeably. Anime Studio, Poser, Manga studio and motion artist. At this point I am learning in my spare time.
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GCharb
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Re: Some old Animation Master cartoons

Post by GCharb »

ruscular3d wrote:I had no idea about Martin coming down on Gcharb!
In my case it was either v6 or v7, and Martin came down hard on many of the users who openly agreed with me, banishing them from the community, 2 years in my case, and He sent me quite an incendiary email at the time.

But as I said, AM was quite the piece of software, but company policy is what killed it for most of the advanced users!
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