_________________________________________ ANIMATE! WITH CRISTIN MCKEE CD SET _________________________________________ "I recently got the Animate! CD's and have been watching them. These are very good. I am a visual learner mostly so these really hit home. The principles are really sinking in now in a way they haven't before. These are the best training materials for animation I have had. Cristin is a very good presenter and knows her stuff. It is worth the price of the cd's just to see a real pro at work, but of course it is much more than that." --Dennis Borruso "I have been working through your Animate! CDs and it is the best training material I have found so far. I love the format of giving a description of an animation principle and then providing an example to work through. I find the exercises you present very easy to follow and I have learned so much about the process of animating a scene. I'm only at the beginning of the second CD, so I have lots more to learn! Thanks!" --Paula Waslen, customer "I just received my copies of Cristin McKee's animation video tutorials. I have to say, it is exceptionally well made! She went above and beyond in covering each principle of animation. Along with the Illusion of life, Richard Williams: The Animator's Survival Kit and Preston Blair's animation book, new or seasoned animators should have this in their library!" --Somboun "You can tell Cristin loves to teach. It shows in the simple ways that she can turn a complex section and break it down. Thanks for the time you put into making this amazing addition to my education library. If all your lessons are as good as the first few I've seen, this will be one of the better Animation training CDs out there! I was at a dead-end. Lost interest in animation until after mid way through your CD. I now have found a new spark and the passion is back!" --Larry B "AWESOME! ...Cristin, you're a natural born teacher and I'm really getting a lot out of your CDs. Thank you for doing such a good job..." --Cal Johnson "I purchased the Character Animation Vol 1, it was brilliant." --Jof "These [discs] are great!" --Andrew Krist "Yes! ...I've purchased and gone through just about everything that exists for AM (plus almost everything, mostly books, on general animation)! and Cristin's Animate CDs from Anvovin Studio ranks among the best -- certainly in the top 5. Anymore it is rare that I really learn anything 'new' with AM educational materials(though being 'reminded' is quite good enough!) -- Cristin has put quite a number of new things in my head and I can't wait for the next CDs! Keep them coming!" --Rusty "I received the CD yesterday and thought it was great. The use of the graph editor for animating was very informative. I look forward to the others in this series." --David Walker "Very nice job on the first training CD. You laid out the information well, and your content, examples and delivery was great." --Mark Strohbehn "Thank you, enjoy the cds so far. Good theory and good practice, and practical tips I'll always use in future. Thanks again." --Minuael "...thank you for your tutorials, these CDs are the best investment I've made to further what my wife calls my "hobby." --Laurence _________________________________________ A:M IN LIVE ACTION WITH SAM BUNTROCK CD SET _________________________________________ "Sam's packed a lot of useful info into this package and really helped me to understand concepts which I've previously found difficult to follow. I'd definitely recommend these cds to anyone with more than a passing interest in combining live action with cgi."--Mike Gibson "Anyone that wants to utilize A:M to its fullest, or plans to use any live action and cg, needs to get this set." –Tony (Mega) "This is a little gem that's worth every penny - as well as showing how to do live action work, it also gives a very good demonstration of compositing."--Stuart Rogers "I am very hard to please when it comes to purchased tutorials; my money spent here was well worth the cost…excellent work all around"--Mike Cossey "They are amazing. Sam, the way you structured the video was very clear and organized…I HIGHLY recommend this product."—Somboun Souannhaphanh _________________________________________ WEIGHTMOVER FOR A:M _________________________________________ "Weight Mover is a great tool by the way. Just an aside: When I first saw the Weight Mover scales example I thought it was cool, but it was only when I started thinking about how really difficult it would be--without Weight Mover--to constrain each scale so that it would move properly in relation to the other scales--that I realized how significant is Weight Mover's ability to blend bone weights based upon a much simpler proxy model. Although I have still not properly weighted a complex human shoulder, I can absolutely see the value of Weight Mover and will probably use it from now on when rigging my characters." --David R. Britton, Jr. "I saw Morgan's demo of WeightMover at the annual Hash users' group meeting at SIGGRAPH, and was very impressed at the ease of use. Basically, it seems that you can model a mesh as dense and detailed as you like, then make a low-patch proxy that approximates the overall shape of the detailed version. You can bone the low-patch version, and run it through WeightMover much as one works with the [very excellent] Setup Machine. WeightMover assigns CPs, distributing weights logically so that your detailed mesh loads in ready to animate--I don't think any SmartSkin is even necessary." --James Poulakos _________________________________________ MASTERING MATERIALS WITH BILL YOUNG CD-ROMS _________________________________________ "Just got the Bill Young's A:M Mastering Materials CDs and they are great. My head is still spinning! :)" -- Somboun Souannhaphanh, animator "Been watching your materials CDs, Bill. They're awesome. I've seen some of your other tutorials (banana and waves leap out) and have longed for an overview. You make it look too easy. You're also quite articulate, which is really helpful. Keep up the great work!" --Christopher Mackay, Technical Director, Tantramar Interactive Inc "It is great and the quality is wonderful." --Tim Elston, www.plasmadyne.com _________________________________________ SECRETS OF A:M 2003 CD-ROM _________________________________________ “Awesome product, as always. Very clear explanations about important AM2003 stuff, and with the best posible resolution.” --Gustavo Muñoz “The process used to create it is probably the best yet. Including the project files is a big help, but the quality of the screen capture plus the editing to cut down on unneccesarily waiting for quick renders and other things is probably the best part.” --Paul Daley “The images are crisp, making it very easy to follow what the instructor is doing. Also, including projects and such is wonderful and greatly aids in the learning process. I also appreciated that "Secrets of A:M 2003" wasn't simply a "here is the new interface and features,” but you actually showed how to accomplish some very useful things.” --Dean Nelson “I really appreciate what you guys do in helping us rookies get up and running on A:M. Every time I look at the material, I learn something new I can use in my animation efforts. Thank for being a great A:M support mechanism!” --Larry Stacy “I've had a quick look at both “Secrets” CD's and there is a lot of good stuff in there. I am still surprised that Hash doesn't document this stuff, I mean, A:M can do all that? Good job, like all good entertainers you leave me wanting more.” --Dave Cockburn “If you guys keep making them, I will keep buying them.” --William Buffat _________________________________________ MODEL A FACE WITH BILL YOUNG CD-ROM _________________________________________ "Enjoyed it immensely. Bill Young obviously knows his stuff. I particularly liked the pace of the tutorial. Nothing important was left out and the endless tweaking that tends to lose my interest in some other training videos was omitted. Bill was also careful to explain how and why his method was suitable for creating an animatable mesh. He also threw in a healthy dose of human facial anatomy to boot. Excellent!" --Rob Garrett "It is a great resource. One of the best aspects is the theory of face modelling being explained. The description of musculature and the reasons behind spline placement are invaluable." -- Sean Farrell “I have built four characters since receiving the tutorial and I am building the meshes with so much more confidence and therefore speed. Knowing that the splines are getting layed down in logical areas of creasing and bulging is a great feeling. I am pretty sure if you locked me in a dark room for long enough I would have figured it out, but what you guys have done is saved me a lot of time and brain work. Well worth the dollars. It is also great to pick up little techniques, as silly as creating a meaningless spline, grouping it, hiding the rest, then deleting the temp spline, just for a clean workspace. I know those tips by themselves seem trivial, but when you work on your own, you don't always tweak to these methods. Also there would have been many of these little tips I picked up watching and listening to Bill. It is also reassuring to see all the procedures that are the same as what I do. Lets you know you are on the right track. In summary, great package, great format, please keep them coming, you enhance the Hash software so much.” --Ian Harrowell “It was more than I expected. The format is quite good, I like watching someone work while they comment on what they are doing. Most of the movies were about the right speed and detail for me. . . . I've always had particular trouble with the wings of the nose, Bill's work there is practically worth the price of the video. . . . I like that Bill delves into all sorts of modeling details of a realistic face. It is a lot easier to figure out how to make a simplified face with this knowledge than the other way around.”--John Krumpotick "Dear Bill, I have watched your new tutorial one time through and I think it is great. I wanted to learn your method of face modeling ever since I had a chance to see the Mr. Beanstreet mesh (I assumed you built it) in Raf's "Rigging a Face." Armando Afre's Sylvia and Mr. Beanstreet are the most animatable face meshes I have seen." --David R. Britton Jr. "This CD answered so many questions for me. Bill Young presents the information in a very flowing logical way. When I was first taking my art seriously, I took life-drawing classes (Drawing from live models). Drawing the human figure was considered the best way to become a competent draftsman because of the intricate curves and perspectives involved. Plus the added emotional factor, the way we respond to human shapes, faces and expressions, also enhanced the learning experience. I have found that Bills tutorials are doing the same thing for my splinemanship. Learning how to navigate the curves, surfaces and edges of the human face is great practice and knowledge for modeling anything in Animation:Master. The uncluttered narration and excellent editing of this CD should be a model for all tutorial media." --Dave Miles "The tutorial was excellent, I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn modelling in AM. Thanks for a great product" --Gary Neal "Looks like this CD is going to be another winner!" --Antonio Matias "Got it. Love it." --Michael Brundage "It is an excellent quality product as expected." --Jerry Keslensky "Going to be a lot of work going through this one, but it seems well worth it. Probably the best tutorial you've done to date, and I have them all." --Barry Crawford "YES! This is exactly what I've been waiting for!" --Zachary Brewster-Geisz _________________________________________ A:M QUICKSTART CD-ROM _________________________________________ “The tutorials are very straightforward and easy to understand. I am very excited about this CD!” --Daniel Samms “I was surprised that I really picked up some good modeling tips from your CD. I thought I had that part down pretty well. . . . This Quickstart CD should be part of the Hash Package that contains the AM CD and The Art of Animation booklet.” --Dr. Eddie Harrison “Got it and really like it. Very easy to follow. Lots of stuff I didn't know.” --Larry Hatfield “Very good harmony between "Image" and "Narrator".... Always new things to find and some good "short cuts". --Martin Duerr “Everything is clear and helpful, which makes me rate your tutorial stuff the best I have seen for A:M. I have real issues with Hash's videos - hard to see, not clear on what command keys they are using, overall poor quality - so seeing your stuff proves that it can be done right. Thanks for making a newbie's road a little easier.” --Jeff Boydstun “Your Quickstart CD is very helpful and much appreciated. I'm learning things I never caught in my readings and tutorials.” --TH “I recently received and have been working my way through Anzovin Studio's Animation: Master Quickstart CD. I personally think it is one of the best tutorials to come out of Anzovin Studio. Hash should think about including the CD as part of the software bundle. Well done to all involved.” --John Evanoff “I love it! Thanks a million. I will be much better after spending time with it, I can tell.” --Martin Elliott “I've opened the materials movie and had a quick look. Very clear and I have already learned a couple of things. It looks like your quick start CD should be a compulsory purchase!” --Dave Cockburn _________________________________________ THE SETUP MACHINE _________________________________________ “I can recommend TSM to anyone that wants to dive into animating with having to get into rigging at all. One way to think of it is if you're new to CG and want to start animating your own characters, you'll need to learn how to model and maybe do some texture mapping. Once you get done with that, you'll need to decide on a skeletal system for your character and then design the controls for it (if you want such things as switchable IK and elbows that don't break). After you do all that, then you get to animate and see if your controls work as well as you thought they would. -or- you could just rely on the fact that Raf has been designing rigs since he was in diapers, contiues to improve them and and has made installing one into your character as simple as it would be if you were going add any other skeleton to it. When you're done, you get a character that responds naturally with just a few control bones (even though it may have hundreds of geometry bones hidden). Again, if the idea behind your purchase of ANIMATION Master was to start animating, TSM is a great tool.” --Paul Daley “I swear by the Setup Machine, it works very well. TSM is your technical director in a bottle. It takes your basic skeleton and converts it into an advanced rig that works like a charm. With TSM, my animations are easier to do and turn out much better. I've never had to tweak a model after running it through the Setup Machine. I add some extra shoulder and wrist twisting bones (from the old Raf rig) to the pre-rig before I run TSM. Smartskinning is a little bit trickier. Any changes I make after running TSM are to add functionality to the rig, for example, adding some nulls so one model can interact with another (e.g., a wrestling match), which I can do pretty easily with TSM. There are things I do using TSM that I just could not do without it. . . . I've only used it for bipeds, but it can set up multiped skeletons as well. It's a top-notch product and Anzovin keeps making it better. And we had it first!” --Canaan P "I am getting so much inspiration from the TSM Rig. It's like magic. I think of Dr. Frankenstein sending the lifeless body up to be struck by lightning and then screaming "It's alive." TSM is like the lightning. Thanks for a great program" --Dave Miles "A big thank you to you guys. I have some big projects ahead, and the setup machine is a huge part of these plans. I simply don't have the time personally or the money to pay someone to do all the control rigging, the Setup Machine is prefect for my needs. I also prefer the nature of the controls. I am from a traditional animation background and find the controls perfect, with just enough automated stuff but not too much. I am not a big fan of things such as auto balance and such. Thanks again." --Ian Harrowell (Australia) "Recently I completed an illustration project for a children's magazine. The assignment was to create three simplified characters, a young boy, his mother, and a store clerk. I used Anzovin Studio's Setup machine for this, with very good results. Their software really does make it easy to rig (and re-rig ) your characters. " --Mark Thompson < http://www.st45.com > Plug-ins and Basic Modeling Training CDs for Animation:Master "I've used intensively the setup machine 1.08 for mac on quadruped and biped models and I most say that it has work just great! The performance of this stuff is just awesome, I'm impress with the result. The rig is raftastic ! I'm very satisfy. Congratulation for your astonish machine. A powerful tool for any AM user...hehehe !" --Alain Desrochers (Canada) "WOW, just a note to say thanks to you all, I have not used it since BETA until now, I am amazed. The speed with which you can rig and re-rig is amazing. I always had headaches with fan bones for shoulders etc, but now I can switch around so fast, I no longer have those problems. The rig animates so well too. This has enhanced AM soooo much for me, the best few quid I've spent in a long time. Looking forward to Secrets of A:M 2002. Thanks very much to all at ANZOVIN!" --Andy Gibbons (UK) "WOOHOO!!! This thing is the best buy next A:M! I just finished rigging my first model that I abandoned earlier this year because the learning curve to rig it was beyond the time I had. The Setup Machine rigged my character in less time and made it ready to animate than it took for me to model it." --Patrick Keith "This is the greatest thing since sliced bread -- and I'm a BIG fan of sliced bread. Eventually I expect I'll be able to stop playing with this wonderfully expressive rig and actually do some animating... Thanks again." --Timothy Weber "This is the way a character setup should work, easy to use...and "intelligent" enough to report mismatching bones from imported models. Why aren't other products as good as the Setup Machine?" --Martin Duerr (Germany) "I would like to commend your team on a highly useful tool in The Setup Machine. It is typical of powerful tools like Animation Master that tedious technical work is required to take your projects to the next level. Rigging characters with an easy and useful rig takes work and technical know how. Your product makes this process as easy a few clicks of the mouse. Now I can concentrate on the creative aspects of my project. Thanks for allowing animators to get back to what they want to do most: animate." --Roy Hinkle "i downloaded the program as soon as i checked my email tonight. then i was determined to give it a quick test. only about 25 minutes spent on this, so the thing isn't perfect, no smartskin and the bones could be placed alot more precisely. but this has proven to me that the full potential of this product is priceless. i can't wait to get a few new characters completed because i know i can have them ready to animate in no time. thanks raf!!!!!! you've done it again....keep this stuff coming!" --Dieter Wagner, http://www.kungfudork.com/setupmachinetest.htm "It's rare that I write a testimonial letter, but I have been moved.. Just put my first _complex_ model through the setup machine, with smartskin, fans, and everything. It worked like a charm. The model behaves almost exactly as I want it to (and the few glitches are smartskin-related and easily fixable). I can't wait to get animating. Thanks again for this amazing product." --Zach Brewster-Geisz "Decided to run a very old segmented character of mine through the Setup Machine (see http://www.anzovin.com if you've been under a rock and haven't heard of it). Here's what I came up with after about three hours of working time (RIGGING INCLUDED!): http://www.hash.com/users/zachbg/JUMPfinl_sor2.mov 317K, 4 seconds. The Hash server may be slow, so be patient. Not perfect, I know, but a decent showing for such a short time... well, for me anyway." --Zach Brewster-Geisz "THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH! I tried the setup machine on a copy of the pre-rigged guy model WOW! that li'l app. is amazing. This will help so much you just can't imagine. The thing about animation that I just can't get a grip on is the constraint stuff. I can really get things going now... Now if you just come up with an auto smartskinner, I'll be set! Thanks again." -- Don Perkins, http://www.donperkins.com "IT SOUNDS LIKE THE ONLY THING IT DOES'NT DO IS CREATE THE MODEL FROM PURE BRAINWAVES, ANIMATE IT USING NERVE IMPULSES, AND RENDER IT DIRECTLY TO YOUR LOCAL BLOCKBUSTER!" --Matt Camp "Thanks for developing this incredibly useful tool. This will surely enable many of us to tell more and better stories by shortening the time we spend on the 'technical' side of animation. " -- Pedro Díaz del Arco (Spain) _________________________________________ NONLINEAR ANIMATION WITH RAF ANZOVIN _________________________________________ "After my 3rd session with Anzovin's Non-Linear Animation Tape I felt compelled to write this. I've been doing 3D Animation for almost 9 years now and using A:M as my primary tool for 13 months. I've been doing some pretty complex and tricky things and thought I knew this area pretty well. And when I discovered my wife had snuck around and bought this for me for my birthday, I worried that I would not really learn that much from it. Wrong! I may be wrong but I do not recall seeing most of this stuff in the A:M manual (I've read it cover to cover but there is a lot there). Even if it was mentioned I doubt it hinted much at 'how' to use this stuff and I know there were no tutorials. Be prepared to press pause/rewind/play a whole lot cause this tapes is packed (and that's good). The close-up screen, once you get use to it, is really great. On occasion little things like 'was that global or local mode that was checked' and 'was only-filtered-channels or all-channels' checked goes by a little too fast and are hard to catch but I couldn't be more delighted or happy about this investment. I'm learning a whole new world of stuff I never even knew existed. I am not affiliated with Anzovin studios outside of being a happy customer (I also own the rigging tape and the SM which also get the highest ratings)." --Rusty Williamson, Virtualmedia Studios "This will be a big time saver for me. I have viewed the tape partially, and can see that I will view it again, several times. From what I get so far these are shortcuts to animating anticipation & follow through. Very helpful. Thanks Raf." --Jerry Seider "Got today the video-bundle & of course love it thx a load for being such a time-saving company don't dare to think of where we'd be without you (;" -- no0ne (Japan) "They have arrived and the quality of the tapes is excellent. The techniques are brilliant and I have learned a lot as usual." --Jovica Jocic (UK) "Very professional. Very appreciated! Have not had time to view all of it, but so far good quality. Please, keep up the great work!" --Dr. Eddie Harrison "Have already watched it about 3 times. i saw Raf's talk on the panel at Siggraph 2001 and understood what he was discussing, but after watching the tape and seeing him go step by step inside A:M, I feel like i am really starting to understand the uses for NLA. Keep the great products coming! I really hope the cartoon/realistic face modeling video is next, but i am not too worried, because i am positive whatever comes next will be well worth the purchase. Thanks again!” --Dieter Wagner "I received my Nonlinear Animation video and have watched about half of it; great information but I am not quite ready to implement it yet- still preparing my characters . . . the amount of information that will still be relevant is immense. I am a great admirer of Raf, young genius that he is. Without his help I know I would be hard pressed to reach my goal of using Animation Master to create my own short films. There is a reason that most major studios hire people specifically to set up characters. It is the animating that I really want to do, but unfortunately I am not gifted in ALL areas like Raf is. Thanks for sharing." --Linda Westbrook _________________________________________ RIGGING A FACE WITH RAF ANZOVIN _________________________________________ "I actually watched the video on Christmas Eve while I assembled and wrapped the kid's gifts. It really gave me some awesome insights into the rigging mentality, I really like the eye rig especially." --Kenn Klick, BlueCougar Studios "I finally had a chance to watch the "Rigging a Face" video, yesterday. I thought it was very informative! I especially appreciated the description about how to use Smarties (bones that do nothing but drive smartskin) and the bake feature in Choreography to create Poses with Poses, in v8.5. Since I don't want to wait until v9 is ready, this v8.5 workaround is going to come in very handy!" --Carl Raillard "I found the material very useful. Overall I understood the gist of what Raf was presenting. But there were a few details that I didn't quite grasp . . . I've only seen the video once and hopefully additional viewings will help bring clarity to what Raf was talking about. Yes, I was satisfied with the quality of the presentation. The little window that was zoomed in on the cursor was of great help; but at times the meaningful part was outside its coverage area. Still a very worthwhile help in clarifying what's being done on the screen. . . . I am really greatful that you have been sharing your expertise with the rest of us by making these videos available. I'm looking forward to receiving the Nonlinear Animation video in January (I've already ordered it)." --Dean Nelson "Your tapes (I have all the rigging ones) are invaluable - thankyou for sharing your knowledge!" --Gary Abrehart "Thanks for a great video. I am still going through it, but I have a project in mind and the lessons on your tape will be an invaluable help. Thanks... And you know I will be back for more!" --Dave Daniels "...I've got my video today...great....just looked in some parts....looks good. The quality is good enough for a video originally produced for the NTSC market (I've ordered PAL). . . . Like the way Raf explains the steps...Keep on doing such videos..." --Martin Duerr (Germany)