PaceMaker 1.2.4 Released
Community Forums/Showcase/PaceMaker 1.2.4 Released
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 PaceMaker 1.2.4 is now available for download. The trial version is fully functional except for undo/redo. |
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| Only played around for a few minutes but I like what I see so far. If it's as good as it seems I'll buy it. But not until you have other payment options than paypal! |
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| Okay; first impressions.. *Very* intuitive and easy to get into. Only times I looked in the manual was to find out how to reposition the mesh and to enter wireframe mode, and I'm already well on my way rigging a 2000-polygon mesh. I really like this program! But the adjust mesh tool is in sore need of value type-in capabilities. To hold down the mouse button for 15 seconds or whatever it is to rotate the mesh 180 degrees is not good for workflow. |
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| Yep - the adjust mesh tool will be getting a serious sorting out !! In fact it will disapear and mesh movement will be controlled in the same way as joints. This is a section that I really havent spent enough time on. This program will be getting LOTS of additions and updates. |
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| Very nice work Smiff :) |
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| Great tool! Good luck with this! Well actually you don't need luck, you need publicity. Are you planing further export formats to get customers from other platforms? |
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| How about adding the ability to read bone influence on selected vertices? Right now rigging feels a little like working blindfolded, after weights are assigned and vertices deselected there's no way to read the exact influence from bones(unless I'm missing something obvious). |
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| Currently you can see which vertex are assigned to each bone by selecting the joint and then 'SELECT ASSIGNED'. (or by checking the 'Auto-Select' checkbox - this automatically shows all assigned vertices and their weighting by colour when selected from the tree-view).The amount of influence a joint has over a vertex is shown by the vertex colour brightness. The brighter the colour green the greater the influence. You can quickly cycle through the joints and display the vertices which are assigned to them - as mentioned the weighting or influence the joint has over each vertex is shown by its colour. Full bright green (G=255)= vertex is 100% influenced by the joint. Full dark green(G=1) vertex is < 1% influenced. What would be handy would be an option to select a single vertex and see what joints it is assigned to and its weighting value in each case - I will do this. With PaceMaker's easy auto assignment of weighting - you won't have to worry too much about assigning weights manually but the option is there if required. |
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| Purchase via ShareIT now available. |
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| Nice! I'll pick this one up in a couple of days. |
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| Introduction Tutorials Part 1 & 2 now available on the forum - nearly an hours worth - phew ! Are you planing further export formats to get customers from other platforms? Yes, I'm adding DirectX export - others may follow depending on the demand. |
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| Smiff this is excellent and just what I´ve been looking for. What are the chances of allowing BVH support? That would make this a really powerful tool, and I would definately buy it for that alone. |
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| What are the chances of allowing BVH support? BVH export is on the list right after DirectX. ;) I wish I had a team of more than one ! |
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| Great App! Very capable and the integrated physics raises it well up to and in some cases, beyond commercial apps costing hundreds. |
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| Is it just me or does the mouse cursor \ program response seem very choppy? Otherwise an excellent program alround but the choppiness on my computer kind of ruins the professional feel a little for me. Maybe its BlitzUI`s fault and the issue of a 2D gui on 3D graphics? I have a Geforce4Ti 4600 so I`m sure thats not the problem. Jason. |
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| BHV? Que? |
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| Is it just me or does the mouse cursor \ program response seem very choppy? Just completed a few speed optimisations - will be posting an update later today. There were a few issues causing slowdown especially in vertex mode that has now been cured. |
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| Great. I`ll look forward to trying it :) Jason. |
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| Version 1.2.5 now posted ! Good increases in frame rate especially in Vertex Mode. |
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| Downloading now, I`ll let you know how I get on. Also just out of interest how do you change the colour schemes? I can see no option to do so but see several different themes included. Jason. |
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| Thanks ! the default colour scheme is called redeye.cs - rename one of the colour schemes to this - back it up first. I did have an option to do this from the command line but I removed it for some unknown reason ! |
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| Seems to be running much better now, this is a must buy. Now one last request, could you create some smaller tutorials for us 56k modem users? Jason. |
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| OK I'll try creating some smaller mini tuts. What would be the max size and format that would suit you better ? I will also send by post - on request from registered users - a free cd containing all the tutorials to date. I will be posting part 3 & 4 of the Introduction tut this weekend and then be doing some more detailed and specific tuts for creating walk cycles etc. |
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| Thats very decent of you :) A good size I guess would be 5mb and under in .wmv if thats possible, that should allow for a good quality\size ratio. I understand that you can`t go to small and still get the message across. On a side note your software reminds me of this, http://www.animanium.com/index.htm Sega`s animanium. I`m off now to have a good play around with the program before my final purchase. Cheers for the pre-purchase support btw, its very encouraging for users that will be buying into the program to see that it is well looked after. Jason. |
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| Animanium looks like a real cool app - and uncannily similar !! |
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| A few things I noticed when playing with the latest demo: If you load and adjust an animated scene and then try and load a different one, it doesn't warn you that you haven't saved yet. Dragging the small windows around will also rotate the camera. The View Menu only has one option. Maybe the options to hide/show skeleton etc should go in there as well. Visually it would be better if you refresh the display once after a file dialog box has closed. Less confusing for the user than having the dialog box graphics sitting around while the file loads. Just some thoughts. I'm really glad you have carried on working on this great project. |
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| Thanks - some good points - taking notes ! Yes the camera can rotate when you drag the mode bar very quickly - it seems theres a little glitch with BlitzUI when detecting if the mouse is over a window when moving at high speed. If you drag it normally then theres no camera rotation. Upgrading the GUI to 3d is very high on my list of priorities with possibly a move to BlitzMax when the 3d module becomes available. |
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| Also the anim options such as speed, ping pong etc... would be nice if they worked when the anim was playing as opposed to having to stop, tweak settings and replay to see the effect they have made. I agree that updating to a 3D GUI would make for a smoother product as I still think it is causing unwanted lagging. Jason. |
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| Hmm - that's interesting. I get a 2" by 1" blank window with title 'ExeShield', and nothing else. Any ideas? |
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| John, ExeShield was used to compress and encrypt the executable -If you want to try an uncompressed version mail me at : support@... Cheers |
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| Thanks. Email on its way. |
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| New Video Tut : Creating a Walk-Cycle This is a bit smaller - only 10mb ;) http://pacemakeranimation.net/tutorials/walkcycle.wmv |
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| Thanks, much better :) Going to check it out. Jason. |
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| Just wanted to say that the walk cycle tut is great! Looking foward to some more that showcase some of the neat features you have. Will you consider adding the tweaking of speeds etc... whilst anims are playing in the future? Jason. |
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| Thanks Jason - I'll include speed tweaking while playing in next update. |
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| Smiff... from what i've read, this looks great... congrats on getting it done and out there... i've just gotta get a few things off my plate before i can really take the time to look into this new tool right now, that's why i haven't really commented yet... but i took some time to look at the walking video tut, and felt i had to at least say something... this is similar to characterfx and charactershop... an animation tool in the same general sense, right... what's the main difference?? thx --Mike |
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| Thanks Red. My main objective when writing PaceMaker was ease of use. I wanted to produce something that had a UI so simple that anyone could pick it up and start creating animation from the start . I also wanted the program to assist the animator in the artistic sense - not just be an animated model property editor. When working with CharacterFX I could never get the IK tool to work properly or move in a realistic fashion. Fragmotions IK is slightly better but it still remind me of a cardboard cutout doll with paper-fasteners for joints. It just wasn't inspiring. I decided then that I wanted to create a physics based IK tool that would create realistic motion and be very easy to use. Psionic quoted on his website "the implementation of IK in PaceMaker is simply stunning" High praise indeed from one so knowledgeable. That made me feel like I'm going in the right direction. PaceMaker also allows you to motion capture rag-doll simulated impacts and record the result as keyframes. You can mass produce animation sequences of idles, deaths, falls impacts in literally the space of a few minutes. To create these same animation sequences in a standard animation tool would take you weeks - and it still wouldn't have the same quality. You can also record an IK session allowing you to control the model in puppet fashion. It can create a skeleton, automatically assign vertex weighting and make you a cup of tea. Well actually it cant make the tea - yet. I have many great plans for this little tool - I've only just scratched the surface of what can be done with the physics. All in all to sum up the major difference , CharacterFX, Fragmotion - I would say - are fully featured animated model editors - PaceMaker is an animators tool and hopefully source of inspiration. |
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| Red, you should check out the demo download. It really does have some exciting possibilities. I love the idea of being able to "bake" ragdoll physics animation into the .b3d. Just let me know when you get the .bvh import added and I will purchase without hesitation, hint hint. |
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| Why .bvh when you can do this.... WARNING - may offend if you don't like scantily dressed women !!!! http://www.pacemakeranimation.net/tutorials/dance1.wmv (4.87mb - yay !) ..seriously - all in good time - the more sales made the more time I'll be able to dedicate to file imports/exports,hint hint ;) |
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| Judging from the video there is potential to lower expenses in other ... erm ... media. You have a point :-). ok, I'll definitely have a look at Pacemaker. |
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| OMG!!! That is really ace. Great hip thrusts btw. Is there any way to assign joint movement to hotkeys for realtime puppet control? Yes I will be getting this, I have decided. |
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| yep... i plan to take a good look at this... in a few days i'll have some room on my plate to take a good look at what we've got here... thx --Mike |
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| Just bought a copy....Keep up the good work Smiff! |
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| DirectX export now done. Torque .dsq format next ! |
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| Smiff, what are you using to capture (and record your voice) to wmv? |
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| Its Camtasia Studio - quite pricey but the best I've used. http://www.techsmith.com/products/studio/ |
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| Ouch - $300! Err - can I justify it. I don't think so at the moment. |
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