Animation:Master
Encyclopedia
Animation:Master is a 3D character animation
application offered by Hash, Inc. that includes tools for modeling, rigging, animating, texturing, lighting and rendering. Although Animation:Master was developed for and is targeted towards independent artists, with a workflow optimized to enable one artist to create a rendered animated piece from start to finish, the workflow also presents economic advantages for larger workgroups.
The software uses a proprietary spline mesh technology to perform modeling and animation, and it is different in this sense from polygon mesh
or NURBS
-based programs. The system used is called patch-based modeling. It uses multiple intersecting spline
s to create surfaces, called patches. Patches present an efficiency in that one patch can describe a complex curved surface that would require many facets to approximate in flat polygons.
Aside from the typical 4-sided patches common in many spline modeling environments, Animation:Master can also create 3 and 5-sided patches which enable mesh topologies not possible in other applications.
To learn more about Animation:Master's features, see Animation:Master Features.
Version 1 (1992) was marketed as "Will Vinton's Playmation" in conjunction with the Will Vinton Studio. The Mac version was released in 1993.
Version 2 (1993) was released as Martin Hash's 3D Animation. The pro version was named Animation:Master.
Version 3 (1994) introduced full 3D inverse kinematics (IK).
Version 4 (1996) added particle effects known as "blobbies". This was the last version to use ".seg" as its primary model format. This was the last version made available in a Unix port. Future versions would be available for Macintosh and Windows.
Version 5 (1997) was a major advance, removing the requirement in previous versions that characters be broken into parts and reassembled in the boning process. It also added numerous skeleton "constraints" which enabled the development of advanced character animation rigs.
Version 9 (2001) Scripting, Expressions
Version 10 (2003) Soft-body Dynamics, Radiosity
Version 11 (2004) SDK (enables 3rd party plug-ins).
Version 12 (2005) Cloth, Layered Rendering into OpenEXR
image format.
Version 13 (2006) Hair, Rigid-body Dynamics, File formats now XML
based.
Version 14 (2007) Ambient Occlusion (AO), Image-based Lighting (IBL)
Version 15 (2008) Liquids, Baked Materials, Hash Animation:Master Realtime (HA:MR) integration
Avalanche Software
's highly successful Tak and the Power of Juju
video game was modeled and animated in Animation:Master.
Animation
Animation is the rapid display of a sequence of images of 2-D or 3-D artwork or model positions in order to create an illusion of movement. The effect is an optical illusion of motion due to the phenomenon of persistence of vision, and can be created and demonstrated in several ways...
application offered by Hash, Inc. that includes tools for modeling, rigging, animating, texturing, lighting and rendering. Although Animation:Master was developed for and is targeted towards independent artists, with a workflow optimized to enable one artist to create a rendered animated piece from start to finish, the workflow also presents economic advantages for larger workgroups.
The software uses a proprietary spline mesh technology to perform modeling and animation, and it is different in this sense from polygon mesh
Polygon mesh
A polygon mesh or unstructured grid is a collection of vertices, edges and faces that defines the shape of a polyhedral object in 3D computer graphics and solid modeling...
or NURBS
Nonuniform rational B-spline
Non-uniform rational basis spline is a mathematical model commonly used in computer graphics for generating and representing curves and surfaces which offers great flexibility and precision for handling both analytic and freeform shapes.- History :Development of NURBS began in the 1950s by...
-based programs. The system used is called patch-based modeling. It uses multiple intersecting spline
Spline
Spline can refer to:* Spline , a mating feature for rotating elements* Spline , a mathematical function used for interpolation or smoothing* Smoothing spline, a method of smoothing using a spline function...
s to create surfaces, called patches. Patches present an efficiency in that one patch can describe a complex curved surface that would require many facets to approximate in flat polygons.
Aside from the typical 4-sided patches common in many spline modeling environments, Animation:Master can also create 3 and 5-sided patches which enable mesh topologies not possible in other applications.
To learn more about Animation:Master's features, see Animation:Master Features.
Version history
Animation:Master is the successor program to Martin Hash's Animation:Apprentice (1987) and Animation:Journeyman (1990)Version 1 (1992) was marketed as "Will Vinton's Playmation" in conjunction with the Will Vinton Studio. The Mac version was released in 1993.
Version 2 (1993) was released as Martin Hash's 3D Animation. The pro version was named Animation:Master.
Version 3 (1994) introduced full 3D inverse kinematics (IK).
Version 4 (1996) added particle effects known as "blobbies". This was the last version to use ".seg" as its primary model format. This was the last version made available in a Unix port. Future versions would be available for Macintosh and Windows.
Version 5 (1997) was a major advance, removing the requirement in previous versions that characters be broken into parts and reassembled in the boning process. It also added numerous skeleton "constraints" which enabled the development of advanced character animation rigs.
Version 9 (2001) Scripting, Expressions
Version 10 (2003) Soft-body Dynamics, Radiosity
Version 11 (2004) SDK (enables 3rd party plug-ins).
Version 12 (2005) Cloth, Layered Rendering into OpenEXR
OpenEXR
OpenEXR is a high dynamic range imaging image file format, released as an open standard along with a set of software tools created by Industrial Light and Magic , released under a free software license similar to the BSD license....
image format.
Version 13 (2006) Hair, Rigid-body Dynamics, File formats now XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
based.
Version 14 (2007) Ambient Occlusion (AO), Image-based Lighting (IBL)
Version 15 (2008) Liquids, Baked Materials, Hash Animation:Master Realtime (HA:MR) integration
In popular culture
Victor Navone's Alien Song and Jeff Lew's Killer Bean II, two of the most widely distributed animated shorts of the early internet boom, were created in Animation:Master.Avalanche Software
Avalanche Software
Avalanche Software is a video game developer studio, founded in October 1995 by four lead programmers from Sculptured Software. The company has developed for every console platform since the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis and SNES days and has grown to a staff of over 100 since its inception...
's highly successful Tak and the Power of Juju
Tak and the Power of Juju
Tak and the Power of Juju is an action-adventure video game developed by Avalanche Software for the PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Game Boy Advance....
video game was modeled and animated in Animation:Master.