Animeeple

We've moved!

2010-06-24T19:22:00.001-07:00

The Animeeple blog has moved to animeeple.posterous.com. Please change your bookmarks!

Animeeple and Unity

2010-01-30T20:08:00.000-08:00

Quite a few of you use Unity to create 3D video games, so we wrote a tutorial on how to use Animeeple with Unity. The tutorial starts with a blank project, and goes through creating a controllable character who walks, turns, runs, and kicks. Here's where you can find it: http://www.animeeple.com/documentation/Unity

Even if you don't use Unity, we hope you find the parts about creating game appropriate assets useful. We go into creating loops and removing root motion, both of which are handy to know. Enjoy!

Wiki temporarily down

2010-01-06T12:37:00.000-08:00

Our wiki is temporarily down because our service provider is doing some maintenance. It should be back up tonight. Sorry for the inconvenience!

New release!

2009-12-07T11:00:00.000-08:00

We've got a new release of Animeeple for you! This release features a new webpage layout, which should make shopping for characters and animations easier. Enjoy, and as always, let us know what you think!

Sparkle in Motion

2009-11-20T14:27:00.000-08:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Animeeple runs on Intel-based Macs, not just PCs!

Okan plays Mini Ninjas

2009-11-18T14:49:00.000-08:00

The bottom line: Thumbs up on the engineering and artwork! Thumbs down on the training. http://okanarikan.blogspot.com/2009/11/mini-ninjas-rookie-mistake.html

New release!

2009-11-14T14:11:00.000-08:00

We've got a new release of Animeeple for you. What's new in 0.3.6?

Documentation covering our new interface, both text and video! Check it out at http://www.animeeple.com/documentation.html.
By popular demand, you can now drag animations directly into a scene. This is useful when you have a skeleton that you want to retarget onto in an animation file, like a BVH.
In the marketplace, every item has a button for searching for related content.
If an animation has a pair, it will have a button for viewing it. For example, check out this slow dance animation, and click on the "paired" button.

You can download the new version at http://www.animeeple.com/software.html

As always, let us know what you think!

Sparkle in Motion

2009-11-13T16:09:00.000-08:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: How do you unselect a joint when you're using the edit block?

When you're using the edit block, you can select a joint you want to rotate by clicking on it. To unselect it, press the "escape" key on your keyboard. Then you can select another joint.

For more information on the edit block, check out the this wiki page.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Did you know you can change the names of objects in the outline view? Just double-click on an object's name to edit it.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-23T06:23:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: The navigator has a handy menu you can access by right-clicking. It includes options for deleting items from the shopping cart, and importing local items.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-16T21:35:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: If you're selling 3D content on Animeeple, you can now embed your Animeeple store into your own webpage! Just click on your store at http://www.animeeple.com/market.html, then click on "Embed this marketplace" at the bottom to get the html. This is a new feature brought about by popular demand, and we would love to hear what you think.

If you're not yet selling content but you've been thinking about it, it's really easy to get started. Check out this wiki page for details.

New release!

2009-09-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

We've got a new release of Animeeple for you! Get it at animeeple.com. Here's what is new in 0.2.14:

Embeddable marketplaces: If you're selling content, now you can embed your Animeeple store into your own webpage!
Better looping: You can specify an ease parameter that Animeeple will use to create smooth transitions.
Improved import: We've improved T-pose detection for characterized FBX files.
Second Life editing: The edit block's symmetry and copy options now work with Second Life characters.
Our webpage: Check out our new look!

As always, let us know what you think!

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-15T20:00:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: If you need to pose a character, check out the pose palette. You can use it to copy and paste poses. To use it, create an edit block with a keyframe. With the time marker over the keyframe, you can copy the current pose of your character to the pose palette by clicking "Save pose" in the inspector. Then later when you make another keyframe, you can paste the pose you saved by clicking "Restore pose".

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-14T16:49:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: You probably already know that Animeeple has undo and redo. But what's really cool is that you can use the undo stack to roll to specific changes. Choose "Undo stack" from the edit menu, then double-click on the change you want to go to.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Save your workspace! Even if you haven't built complex animations, it'll save you time to save your workspace because you don't have to reimport content.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-10T20:46:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: A workspace can hold multiple scenes. There's a button in the toolbar at the top for adding new scenes. You can tile, cascade, and switch between scenes using the Windows menu.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-09T15:38:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Double-clicking on a thumbnail in the search results will trigger a separate preview window, where you can look at the content in more detail.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Thinking about buying a character from Evolver.com? Now you can animate and test it out in Animeeple before you buy it! Check out the Evolver video tutorial at http://www.animeeple.com/tutorials.html.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-09-03T16:37:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: When you import a character or animation, label the bone that branches into the shoulders as the torso.

Follow @Animeeple on twitter!

Sparkle in Motion

2009-08-31T22:38:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Did you know that you can copy the pose of one arm to the other, and one leg to the other? Create an edit block, then select it so its properties show up in the inspector. You'll see buttons for copying arms and legs.

New release!

2009-08-31T22:31:00.000-07:00

There's a new release of Animeeple! Take a look at these new features.
- Retargeting preview: When you import an animation, you can preview it retargeted onto a skinned character. Just press the preview button on the import dialog.
- Banner images: Selling stuff in the Animeeple marketplace? Now you can upload banner images! Check out your Animeeple profile to get started.
- User-suggested features: Copying joint values to symmetric limbs and marking the origin are just two of the great user-suggested features we've implemented for this release. Thanks for the feedback!

As always, let us know what you think! Happy animating.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-08-28T15:45:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: Did you know you can rearrange the panels in the Animeeple UI? Click the title bar of any panel and drag it where you want. To make a panel into a separate window, drag the title bar out of the main window.

For those of you in Austin, Texas, GDC Austin is offering a free one-night stay at the Residence Inn in downtown Austin if you register for an all-access or main conference pass today. The code is GDCAROOM.

Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend!

Sparkle in Motion

2009-08-27T17:06:00.000-07:00

Sparkle's tip of the day: To move your view of your Animeeple scene, click and drag the left mouse button to rotate, middle mouse button to pan, and the right mouse button to zoom. Or, if you have a one-button mouse, you can use the keyboard shortcuts. Hold down the 'z' key, then click and drag the mouse to zoom. Pressing 'x' plus clicking and dragging the mouse will pan.

Sparkle in Motion

2009-08-26T16:04:00.000-07:00

Today's tip: Press the 'escape' key to unselect everything. Handy, no?

Thanks for writing about us!

2009-08-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Check out these blog posts about Animeeple. Thanks guys! These are just some of the ones I've found. If you know of others, let me know.

http://freemotionfiles.blogspot.com/2009/07/free-motion-captures-from-animeeplecom.html
http://machinima-studios.blogspot.com/2009/05/animeeple-free-animation-software.html
http://www.cgrecord.net/2009/04/animeeple-updated-bvh-fbx-collada.html
http://styledesignallnation.blogspot.com/2009/07/animeeple-update-and-truebones-sale.html

Zero Punctuation

2009-08-24T14:45:00.000-07:00

For those of you that haven't checked it out yet, Okan and I are big fans of Zero Punctuation, http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation. Zero Punctuation is a collection of video game reviews that I think can best be described as snarkily hilarious. Imagine a guy who has never heard of periods or commas (hence the name) narrating South Park style animations that make fun of video games. Here is the review of Sims 3.

SIGGRAPH highlights

2009-08-10T19:53:00.001-07:00

We're back from SIGGRAPH! What an inspiring, exhausting week. Here are some of the papers that really stood out, though this list is by no means complete:

1) Bokode - a clever replacement for big, ugly bar codes on packaging (image from bokode.com)

2) Dark flash - two orders of magnitude dimmer than a conventional flash
3) Gabor noise - procedural noise loaded with provably nice properties
4) All the motion synthesis papers. It's especially amazing how far physically-based animation has come.

You can get the complete list of Siggraph 2009 papers here: http://kesen.huang.googlepages.com/sig2009.html

New release!

2009-08-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

We've got a new release of Animeeple for you! By popular demand, we've added multiple takes. That means that you can have more than one timeline for the same character. Watch for a new tutorial on using this feature.

We've also added a view of the scene hierarchy so you can more easily navigate what you've built.

As always, let us know what you think!

Animeeple welcomes Evolver!

2009-07-21T11:39:00.000-07:00

We are proud to announce a partnership with Evolver!

Evolver is a cool, web-based platform for creating 3D characters. Check them out at http://www.evolver.com. You can design characters in Evolver, and bring them into Animeeple to animate them with just a few clicks. You can even preview your Evolver character and animate it before your purchase it! Buy only when you're ready to export. We're also really excited to announce that Evolver is letting you sell Evolver characters in the Animeeple marketplace! Tutorials are coming soon.

You may also notice we have a new logo! We hope that it reflects Animeeple's goals of simple and easy 3D.

New release!

2009-07-07T23:32:00.000-07:00

We have a new release of Animeeple! Check it out:
- A new marketplace on our web site, making browsing content faster and more convenient
- No more "non-exportable" content. Everything is now exportable! You can still browse content and use it within Animeeple for free. Pay only when you export.
- The loop block now supports looping in place.

Let us know what you think!

New release!

2009-06-24T11:55:00.001-07:00

We have a new release of Animeeple. New in this release are:

An inspector where you can easily edit the properties of objects
Support for reading and writing OBJ files
A new UI style

Let us know what you think!

Blown card

2009-06-22T22:17:00.001-07:00

Just blew my graphics card. Check out the blown capacitors.

Cat fur + open case computer = bad circuitry

New release!

2009-05-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone,

We've got a new release of Animeeple for you!

Thanks for all the great feedback. Lots of the features that went into this release were suggested by you. Here's what's new:
- We've improved compatibility with a wider range of graphics cards.
- You can import your Second Life character using XML. Look for an updated tutorial coming soon.
- You can edit the T-pose of a skeleton during the import process.
- Animeeple will preserve local bone rotation axes and bone names on import, so that you can export animations onto the same skeleton you imported.
- We've enhanced the FK/IK editing process.
- We also changed the way you assign bones when you import a character. We'll update the tutorials to go over this new functionality.

You can also follow us on twitter! Check out twitter.com/animeeple, twitter.com/okanarikan, and twitter.com/leslieikemoto

If you're wondering about the monster at the top, he's a sea demon created by artist David Gibbons, who's kindly allowed us to upload some of his creations. Look for this sea demon soon on Animeeple.com.

New release and new video tutorials!

2009-04-11T16:54:00.001-07:00

Hey Animeeple users,

We're putting out a new release today. This is a service release to address some issues with compatibility and non-English characters. We are also updating our video tutorials. You can check them out at http://www.animeeple.com/documentation.html. Happy animating!

New release!

2009-04-06T11:06:00.001-07:00

Hope everyone had a nice weekend! On Saturday, we put out a new release of Animeeple. Check it out and let us know what you think! You can now edit the properties of content that you uploaded, and we changed the look of the software.

Animeeple welcomes Mr. Bones

2009-03-23T12:42:00.000-07:00

Be sure to check out animations from Mr. Bones, now available in the Animeeple marketplace! Here's a really cool hip hop move:

http://www.animeeple.com/details/0805eb9d-2ea1-46d9-b4d2-ca96d4d9f7cd

New release!

2009-03-21T22:14:00.001-07:00

Hey animation fans, just in time for Spring and GDC we've got a new release of Animeeple for you! This release has animate-able attributes, so now you can create keyframed animation blocks. We are also rolling out our first add-on feature to the main program -- FBX export. FBX is a pretty popular 3D file format that is compatible with Autodesk products like Maya and MotionBuilder. It's priced low at only $10.99. That's only 4 lattes at Peet's. ;) FBX import into Animeeple is free, just like the main tool itself.

Take a stroll around our marketplace. It's full of free and cheap goodies. And if you want to sell stuff there, let us know! We're looking to grow and we want you to be a part of it.

New release!

2009-03-07T23:36:00.000-08:00

Animeeple can now import files in the popular FBX format, and can export simple-to-parse XML files. What's XML good for? One thing you can do is use the XML format to get characters you animate onto your webpage using Javascript or Flash.

If you make something cool, let us know about it! We love hearing about all the ways you're using Animeeple.

Happy animating!

New release!

2009-02-10T04:36:00.000-08:00

Hey Animeeples,

If you check out our website, you'll notice it's gotten a facelift. And our marketplace uses Flash now, so anyone can shop for 3D content, even if they haven't installed Animeeple. If you like browsing in 3D, you can still do that too using our plugin.

Thanks for all the great feedback! Keep it coming!

New release!

2009-01-31T18:37:00.000-08:00

A big heartfelt thanks for all of the great feedback we've been getting! The biggest user suggested improvement we made was adding a generic Second Life character. Now you don't have to enter your account information to animate for Second Life. Go to File > Import > Second Life > Generic to check it out.

We also spiffed up the import pipeline for getting content into Animeeple. Give it a whirl and tell us what you think.

Have a great week, keep animating, and enjoy the Super Bowl!

A kinder community

2009-01-28T12:13:00.000-08:00

Michael Arrington, editor of TechCrunch, which is a blog about technology startups, got spat on: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/28/some-things-need-to-change/.

I don't want to see this community become an ugly place. Please everyone, let's be respectful of each other.

New release!

2009-01-22T01:55:00.000-08:00

Another week, another release of Animeeple!

Now you can buy content directly from our webpage instead of going through Animeeple. And this time around we've made it even easier for artists who want to sell content in the marketplace by making our import pipeline smarter.

We also added two user-requested features! The first is the ability cut, copy, and paste scenes, characters, and animations. The second is that you can edit and delete movies and images you uploaded to the gallery.

Thanks for the great feedback! Want to see your requests in a future version of Animeeple? Keep the comments coming!

New Release!

2009-01-11T23:54:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone, ready for some big news?

We're happy to announce that now anyone can join Animeeple, because we've entered public beta. Good bye invitation codes!

If you've enjoyed using Animeeple, please spread the word.

And if you haven't, please tell us. We always appreciate feedback, good or bad! :)

Wondering what else is new? You can now import BVH files. You can upload animation directly to Second Life.

Our website's gotten a face lift. And we've added new machinery to make downloads faster.

Let us know what you think when you have a chance.

Thanks for being part of our community!

- Your friends at Animeeple

New release!

2008-12-31T16:43:00.001-08:00

We added features that will make importing content easier. A wizard now leads you through the importing process step-by-step.

Happy New Year everyone! Here's to a great 2009 for all.

New release!

2008-12-19T16:55:00.000-08:00

Big news from Team Animate Me! We've changed our product name to Animeeple. It's like animate+people...get it? :)

You can check out a new version of our software and our updated website at http://www.animeeple.com. We've got new stuff in this release which we hope you'll like, including a voting system which you can use to rate content in the marketplace, and a gallery where you can display pictures and movies you made using Animeeple.

If you've got an invitation code to our private beta, give it a whirl and tell us what you think. We always appreciate feedback.

Yay for Lively!

2008-07-13T13:35:00.001-07:00

Google just announced Lively, their new virtual world. They haven't opened up their API for user-designed content yet, but they say they will. Hurry up, Google!

Image is from Lively: Island.

Make mine a pina COLLADA

2008-05-16T13:55:00.001-07:00

At Animate Me HQ, we've been working on integrating COLLADA into our animation tool. COLLADA is an open-source file format for digital asset exchange. If any of you out there are thinking of tackling the same thing, we suggest you have a look at collada-rt before you start. collada-rt comes with the COLLADA distribution, and reads COLLADA files into data structures. It was seriously useful sample code for decoding the tricky COLLADA file format. Also indispensable were the public forums on collada.org.

I heart Chumby

2008-05-16T13:49:00.000-07:00

My Chumby is awesome. It displays my pictures. It shows me the temperature outside (currently 100 degrees). I think it even makes me more efficient, because instead of surfing over to icanhascheezburger, my Chumby keeps me up to date on the LOL cats. Yay Chumby!

Yallow from Hawaii

2008-04-26T12:13:00.000-07:00

We're in the beautiful Hawaii. Don't you wish you were here...

Howdy!

2008-04-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

As my first post for AnimateMe's blog, I thought I'd point out some resources that have been really helpful to me starting a start-up. TechCrunch is a blog that talks about what other start-ups are doing, who is getting funded, etc. I also highly recommend Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston, which is a collection of interviews with people who have started successful start-ups. Starting a start-up is like a crazy roller coaster most of the time, and it's nice to know that people who ended up building great companies felt the same way at the beginning. So, think of this book like a support group you pay less than $20 to join. Finally, talking to other people about our ideas has been tremendously helpful. I've noticed a tendency among other people starting a start-up to try to keep their ideas under wraps. That's understandable in that it provides some level of protection against competition, but what can I say? The feedback and support we've gotten from talking to other people about what we're up to has been extremely valuable.

Floating point precision

2008-04-23T13:34:00.000-07:00

After banging my head on the wall for some time, I just realized the little twitching annoyance in our timeline was caused by miniscule floating point adjustments to the timeline extends we do at every frame. When the desired timeline position is almost the same as the current one, we make very small (similar to machine epsilon) which can sometimes cause one pixel jumps on the screen.

Now we know we need to watch these issues more closely.

First company blog

2008-04-21T12:26:00.000-07:00

Yaaay, we finally have our company blog up and running. The only thing left is to hook it up with the rest of our awesome web page.