Animation?

[Andrew March]

Is there a demo version of the TG2 Animation Module. I don't want to shell out for upgrade if it turns out to be a turkey.

Thanks

Andrew

[Seth]

no there is not.

[Andrew March]

Hmm, not good!

[Hannes]

I think I have to reply to this.
Be aware that the animation module is far away from being matured. Sometimes creating a smooth animation that's a little bit more than flying the camera from A to B is really painful.

Nevertheless TG2 is so much more with animation (which is going to be improved some day. Hopefully ). I never thought updating was a mistake. NEVER!!!

It depends on what you are planning to do with it right now. If you want to do some serious camera animation work professionally, it's going to be tough at the moment without using 3ds max with Davy's plugin for example (importing the scene into max, animating the camera, reimporting the animated camera into TG) or any other 3D package that allows you to import TG scenes.
But for simple animations it works quite well and it's a great fun to do. Imagine your own favourite TG image. You just create a simple camera animation and it comes to life.
Not to forget that you can animate almost everything. There are endless possibilities.

[Seth]

Hmm, not good!

do you know a lot of professional software with demo version version without ugly watermark, and which the complete version price is 300 dollars ?
even if the animation mdule is still basic yet (and not for so long), it is really worthy.
you can animate pretty much everything from the terrain to the sun, the camera, the atmosphere, etc...
As Hannes said , upgrading to the complete with anim version was not a mistake to me.
and I use the animation possibility even for my still frames. (as motion blur, different pov choice, different lighting, etc...)

[Andrew March]

Seth, first of all TG2 is not the full finished, it is still a WIP and every 3D application I have ever used comes with a FULL and UNRESTRICTED demo version. I have been in the graphics industry for over fifteen years so please do not speak to me as if I am an idiot, if you have nothing but non-constructive comments please keep your remarks to yourself or take them somewhere else. Thank you.

[Hannes]

Hey Andrew, calm down. Seth only wanted to help with his constructive comment. If you know everything why do you ask? This is a very peaceful community. Everybody wants to help each other. No one needs to get loud here. You're quite new to this forum, so I suggest to keep your tone down.

[Seth]

sorry, I didn't want to be rude and I definitely didn't want to speak to you as if you were an idiot.  
I was just explaining the different ways I use the animation version.
And if you are in the industry for over fifteen years, you know a lot more than I do concerning softwares.
that said, concerning those trial versions you are talking about, Maya, 3DSMAX or Lightwave  for example have only 30 days trial versions, and Vue adds watermarks on renders.
anyway...
maybe some good professional TG2 users can answer in better ways than I did.

[rcallicotte]

Hi Andrew.  I too want to see this animation module mature and, knowing the developers, we will see some very useful progress in time.  I have faith Planetside is paying attention.  I, like Seth, think it was worth the purchase to have the animation module, seeing nothing like this has existed at such a good price.

Cheers to being cool with our community.  Seth is a good person to have in your corner.

That aside, welcome Andrew.  Hope you enjoy TG.

Seth, first of all TG2 is not the full finished, it is still a WIP and every 3D application I have ever used comes with a FULL and UNRESTRICTED demo version. I have been in the graphics industry for over fifteen years so please do not speak to me as if I am an idiot, if you have nothing but non-constructive comments please keep your remarks to yourself or take them somewhere else. Thank you.

[cyphyr]

Seth, you are a good professional TG2 user!

Richard

[Kadri]

Seth, you are a good professional TG2 user!

Richard

He is a humble guy 

[Dune]

Hurray for Seth!

[Seth]

lol guys

[bla bla 2]

+1

[Oshyan]

We do not offer animation functions in our free versions because they are not time-restricted and are intended not only as commercial demos but also to allow people to use them for personal use as long as they wish. We value the community this has helped build, where free and licensed users alike can use and enjoy the software.

If you do need to demo the animation features, we're happy to provide a time-limited key for you to do so. As others have said the animation controls are currently fairly limited but our next major release will be focusing on some significant improvements, including a full time line editor. The fundamental animation capabilities will not change significantly in that you can already animate almost anything and new animatable parameters are not necessarily being added (there's not much to add); what we are focusing on is much greater control and display of important information for creating and editing your animations. We'll also be adding some other tools that will help make animating more pleasant and functional for working together with other apps.

Here's a little teaser of what we're working on...
http://twitpic.com/6zgeg0
Note: the UI is still likely to change, so what's shown in that image is of course not final.

- Oshyan