PROGRESS REPORT Q2 2020

I’ve been making good progress during past 2 months but unfortunately, ACS3 is not ready for Early Access release yet. The story is the usual one with software development - it appeared to be more work then I anticipated and I simply need more time. I still have to rework parts of the underlying architecture to accomodate for the features that I designed and this is breaking compatibility constantly.

I’m setting new Early Access release window as Q4. I will have to set ACS3 development aside for a few weeks during July since my art project Dog of Zone was accepted to SIGGRAPH 2020 Art Gallery program and I will have to prepare for that. And then there are holidays as well… which I do need after year and half of continuous work on ACS3.

On a more positive note two blocks in the Road Map moved forward as I finally started working on the proper rigging assets. Some other features were worked on as well (seamless IK/FK workflow is almost there) but they need a bit more effort before I consider them implemented - so they stay at WIP stage for now.

Going back to rigging assets - the all new spine setup seems to be promising and looks good enough that I decided to record a short video about it and share now - see below. The spine/torso module takes full advantage of procedural capabilities of ACS3 framework and as result of this you can change the number of vertebra in the spine on the fly as well as choose between vertical (bipeds) and horizontal (quadrupeds) alignment.

Oh, and now I can also say that ACS3 will require MODO 14.1 to run. There are fantastic improvements to IK solver in this latest release that ACS3 is taking full advantage of, especially the FK->IK matching .