A:M History

Much of the history was from the wikipedia page.

General Overview of changes since v13

Source

A:M v16 (and up) utilizes multi-cores using OpenML for Finding Normals and a few other functions (where it makes sense). Like that today you can handle more patches in a single model than before. It highly depends on your core-amount and the power of your system and yes you will still run into the problem somewhere. Best is to avoid that by assembling together multiple models in the chor. The new Snap-To-Surface-Feature in v17 maybe helpful there too.

There are many changes from v13 on. I am not totally sure what was in v13, but these are the bigger and "newer" features in A:M (not in chronological order):

• Speed improvements (especially from v15 to v16 but also for v17) for both Windows and Mac. (windows-computers seem to perform a little better so).
• Netrenderer now included with 4 cores for free and addtional cores that can be bought seperatly for a very reasonable price).
• IBL, Ambient Occlusion (with Transparency-Support) and FastAO (> Plugin, actually called "FakeAO" which is very fast, the newest one even can use the GPU-power, but even the CPU-version takes only a few seconds to render with)
• Fluid-Particles
• Hair-Shaders (additional to the standard-hair-system)
• HDRI-Rendering with Buffer-Output
• STL-Export (for example used by 3d-printers)
• MDD-Animation-Data-Export (to export vertexed-based animation). > for example to get animation-data to Modo)
• RenderPresets to share render-settings in an easy way.
• Selection-Filters for easier selection.
• SubSurfaceDisplacement (I am not sure if this is really new for v13 or if it was included there already).
• Bake Surface (> bake Surface-attributes to decals so they may render faster. Includes an AutoUnwrap-Algorithm which is best to be used with 3d-Painter)
• Newton Physics (I am not sure if this is really new for v13 or if it was included there already, but they have been improved in v15 if I am not wrong).
• 2008 rig, face rig, lightrig
• Snap-to-Surface (in A:M v17)
• A:M Answers (in A:M v17)
• UV-Editor-Improvements (in A:M v17)

V17

V17 (beta) changes

• Snap to Surface
• Animation:Master Answers
• SSE4 - For newer processors, which are compatible with SSE4, A:Ms rendering will be up to 15% faster.
• Create your own "Support"-page
• an indication-border if you have the Animate-Mode deactivated
• Hires Simulation

Version 16

Released: 2011

• 64-bit Version
• Netrenderer-integration with Multicore-support
• 3d connexion device support
• OBJ-MDD-Animation-Export
• overall performance-boost

Version 15

Released: 2008

• Liquids
• Baked Materials
• Hash Animation:Master Realtime (HA:MR) integration

Version 14

Released: 2007

• Ambient Occlusion (AO)
• Image-based Lighting (IBL)

Version 13

Released 2006

• Hair
• Rigid-body Dynamics
• File formats now XML based.

Version 12

Released 2005

• Cloth
• Layered Rendering into OpenEXR image format

Version 11

Released 2004

• SDK (enables 3rd party plug-ins)

Version 10

Released 2003

• Soft-body Dynamics
• Radiosity

Version 9

Released 2001

• Scripting
• Expressions

Version 5

Released 1997

• A major advance, removing the requirement in previous versions that characters be broken into parts and reassembled in the boning process
• Added numerous skeleton "constraints" which enabled the development of advanced character animation rigs.

Version 4

Relased 1996

• particle effects known as "blobbies".
• last version to use ".seg" as its primary model format.
• last version made available in a Unix port. Future versions would be available for Macintosh and Windows.

Version 3

Released 1994

• introduced full 3D inverse kinematics (IK).

Version 2

Released 1993

• released as Martin Hash's 3D Animation.
• The pro version was named Animation:Master.

Version 1

Released 1992

• marketed as "Will Vinton's Playmation" in conjunction with the Will Vinton Studio.
• The Mac version was released in 1993.

Animation: Journeyman

Released 1990

Animation: Apprentice

Released 1987