[Edward Wu]

Hi Gary,

I think we found the issue that may be causing the problem with fragmentation. On Windows, it appears that there is an issue where other Object Tracks below the Object Track that you have fragmentation applied to, may get corrupted. When this happens, this may cause the program to become unresponsive. As a workaround, if you place the Object Track you want to apply fragmentation at the very bottom (below all other Object Tracks), then you should have no problems.

As for the rendering issue, you mentioned that you get a crash if you use a higher antialiasing setting such as 3×3 + 1.5 or above. Does this mean you are able to render the project file with 3×3 without any problems?

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Michael,

My email is working now, so I was able to retrieve the project files that you sent. Thanks. Please see my reply to your email.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Bruce,

If you are trying to move the objects globally, go into the Set-Up window by clicking the little red ball button. Then you will be able to shift select all the objects/Sets and move the objects together.

However, if you are trying to move all the objects together in the Effect Controls panel, then you won’t be able to do this. This window will only allow one Set to be selected at a time.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Gary,

I’m sorry to hear that you are encountering these issues.

When you are rendering a frame or a movie, are you having rendering for all projects you are working with, or is it just the project you are currently working on? As for rendering a movie, I wonder if you may be running into an issue with the compressor you are working with. If possible, try rendering the animation as a Quicktime .mov and using the Animation compressor and see if you are still experiencing the same issues.

Also for the animation preset is the slowdown occurring with all animation presets, or is it just certain ones? Some animation presets contain Object Fragmentation, which may take longer to process. So if some animation presets are quick while others are slow, this may be because it is loading an animation with fragmentation.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Michael,

Sorry to hear about the problems you’re running into. Fragmentation takes a lot of processing, this is why it may take some time when making changes with fragmentation or selecting different fragmentation presets such as Swarm. With the Swarm preset, there are many pieces so it may take some time for the program to calculate the animation.

There are some settings that may help with the speed issue. The first thing you can try is to turn the 3D Preview panel display to Wireframe. By setting it to Wireframe, the program does not have to calculate all the texture maps of all the surfaces, etc. In addition, you can go into the ProAnimator Preferences window and turn off the “Use GL Shaders in Draft/Final Mode” settings. This will also speed up the preview time. Finally, lower the Object Smoothness Preview setting for all your objects and also turn off Shadow Casting if you have that option turned on. If you have a lot of objects, these settings can cause the program to slow down quite a bit during preview.

As for the other issues you mentioned, I will take a look into the Undo issue you mentioned regarding Object Tracks and also the issue regarding Object Smoothing. If possible, please send the project to me at ed@zaxwerks.com so I can take a look at your project setup and see if I can reproduce the issues you are encountering. Please keep in mind that our email system is currently experiencing some issues so I may not be able to respond to your email right away.

Thanks.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Bruce,

That’s correct. Once you open the Invigorator Set-Up window, you can move all of the objects at the same time even though the objects are located in different Sets.

Also, to confirm your second question, you can assign each letter to each Set and animate each letter individually.

Hope this helps. If you have any questions, please let me know.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Van,

Be sure you are using RGB colors and are not using gradient colors. If you are using a gradient color, you will have to either apply the gradient color as a texture map, which means first saving the color as a jpeg image and importing the image into Invigorator, or creating the gradient color in Invigorator instead.

Also, in Illustrator, be sure you are working with a fill color and remove the stroke. If you have a stroke on your object, this will cause the colors to not show up correctly.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Austin,

I don’t believe I have seen this before, but I’m wondering if it may be lighting that is a part of this. Would it be possible to send the project file to me? My email address is ed@zaxwerks.com.

If you need to render the project in the mean time, you can try using the 3×3 antialias setting, then applying a slight blur in After Effects as a workaround.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Austin,

I’m glad to hear that you were able to render the project quickly with the version 6 upgrade. Thanks for the update!

Right, we want our users who upgrade to be up and running as soon as possible so we changed our system with the temporary code.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Austin,

ProAnimator version 5.0.8 is not compatible with After Effects CS6, so that is why you are running into rendering issues.

Please use the download links below to download ProAnimator version 5.1.0. Please keep in mind that when working with version 5.1.0 and After Effects CS6, you will need to turn off the Disk Cache feature in After Effects in order for things to update properly.

ProAnimator Mac Version Download Link
https://zaxwerks.com/downloads/ProAnimator_5.1.0_mac.zip

ProAnimator Windows Version Download Link
https://zaxwerks.com/downloads/ProAnimator_5.1.0_win.zip

We have since also released ProAnimator 6. ProAnimator 6 is fully compatible with After Effects CS6. In addition, it offers many exciting new features such as our Ray Trace renderer for ray-trace reflective floors, shadows, and also refraction, which is used to create realistic glass, ice or water effects. In addition, we also offer fragmentation, which lets you slice and dice any object into hundreds of little pieces.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Best,
Edward