[Edward Wu]

Hi Robert,

Sure, it’s definitely possible to have both shadows and reflections be on the same floor layer.

To do this, first create a material in the Material Editor panel that has both a Transparency value and a Ray Trace Reflectivity value set up. Create the floor and apply that material to the floor. Then, create the 3D Text and position the text so that it is sitting above the floor.

Next, create a Light Track. Select the light in the Object List and go to the Object Controls panel. In the Object Controls panel, enable the Shadow Casting control. After doing this, you will have a reflective floor surface and also see the shadow of the text on the floor surface.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi William,

If I am understanding your correctly, you are saying that after you set up your ProAnimator scene, then come back into the After Effects Comp, part of the scene is missing. If this is correct, then this means you have applied ProAnimator to a Solid Layer that is not Comp Size. ProAnimator should always be applied to a Solid Layer that is Comp Sized. If the Solid Layer is not Comp Size, then you will run into clipping issues where parts of the ProAnimator scene do not show up. To make the Solid Layer Comp Size, simply select the Solid Layer, then go to the Solid Settings window and click the “Make Comp Size” button.

Once you apply ProAnimator to a Solid that is Comp Size, your ProAnimator scene will fit perfectly with the After Effects Comp.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Jean,

No problem at all. I think I understand you.

Try switching your renderer in the Output Panel from the Invigorator Renderer to the Ray Trace Renderer and you should have no problems with the refraction. Hope this helps. If you are still running into any problems, please let me know.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Robert,

No problem at all. I’m working on a testing computer so the card that I am using is a ATI Radeon HD 5750. You do not need the top of the line video card to for fast previews within the 3D Preview window. It is a combination of the CPU, the amount of memory, the hard drive speed and the video card that speeds up the computer.

Just to let you know, one of the computers that we are working on is using an average graphics card, but with the combination of using a Solid State Hard Drive and a good amount of RAM, the program ends up running pretty fast. With extensive projects, sometimes the wireframe rendering will still appear, but is not a big deal since you can still see the look of the animation while in wireframe mode.

Hope this helps. If you have any additional questions, feel free to contact me.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Everyone,

For anybody who is having this issue, please send an email to me at ed@zaxwerks.com

We have a new version that may fix the issue for you. Thanks!

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Robert,

What you are seeing is the program switching between a full render to a wireframe render if the playback is below a certain FPS. By default, the program goes into wireframe if the playback is below 4 FPS. This happens so you can see how an animation plays back quickly. If you want to disable this feature, go into the ProAnimator Preferences and set the “Simple Drawing Below” to 0 FPS.

As for the Invigorator Renderer vs the Ray Trace renderer, this depends on what you need. The Ray Trace renderer generates the highest quality output, but is the slowest renderer and does not support wireframe rendering. For most cases, you should be able to use the Invigorator renderer, which is faster and still generate very high quality results.

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

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Gary,

Thanks a great idea. I don’t have a site to recommend, but you can always do a search for free texture maps. For some of the texture maps, it will list that it is legal to use and distribute, so it may be more of a case by case basis for distribution purposes.

If you are not distributing the image itself and distributing the rendered curtain instead, then it may be a lot easier legally to do this. Hope this helps. We’d love to see what you come up with in the end!

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Sorry, there was a typo in the previous post. I meant we were able to re-save the project file and re-sending the project file to the user, which fixed the issue.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Cliff,

I sincerely apologize as this thread is not displaying correctly on my computer so I was not able to see the responses in this thread nor did I receive any email notifications. It wasn’t until we received an email from Eugene recently that we were alerted that there multiple responses in this thread. Again, we are not trying to ignore the issue or especially our users who are running into frustrations with this issue.

I do agree that this forum is a public discussion and nothing should be hidden. We do help everyone resolve their problems on the forums even if it ends up being an email discussion. However, you do provide a good suggestion of updating the post with the end results. We will be sure to do a better job of updating all the threads so any user who is doing a search can find answers easier.

In regards to the issue with duplicating keyframes, we have been trying to tackle this issue now for a while but it has been a very tricky issue to track down. At this current time, we have not figured out what exactly is causing the issue except that there may be plug-in conflicts. One thing we were able to do recently was to re-save a project file that was having this problem and then re-sending the project file to the issue. This fixed the issue from re-occurring and hopefully it will fix some of the problems that you guys are running into. If possible, please send the project file to me and see if we re-save the project for you. This may help prevent the issue from occurring again in the project file that you are working in.

As soon as we have a fix, we will definitely let everyone know about this. Thanks for your patience regarding this issue.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Bill,

When working with 3D Reflector, you will need to check how the floor layer interacts with the camera. For example, if the floor is sitting flat, parallel to the direction the camera is facing, then you will not see much of a reflection because of the angle of the floor. However, if the floor or the camera is angled then you can see more of the floor and more of the reflection as well. Try rotating the floor layer in the X-axis and update the Reflector plug-in and this should help you set up the angle of the floor that you need.

If you are still having problems, please send the project file to me at ed@zaxwerks.com and I can take a look at your project file and see what you are running into.

Best,
Edward