[Edward Wu]

Hi Kevin,

Please send me the Motion project and I will help you remove the texture map you are using so you can open your project,

My e-mail address is ed@zaxwerks.com

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Susan,

By default, new objects that are created are placed into Set 1. However, you can assign objects to different Sets by going into Object Mode, and going into the “Set” drop down menu. The objects that you’ve selected will be assigned to the Set number that you selected in the drop down menu.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Rod,

No, you won’t need an additional 3rd party program. The ProAnimator Standalone application will allow you to render out movie files with an alpha channel. Just click the “Render Movie” button, and select the format and compressor. You can then import the movie file into Premiere Pro.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Rod,

if you want to transfer your animation into Premiere Pro, you will need to first render out the animation as a Quicktime movie or an AVI, then import the movie into Premiere Pro. Since ProAnimator doesn’t work as a plug-in within After Effects, you won’t be able to load the ProAnimator scene directly into Premiere.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Scott,

I was trying to create the form for you, and while I couldn’t create the exact shape just yet, you can try what I did to get a similar shape.

Create a long shape:
Shape Controls:
Left Edge: 100
Right Edge: 200
Top Edge: 300
Bottom Edge:500

Then, apply the following 3 Warps:
Warp 1: Twist One Side (Y-Axis)
Warp Amount: 80
Y Warp Center: -380
Warp Rotation: 25

Warp 2: Twist One Side (X-Axis)
Warp Amount: -50
Y- Warp Center: -10

Warp 3: Bend One Side (X-Axis)
Warp Amount: 45
Warp Rotation: -30

I didn’t have a chance to invest a lot of time into this, so like I mentioned, it’s not the exact shape that you have in your picture. However, it does have the bend towards the bottom that you have in your picture. You might be able to tweak this and get the shape that you’re looking for.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Kevin,

You shouldn’t need to avoid using texture maps. That dialog box usually only comes up when you create a material with a texture map applied, then move the texture map on your system. So, unless you change the location of your texture maps, you won’t have to worry about the dialog box.

The ProAnimator folder I mentioned contains all the animation presets, material swatches, and object styles. By deleting it, the program resets back to the factory defaults. If you need to back out any swatches, move the ProAnimator folder to a different location instead of deleting the folder.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Kevin,

This means that ProAnimator is unable to locate an image file that you’ve applied as a texture map.

To fix this, you can try re-linking the texture map image. Or, if that isn’t possible, try resetting all your swatches by going to the “Documents > Zaxwerks” folder, and deleting the “ProAnimator” folder. This will reset all your swatches, and rebuild them the next time you open up ProAnimator.

Once the swatches have been rebuilt, you will not get the error message to re-link your texture map.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Mark,

The surface color transparency is controlled by the Transparency setting. If you adjust the transparency, your material will become transparent. However, if you have a Transparency map applied, the transparency will only be applied to the areas that are non-white on your transparency map. This means that areas that are white will still be opaque while gray/black areas will become transparent.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Mark,

I’m not quite sure what you meant by a transparent default color. Can you elaborate a little more on that?

In general, if you want a material swatch to be transparent, you can adjust the “Transparency” setting, and your material will become transparent. If you’re working with a layer map, it can be a pre-comp where you animate the alpha channel. Then the transparency area for your object can move to introduce different areas like you mentioned.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Thomas,

Since you’re running into a permissions issue, try right clicking on the Folder, and going into the Properties menu. In the Properties menu, you should be able to change the permissions so that you can access the files.

Best,
Edward