[Edward Wu]

Hi Ken,

If you’re looping the playback in ProAnimator, make sure the red ending marker is right at the end of your timeline. If you leave space between the last pose and the red time marker, there will be a gap between the loop.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

No problem. Glad to be of help!

[Edward Wu]

Hi David,

To pull do this, you will have to use custom edges to get the look you wanted. First, you will need to go into the “Documents (Mac) / My Documents (Win) > Zaxwerks > 3D Invigorator > Custom Edges” and open the Edge Examples.ai file. In the Edge Examples file, draw a curve in a new layer. Name the layer “M&M”.

The curve should look similar to the example picture below:

Once you completed drawing the custom edge, save the Illustrator file, and create a new Illustrator file.

In the new Illustrator file, draw a tiny circle (which we will use to apply the custom edge on), and save the file “tiny circle.ai” without compression.

Next, open ProAnimator, and use the “Open Illustrator File” command to open the “tiny circle.ai” file. Then, in the Object tab to the right, select the bevel “M&M”, and you will be able to get the M&M shape. To make the shape smooth, turn the Object Faceting settings to to “0.05” or “0.01”.

After you adjusted all the settings, you should be able to get the M&M shapes shown below:

If you need more information on Custom Edges, please visit our Goodies page provided below:
https://zaxwerks.com/goodies/custom_edges.shtml

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Ed,

When going through the tutorial, be careful to not apply Hidden Line texture to the entire model. The front face of the text is created with Hidden Line while the sides are created with Wireframe. If you use Hidden Line for the entire model, you will only be able to see one character at a time because the models are not “see through”. If you model the characters with wireframe, you will be able to see through the model and see the wireframe of all the other models.

Once you got the materials set up, the animation should look just as good as the one done in 3D Invigorator.

Hope this helps.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Jay,

Both the plug-in for After Effects and the standalone of ProAnimator is at version 4.5.1. This is the latest release and the product is still being supported.

Are you running into issues with the program?

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Angela,

Thanks for the update. Good to hear you were able to work around the issue for that bad character.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Jennifer,

Assuming you are using 3D Invigorator Pro, you can set up the door pivot by creating the same door twice, and lay them side by side. Make sure the doors are in the same set, and when the program calculates the center point of the set, the pivot point will be at the center of the 2 doors and basically be at the “hinge” location. If you need to, choose the “Recenter Pivot” command in the “Set” pulldown menu located in the AE Effect Controls panel. Then, you can go back into the 3D Invigorator interface and make one of the doors invisible, or delete it from the set.

When you rotate the door, the pivot point should be at the door hinge.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Chris,

Since you didn’t mention which product you are using, I am assuming you are using 3D Invigorator Pro. By default, there is a draw distance of 10,000 units. However, there are steps you can take to increase the draw distance of your objects to 30,000 units instead.

If you are using the 3D Invigorator camera, here are some steps that you can work with to get the draw distance to be 30,000 units instead of 10,000 units.

Go into the 3D Invigorator Setup window (by clicking the little red ball) and save your scene. To save your scene, use the “Cmd + s (Mac) / Ctrl + s (Win)” command, and name the scene. If the scene doesn’t save with an extension, then add “.zxp” to the end of the project file.

Next, open the saved scene with a text editor tool. In the text editor, use the find tool, and search for “clip”. You should be able to find the following information below:
_____________________________

begin CameraX

name “dflt_cam”

…………. (I omitted the other data in here)

clip 0.100000 10000.000000 <--- change this value to 30000 _____________________________ After you make the change to the "clip" value, save the .zxp project file again, and go back into After Effects project. Go into the 3D Invigorator setup window and use the "Cmd + o (Mac) / Ctrl + o (Win)" command to open the scene. Select the Zaxwerks project you saved and open up the scene. After opening the scene, press OK to go into the After Effects Interface, and you should be able to adjust the Camera Distance value to 30000 before the Invigorator objects are clipped. You may need to use the "Update Camera" button to have this updated. Best, Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Angela,

Since you mentioned that you changed the Object Faceting settings, let’s try changing those settings a bit. Try setting both the Preview and Final Object Faceting value to “0.1”. This will make the edges of your Objects the smoothest. After you set both Object Faceting values to “0.1”, check in the 3D Invigorator interface and see if the “O” is smooth around all edges. If there is still that little edge, it might mean that the path of the character was not built properly, which is what is causing that little edge. If that’s the case, you can try going into Illustrator, and using the same font. Then, use the “Create Outlines” command, and fix the path. After the path has been fixed, you can use the “Open Illustrator File” command in 3D Invigorator to import the type back into the program.

Best,
Edward

[Edward Wu]

Hi Jennifer,

One way you can do this is to import the movie into After Effects, and then Pre-compose the movie layer. Then, in the Pre-comp, rotate the movie. When you use the Pre-comp as the layer map, the movie should be rotated.

Best,
Edward