John Dickinson
Forum Replies Created
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Yes it’s Proanimator running inside AE, and seeing that actually work is what blew me away. The following is a Zax quote from the AE List:
ProAnimator 4 is another one of those programs in the queue ready to go but waiting on the manual. It has lots of new features and will ship as a set of 2 plug-ins and a standalone, all in the same bundle.
One plug-in will import ProAnimator camera and object data into AE so you can match camera moves created in ProAnimator. It also enables you to use ProAnimator as a super-duper animation generator for AE layers. ProAnimator excels at creating animations where numbers of objects all do coordinated actions. Animations which take a lot of time and testing to make look right. So the import plug-in lets you create ProAnimator-style animations for your regular AE layers and images.
The second plug-in is the actual ProAnimator software running as a plug-in inside of AE. This will let you create those super-duper ProAnimator 3D title and logo animations while remaining inside of AE. Everything works the same as the regular ProAnimator standalone but it works inside of the standard AE Effect Controls.
The third software is the ProAnimator as a standalone.
The plug-in and the standalone can swap files so you can use the standalone to generate 3D elements for editing (and skip AE), or you can use the standalone to generate elements which will be brought into AE.
The best news is that all of this software will be sold as a bundle for the same price as the standalone version by itself. So you get more flexibility and more power for no addition price.
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
The release is imminent. I think Zax is just working on the manual. I have to say, when I saw it in action I was blown away!
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
I’ve though about this some more. Greg’s workaround of pasting an extra path the size of the document in AI is the best (and only) way to do this I have heard so far. It seems that when you paste a path as a mask it gets pasted so that it’s centre is the centre of the composition. To get it to paste in the position of the imported AI layer there would have to be some kind of translation of position information from Illustrator to AE and at the moment AE doesn’t account for a crop area set in AI when pasting paths. The best case would be if AE imported the paths by default like Combustion, so that all AI layers have their relevant mask by default.
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
Hi Chris,
I hate it when clients come to us and ask us to make print resolution versions of broadcast graphics -
This is basically the same as creating a “crop area” using the crop area command. The problem here is that pasted masks aren’t pasting in register with the Illustrator artwork using either of these methods.
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
Try using the Brush tool and the Scatter effect:
Select the Brush tool (Command B/Control B) and in the Paint palette choose the color you want and for Duration, choose Write-on.
2x click the layer you want to paint on to open the Layer window (you can only use the Brush tool in the Layer window).
Click and drag to create your stroke. This will create keyframes for the END property of the Brush.
Play this back and you’ll see your stroke drawing on. If you’re using a graphics table such as a Wacom you can use the pen pressure to change the size of your stroke as your draw it.
Apply EFFECT > STYLIZE > SCATTER and adjust the Scatter amount to taste. You may also like to apply some blur.JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
All of your suggestions are indeed very positive. Keep in mind also that many users, me included, work very busy full-time jobs and can’t always take the time to write long posts. Often it’s just a case of pointing someone in the right direction including searching in the years of archives here on the Cow to see if the question has been asked before. I’m certainly guilty of not following up the thread after helping someone with a file, I should do that more often. The person who was assisted should also consider doing a follow up. Unfortunately it’s not always possible. If you have a specific technical problem you can also email Zaxwerks directly for assistance.
Oh and by the way, I don’t work for Zaxwerks 🙂
best,
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
Believe it. There are other bugs with Illustrator and AE6.5. I especially like the one where any AI layers that have a gradient applied are cropped weirdly in AE when imported as Composition-Cropped Layers.
Glad you found a work-around.
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
When I have problems with compound paths I often resort to using the divide function in the Pathfinder but I don’t know if that’s going to help here. I’d really like to take a look at the AI file to see if I can fix it, then I’ll let you know what I did so you can do it yourself next time.
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au -
I assume you’re talking about Illustrator paths. I did a couple of tests and when I used crop marks in the AI file, imported it into AE, then copied and pasted the path, it was offset. When I removed the cropmarks, imported the AI file, then pasted the path, it was in perfect registration. Does this help?
JD
John Dickinson
Motionworks
http://www.motionworks.com.au