[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Keith.

Yes you can. The answer is layer mapping. Build an Illustrator document where each layer represents a frame of the animation… create a line that represents the edge of the ribbon… use the tween tool or manually create different versions, like stop-motion animation.

In PA, extrude the line to give the ribbon thickness.

Doe this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Serge, you rock!

Love the grunge textures. This weapon’s been the battle!

One observation – what would you do to give the blade a more pronounced bevel, like the example image?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi brngthepain,

Be sure your output settings use a codec that supports an alpha channel. Animation with Millions+ is the most common because it doesn’t cause any compression artifacts.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

You’re talking about Invigorator, of course.

Click the red ball below the scene preview window. That brings up the set-up window. How, select one of the objects – either using a tool or by choosing it in the object menu. Look for a small numerical pop-up next to the object selector. Those numbers represent sets. Once you’ve assigned each object to the appropriate set, close the set-up window.

Then, look for the set selection popup below the scene preview window. Choose a given set and animate it. Do the same for the other sets.

I know this is very short and very fast, but does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi PRgraphist,

Yes it’s possible. As you’ve discovered, PA maps the entire image or movie across the front face of the puzzle piece. So, you need to crop the main movie to reveal only the relevant parts for each piece.

The easiest way is to use ProAnimator as an AE plug-in. Then, put the full-sized movie into five smaller precomps. Each one the proper size for one of the puzzle pieces. The smaller precomps essentially crop the movie for you, but give you flexibility to move the movie around to properly position it.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Matt, it may not be a bug at all…

It could be that the map edges aren’t made mirror eachother. I’ve seem some tutorials on how to achieve seamless tiling using Photoshop. A quick search of the forums could yield the answer.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Glad you figured it out. I sent an example project to you with PA rather than Invigorator.

Some general tips: It’s important that you set up both PA layers on the front view, then click the use comp camera option. Otherwise, it’s just too hard to keep track of what’s happening. Also be very aware of keeping the movement of the layers from intersecting. The simplest way is to keep the movement in the one half of 3D space.. above the zero line for the normal layer and below it for the reflection layer.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

HI dinamaria,

The glass materials are great, but they only go so far. Create your own reflection map based on colors from your scene. You can also fake refraction (bending of light rays as they move through the glass) by applying a mask and some distortion to the layer that’s visible behind the glass object.

You can also add a variety of effects to get sparkles, glints and glows.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Click the Zaxwerks icon at the top of the page to go to the company website, which includes all kinds of goodies and support information.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Dotan,

Assuming there is a compatibility issue between the kind of file format the font is in, one way is to use Illustrator to convert the text to outlines. Another way would to convert the font to a more traditional format, using a font creation tool like Fontographer something more recent.

You might also want to send the font to Zaxwerks so they can see what makes it incompatable and perhaps build a fix into the nexx revision.

Jon