[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Wally and Matt,

Wally – the heading of your post said “write on.” I’m interpreting that to mean the text reveals slowly, starting with the first part of the first letter and going on to the end over time.

If this is what you’re talking about, there is a solution. It’s called layer cycling. I’ll caution you in advance, a fair amount of work will be required in Adobe Illustrator to set this up.

Essentially, you need to create an Illustrator document where each layer represents a frame in the animation. The first frame is the first chunk of the first letter… the last is the complete word. I would recommend converting your text to outlines, replicating the layer and using the pathfinder tools to gradually remove parts of the text, bit by bit and frame by frame.

When you’re done, you’ll essentially have created a flip book in Illustrator. Now, in Invigorator open that file as a layer cycling object. You can control the frame rate and other aspects.

Hope this is what you’re after.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Sney,

You’ve hit on something that strikes me as odd, too. You can render to orthographic when PA is running as a standalone but the behavior isn’t the same when you use PA as a plug-in for After Effects.

I’m not sure why, but I’ll noodle it for a while. I also suspect Zax or Matt will fill us in.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Keith,

PA can handle very detailed objects, but simple is generally better. 8 shape layers should be no problem – though there may be a more efficient way.

What do you mean it was not successful?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Brandt,

PA hides the math from us, but we can use logic to try to answer this question:

One factor you have to consider is that the object must get from pose A to pose B in the transition time you determine. As you’ve suggested, using the ease function affects the starting and stopping motion, but doing a lot of easing (slowing the motion on the ends) will by necessity speed up what happens in the middle of the transition.

One solution – spread out the poses to allow the move to take more time overall.

Another solution – shorten the length of the path between the poses. This will slow down the motion.

Another solution – reduce the easing in and out of the poses. Doing this may have some effect, depending on how much easing you’re doing.

All of this theory makes sense to me – how about you?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Peter,

Draft mode is meant for fast previews of the motion. Bigger numbers result in cruder shapes that render really quickly in preview mode.

As you’ve discovered, you can use a really small number in the “best” settings to get very smooth curves. If the curves still aren’t smooth enough, you can type in an even smaller number like .01.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi adeeb,

Try googling the words zaxwerks flag tutorial. You’ll find several on sites scattered across the net. There’s one on Toolfarm that uses flag to simulate a tee shirt hanging on a close line. It’s nice to see outside the box thinking! Flag isn’t just about flags.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Check this out from the Zaxwerks.com site support area:

Help Center

Which 3D file formats does your software support?
We support the following formats:
Maya OBJ
3D Studio
Lightwave 1 and 2
Cinema 4D
ElectricImage
DXF

Maya OBJ – Supports polygon surfaces, normals and UV texture mapping
coordinates. No colors.
3D Studio- Supports polygon surfaces and base colors. No mapping
coordinates.
Lightwave 1 and 2 – Supports polygon surfaces, normals, UV mapping
coordinates and base colors.
Cinema 4D – Supports polygon surfaces, normals, UV mapping
coordinates and base colors.
ElectricImage – Supports polygon surfaces, normals, UV mapping
coordinates and base colors.
DXF – Supports polygon surfaces and a close-match base color.

As you can see we can open 3D Studio files (not 3DS Max) which you can export out of Max. You can also get an export plug-in for Max that exports OBJ files and Lightwave files. Reflection maps can be
used on any object once inside the Invigorator, however in order for you to use texture maps on imported objects, the object needs UV texture mapping coordinates. 3DS does not support this type of
data, thus the need for the OBJ or LWO exporter.

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Keith,

When you use PA or IP inside of After Effects, you can tell either app to “use comp camera.” Doing this allows the objects you’re working on in PA or IP space to appear to be in After Effects 3D space. This option works well most of the time. Think of it like working in two parallel but linked universes.

You can export 3d objects from either PA or IP in a variety of formats which you can then import into Lightwave and many other 3D apps.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Keith,

Invigorator and ProAnimator share the ability to import objects from Lightwave and from other modelers. Their real differences are in how you control the motion of the objects and the fact that ProAnimator can work as a stand-alone.

You did not move too soon.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Geoff,

More information please – which application are you using? Are you warping the text in Illustrator? Are you positioning the text like an arch in ProAnimator or Invigorator?

Jon