[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi global,

First, glad Matt mentioned the Open GL renderer difference with wireframe rendering. Open GL is very fast with the right video card, but it does have some limitations.

As for this question, sure. The fastest way might be to go to Illustrator and make a lot of squares in the pattern you like. Don’t group them. When you bring them all into Invigorator, you’ll get what looks like cubes by default.

With them all selected, turn off the visibility of the sides and rear faces. Now you have small planes, to which you can map pictures or movies or whatever. The only caveat is that the aspect ratio of the images should be the same as the aspect ratio for the squares.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi global,

Be sure you have the material that’s actually applied to the object in the same material editor thumbnail when you check the wireframe box. You can double check this by selecting the object and looking at the material set-up window for the object. The material you’ve applied to the object will be in the material bin(s).

I suspect you may be changing the rendering mode to wireframe for a material that’s in the thumbnail by default, rather than the one that’s applied to the object. If need be, drag the material over to the editor and click on the wireframe option.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi lemonauto,

Okay, great. I’m not certain whether there’s a way to automate or simplify the task of replacing the placeholder solids with solids of different sizes.

I’ll look into that. In the meantime, you may have to look at the size attributes of the placeholder and manually change the size of the layer you’re going to assign to it. Obviously, the aspect ratio (height – width) of the placeholder and the replacement layer need to be the same or you’ll get some distortion.

Hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

We’re talking about two different processes used for two different reasons.

I was describing how you can create an animation using the standalone version, save it as a scene, then use that complete animation and scene inside of after effects using the plug-in version. That process involves making the animation in ProAnimator standalone, launching AE, creating a comp-sized solid, applying ProAnimator effect, clicking on the ProAnimator logo in the effects panel to launch the ProAnimator app and opening the scene you saved from the standalone version.

I think you’re talking about the ability to import motion data for camera and objects from a ProAnimator project into After Effects. The process generates solid placeholders the size of the elements in ProAnimator and the appropriate keyframes. Normally, it’s LOTS of keyframes. You can replace those placeholder solids with other solids or precomps, which may or may not be the same size as the placeholder solid. It depends on the size of the replacement solids or precomps. This process is great for creating very smooth complex motion paths that would be difficult using the normal motion path tools for 3D layers inside of after effects.

Which is it you’re wanting to do… and does this explanation help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi lemonauto,

I’m not quite sure I understand. Let me try…

You’ve created an animation in ProAnimator, the standalone version.

You now want to use the plug-in to put the scene into After Effects but want to retain what you’ve done in the stand-alone.

What you need to do, in the standalone is to save the animation as a scene file. (exporting the 3D object is not the same as saving the scene file.)

In After Effects, apply the ProAnimator effect to a solid which you made the same size as the comp. Choose scene>create new scene. Now, in the effects control panel, click on the ProAnimator window to launch it and open the scene file you’ve previously saved.

That should do it. Right?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Danny,

Depending on the movement you want, you may be able to actually put the flag into the Invigorator 3D space.

The trick is mapping the flag animation to the front face of a plane that’s in the Invigorator scene. Turn off visibility of the side and rear faces because you don’t need them. Animate the position and orientation of the plane as if it’s the flag.

To get it to work, be sure to render the flag movie with an alpha channel. This will be important when you use layermapping to put the flag on the plane object. The flag movie should have the same aspect ratio as the plane.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Here’s a recipe from Zax in the forum archives,

It’s not exactly looping but will get you there.

Jon

..The 3D Flag plug-in is a completely physics-based cloth simulation, so you can’t set exact start/stop keyframes. However, wind in this simulation is very very smooth, it doesn’t suddenly dip or turn unless you tell it to. So if you set the wind speed to be constant the flag will fall into a rhythm. You can then render out a few seconds of the animation and find a decent looping point to do a crossfade and, viola!, you have a looping segment of video.

Here it is in steps. . .
1- Set up the flag.
2- Set the wind speed to 11.
3- Set Pre-roll to 8 (you want to make sure the flag is well into the simulation before you start to render)
4- Render out 10 seconds of animation.
5- Take the clip into an editing program.
6- Duplicate it and make the top layer partially transparent.
7- Slide the bottom copy back and forth in time, until you match up the wave patterns.
8- Set the transparency back to normal.
9- Do a short dissolve from one copy to the other at the match point. (“short” means something like half a second)
10- Render out the looping section of flag.

There you go!
-Zax

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Dante,

4.0.2 is the current version according to the downloads pull-down on the Zaxwerks site. Perhaps downloading and installling that will solve the issues.

I haven’t found PA to be buggy, for what it’s worth.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Any text in your Illustrator file needs to be converted to outlines. At that point, the text is just like any other part of the artwork. Invigorator likes filled solids best – and avoid effects like drop shadow, gradients and bit-mapped elements.

jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Any text in your Illustrator file needs to be converted to outlines. At that point, the text is just like any other part of the artwork. Invigorator likes filled solids best – and avoid effects like drop shadow, gradients and bit-mapped elements.

jon