[Jon Okerstrom]

If you’re asking about uploading to the COW, follow the link below to read about how to post images and movies to the forums. You’ll need to upload the content to your own server space and leave it there so long as you want people to have access to it. Then follow the instructions to create a hypertext link to those files within your posts.

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=37&page=https://www.creativecow.net/articles/lindeboom_kathlyn/whipped_cream/index.html

If you’re talking about building your own website with movies and images, that’s a much bigger topic.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

I would absolutely suggest ProAnimator for your situation.

It’s a standalone application, which can make movies with alpha channels for your AE 5.5 or any non-linear editor. It’s also an After Effects plug-in. Even if it’s not compatible with 5.5 (and I don’t know whether it is), it is compatible with AE 6.5 and 7, to which you’ll probably upgrade, one day, right?

You can download a demo from zaxwerks.com (click on the zaxwerks icon at the top of the page) and give it a try. I think you’ll be amazed how easy it is to get very cool, complex animations.

By the way, you should have Illustrator to make the most of ProAnimator or Invigorator. Photoshop’s export paths function will work in some situuations, but it’s not the best choice.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Andy,

Welcome to our 3D world. You can make kinds of changes to the lighting in the scene. You also have the option of using AE’s lights if you check the appropriate check box.

For starters, click the little red ball to get from the scene preview to the set-up window. Now notice the little sun icon. Click that to see the library of lighting presets. In the light editor, you can adjust the position, intensity and color of all of the lights in your scene.

When you’re satisfied, click Okay. Then, just below the scene preview window, click the little light/sun icon to apply your changes to your scene.

Hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Try trashing your preferences file and restarting AE.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Yes.

[Jon Okerstrom]

You can adjust the z of the objects (depth) beyond the slider. Just type in a bigger number.

You can also do the fade in a number of ways.. using overall transparency of the layer, layermapping a fade movie to the transparency channel, or by using the cascading transparency effect in ProAnimator 4.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Sassas,

A little more about your setup would be helpful. platform, ram, etc. Also, does it crash if you try to export models in formats other than zxo? Does ProAnimator crash when exporting ZXO as a plug-in AND as a standalone?

If it’s a regular, repeatable problem, I’d contact Zaxwerks tech support directly. It helps them to know exactlly what steps cause a crash as well as your specific system data.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Well, I haven’t seen the latest movie or any other Superman movie for quite a while…

However, if you’re talking about text along an arc with animated z depth, that’s really pretty easy for Invigorator. Be more specific about what you’re trying to achieve and we’ll try to help.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Larry,

A little more about your setup would be helpful. version of Invig, platform, ram, etc.

Generally speaking, check to see if you’re using the latest version. and latest video card drivers. Sometimes trashing preference files and relaunching resolves issues — I’m talking Mac here.

If it’s a regular, repeatable problem, I’d contact Zaxwerks tech support directly. It helps them to know exactlly what steps cause a crash as well as your specific system data.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

A quick follow-up…

For what it’s worth, I search Apple’s list of all Universal Binary apps… Zaxwerks isn’t on the list yet.

Jon