[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Amr,

From the Zaxwerks FAQ about mapping materials to imported objects:

“At this time, the Invigorator supports UV-style mapping. Projection-style mapping like Spherical, Cylindrical and Planar is not yet supported. If a model has UV texture coordinates in the model file then a texture map can be applied to these models. At this time the file formats that contain UV coordinates are: Lightwave v7, and OBJ. Remember, the UV coordinates have to be created in the host modeler first, then saved into the model file.”

Another thing you should know… you cannot split imported objects for texturing purposes, as you can do with native objects. If you need more than one texture, then break your imported object down into parts in the ap where you created it.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Hugh,

Invigorator does wrap materials differently on edges (inside and outside) than it applies them to front and rear faces.

For front and rear, it’s straight forward. Invig stretches the image (or in your case, layermap) to fit the face. If the aspect ratios of the image and the object are the same, there’s no distortion. If not, you’ll get some squeezing of stretching effect.

For edges, Invigorator applies materials as you would apply a ribbon around the object, starting with the lowest, leftest corner of the object. Think of the ribbon’s height as equal to the depth of the edge and the ribbon’s width equal to the distance around the object. In other words, it’s normally very short and very wide.

To avoid squeezing/stretching type distortion, I would suggest creating a precomp in the aspect ratio of the edge material, with the elements of your layermap inside. Using the ribbon analogy, you’ll see why parts of the image appear upside down. You can fix that by manipulating portions of the image in the precomp.

(Here’s an example: when mapping a cube with all sides being perfect squares, the “layermap ribbon” would be one unit tall by four units wide.) Your layermap should have the same aspect ratio… its precomp might be 480 pixels tall by (4×480 pixels) wide.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Thanks for the info.

We can eliminate amount of ram as an issue. Perhaps the other system attributes you listed will lead to the cause of the crashing and Matt might be able to help out. You might want to contact Zaxwerks directly to see if they’ve received any similar reports and have a solution for you.

I use Mac systems, so I’m not an expert in what appears to be a Windows OS issue.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Jay,

How about some clarification to your question…

If you mean you want to use comp lights and animate their position, that’s no problem. Just check the “use comp lights” feature, in the effects panel. Add one or more comp lights to your scene then animate the position, point of interest and other attributes for your lights. The changes you make will be seen on the Invigorator objects.

If you mean you want to animate visible light sources, that’s another matter. Tell us more about the look you’re going after and we may be able to help.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Glad to hear we’re making some progress.

As for the crashing, tell us as much about your configuration as you can… OS, version of AE, version of Invigorator, amount of RAM. Also, anything unusual about your font set-up?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Shirak,

When you save your Illustrator files be sure to save in Illustrator format, not eps. During the file-saving process, try unchecking the use compression checkbox and see if that works.

As for what’s in the Illustrator file, don’ t use bit-mapped objects, gradients or effects like drop shadow. Invigorator likes basic, filled shapes.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi ljCharlie,

Applying an image to an object is a pretty straightforward process.

Essentially, it involves using the material editor to create a material (a combination of surface attributes which may include highlight sharpness and brightness, color, image, transparency map, bump map, reflection map, etc.)

The quickest solution in your case is to choose one of the solid colored material balls in the library and drag or double click it so it ends up in the material editor. Then, double click the top thumbnail box and navigate to your earth image. The image should now appear on the material sphere. Drag that material sphere on top of the object to which you wish to apply the image.

The only catch is that not all imported objects support these mapping features. Regardless, it would likely be simpler in your case to either use a primative sphere or to create a sphere the “old fashioned way” (using a very small circle object from Illustrator and applying half pipe bevel.) Then apply the earth image map to that.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Jay,

Flag does include hypertext based help files as well as tutorial files. Look inside the 3D Flag AE folder inside your AE Plugins folder. You should find a folder called 3D Flag Help, which contains the documents I spoke about.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Did it this morning. Let me know if you didn’t get it. My address is in my profile.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Rich,

Are you talking about the scene preview window or the set-up window? Does it do this even if you save the project and reopen it? Anything more you can tell us about what’s happening?

Jon