[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi lasvideo,

In Illustrator, you want to create two circles – one for the disk and one for the hole. Select them both then use the compound path>make command.

You can’t create compound paths in Photoshop, but can get it to work by creating two circular paths and exporting the paths as an illustrator document. Then use the “import as layers” option in Invigorator. There is a thread on why this works in this forum Look for Invigorator newbie, started on December 13th.

Hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Jeff,

When it come to 3D, no one application can be all things to all people. Invigorator Pro AE and ProAnimator are absolutely the best in the world at the primary tasks for which they were designed. Nothing comes close to the speed, power and ease of use, when it comes to creating and animating 3D text, logos and the like. They’re definitely “pro” apps and getting better all the time.

At the same time, they’re not Maya or Lightwave and they’re not trying to be. I am a huge fan of Invigorator and use it a lot, but I also use Lightwave and Electric Image. To me, it’s important to have a variety of tools in my arsenal, to give me flexibility to choose the best tool for the job.

Having said that, Zax and his development team are very responsive when it comes to meeting the needs of users. Let them know what you would like to see for new features. If there’s a lot of demand for something, you can bet they’re working on it.

I hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Serge is right on about that.

One hint: Labeling the Illustrator layers is critical to keeping track of relatively complex objects in Invigorator.

Once you start doing this a lot, you start seeing objects around you as basic shapes that can be given depth, bevels and “Invigorated!”

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi John,

To find out, select the primative and click on the material set-up button above the main window. The number of available bins tells you the number of different materials you can apply.

In the case of a sphere, one material is all you can apply. A cylinder, 3. A cube, 6.

Interestingly, your options for applying materials to a cube created by using an imported Illustrator square will be different. You can use split the edges for texturing purposes with the imported version, but you can’t for a primative cube. On the flip side, it’s easier to apply different materials to all six sides using the primative cube.

Hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi jeffrey,

You may apply materials, but not object styles to imported objects. You may not apply more than one material to an imported object, like you can with native Invigorator objects. If you need to apply more than one material to your imported bject, the only way is to go back to lightwave and cut the object into pieces. Each piece can then have a different material.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi epikey,

What material have you applied to the imported object? Are you using a transparent material?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Same to you, Serge.

Great work as always.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Nice one Serge,

The detail you put into making the box is really great. Got a CD jewel case to go with it? 🙂

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Tobsson,

Textures do not automatically follow imported objects into Invigorator.

You may apply textures to some, but not all 3D objects you import into Invigorator. You do this by applying materials to the object, as you would any other Invigorator model. (materials are the way we describe a combination of surface attributes including color, specularity, image maps, bump maps, transparency maps, etc.). Unlike native Invigorator objects, there is a limit of one material per imported object… you would have to break down a complex imported model into separate parts to apply more than one material.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Tim,

The short answer is no.

A long time ago, I created a simple character with single-jointed extremities. As part of that, I used a null object to locate the pivot point for the arm relative to the body, but couldn’t find a way to have that null track the body object if the whole character moved. My solution was to leave the character in place but move the camera to give the appearance the entire character was moving.

You might need a general-purpose app like lightwave, electric image, etc, to give you the kind of linkage and IK you’re looking for. I’ve exported invig-created objects for that purpose before as well.

Hope this helps.

Jon