[Kurt Muller]

Sorry, Alan, I guess I should have mentioned that! Oops!

The reason I don’t import the movie on my PC is that it doesn’t have a video capture card. I use my eMac for movies. But it’s pretty old now, and can’t take any more upgrades.

That’s why I’m getting a new PC with masses of RAM and a fast video capture card and huge graphics card and all the rest of it.

Thanks to PI, I’ve finally got an excuse to give to my wife when she asks, “You’re not buying another computer are you??!!” I just show her a couple of PI emitters and she’s sold! Haha!

[Kurt Muller]

If you think it’s a driver, Alan, what I might do is just wait until I take delivery of my new computer, (this week, hopefully), and it should have the latest drivers, (not to mention a ton of other good stuff that PI will like!)

Thanks.

Cheers,
Kurt

[Kurt Muller]

Yes, okay, I’ll do that, Theo.

As I said to Alan, I already tried exporting it as a Quicktime in the Mac, but when I tried to play it on the PC, Quicktime didn’t recognise it. Weird. I thought it might be something to do with the different OSs, but it’s probably not that.

I’ll give it another go.

Thanks, Theo.

Kurt.

[Kurt Muller]

Oh, dang! Sorry, I tend to skip over the first few paragraphs of any manuals I read. Bad habit, I know. Got it now.

By the way, I’ve used Record position and dragged emitters around, and got some great results. I’ve found I can get a fluid, realistic motion and make flying emitters look like they’re reacting to real gravity and momentum, just be “acting” with my hand. Fantastic fun.

The kind of thing traditional animators did by drawing extra frames and studying moving objects in the real world.

Amazing software, guys!

[Kurt Muller]

Actually, Alan, I did try saving it as a Quicktime file in the eMac. But QuickTime in Windows said that the file was in a format that Quicktime didn’t understand. Strange.

The sequence that I saved in tga did show up with the correct .tga extension. I know sometimes Macs will not show extensions, with the result that other apps can’t read them. But this time the extension was added. I thought mayeb it had something to do with the differences between Macs and PCs.

Alan, if you’ve got a second, may I take this opportunity to ask if you got my email about getting additional activations for my copy of SE? Reason I’m asking is that I’ve decided to get that new computer this week instead of next year, (want the best box I can get right now, since I got PI), and I want to make sure I’ve got spare activations available in case the new comp needs to be reloaded or sent back for whatever reason. Ny email explains what I did wrong the first time. All my fault, but I hope you can help me out. Keeping my finger over the Panic Button, I know.:)

Thanks,
Kurt.

[Kurt Muller]

I’m trying to load it as background, Theo.

Kurt

[Kurt Muller]

Christopher, it sounds like you’re in the same situation as me. I use one of my computers for the Net, and another for all my graphics programs, (and never the twain shall meet). Obviously you have access to at least one computer that’s connected to the Net, otherwise you wouldn’t have been able to get PI in the first place.

You can download the emitters from here and save them to a portable drive, such as a flash card, or even burn them to a CD. Then you can take that drive, connect it to the other computer, and load the libraries into the computer that has PI on it. Install the libraries into the libraries folder and you’re done!

I’m almost certain you’ll find a “flames” emitter that will serve your purpose. Don’t forget, you can have several emitters going at the same time, overlapping to get pretty much any effect you want.

Kurt.

[Kurt Muller]

Christopher, if you’re talking about SE, I’m pretty sure a manual is included in the download demo. I’m a newbie myself, and I can’t recall whether the manual came with the demo, or with the activated version. I was too preoccupied “playing” with the new toy to notice!

If not, there are plenty of tutorials here.

https://www.wondertouch.com/quickstart.asp

The demo version comes with a default library of emitters, one of which is called “flames”. It may be a bit intense for a fireplace, but it’s easy to adjust all the settings for any emitter.

[Kurt Muller]

Theo, I have to admit I’m a moron when it comes to things like codecs etc.. Got a vague idea of what they’re used for, but I’m not familiar with the various differences between them.

That said, I’ve since read another post here where someone was having a similar problem, and the Lagarith codec was recommended. So, I’ve downloaded it and will install it in the computer and see what happens.

And I just now found a site that explains all about them for dummies like me. Apparently, the codec one uses makes all the difference, (as you no doubt were going to say!) 🙂

Thanks for your response. Let me try the Lagarith and I’ll see if it fixes the problem.

Cheers,
Kurt.

[Kurt Muller]

Thanks very much for that, Jack.

That clinches it! I’m in!! 🙂

Cheers, and thanks a lot.
Kurt.