[Rich Leach]

Hi-
I hope that this post is not considered offensive by those of us who:
* are on a Mac
* are anxiously awaiting the CS5 version of ProAnimator
* need to continue to be productive in the 3D space until the ProAnimator upgrade comes out

I spent a lot of time struggling to make the 3D rotating cube effect work for me, and wanted to share a solution I found using an alternative 3D animation program, Kinemac. It actually takes animation on a cube face to the next level, you simply drag movie clips onto the faces and you’re animated. Very cool stuff.

https://www.cfsnap.com/index.cfm/blog/3d-software-and-effects/how-to-build-your-own-animated-3d-cube-using-kinemac-video-and-camera-animation/

It’s quick and easy to use and with what I know about the existing version of ProAnimator I really believe these 2 applications will compliment each other more than they’ll compete with each other.

I hope this helps someone!

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Hi-
… just wanted to update this thread as I needed a solution to this problem that I could implement for a client, and needed something a little more “ready”. I found an app called Kinemac (sorry, just for us Mac folks) and I even posted a simple demo of how to make this particular cube effect work.

https://www.cfsnap.com/index.cfm/blog/3d/how-to-build-your-own-animated-3d-cube-using-kinemac/

Make no mistake, I’m anxiously awaiting the ProAnimator/CS5 update for Mac, but while we’re all waiting, I hope you’ll find this alternative (which I’m hoping turns out to actually complement ProAnimator) useful.

Regards,

Rich Leach

[Rich Leach]

… would I be able to use video(s) instead of an image in this case? I’ve (finally) gotten the logos onto my cube faces and all works well; can I do the same but with video?

… and yes I would just go ahead and try it except that I’m not at my computer with Zaxwerks at the moment, however the thought of doing this is pretty exciting….

Thanks,

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Hi Edward-

Thanks so much for your detailed reply.

With your explanation I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, and I’ve gained a better understanding of how to use ProAnimator. I’m not sure I would have figured this out without your guidance so I appreciate your explanations. Clearly I have some time to spend with this app so I’ll keep you apprised of my progress. A few of the things you described weren’t fully intuitive for me so I’ll have to gain some more familiarity with the docs and hope they carry me through.

Again, I really appreciate your time and help.

Regards,

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Hi Edward-

I did what you said, and I grouped the sides and text together which seems to work. Then I made the rotation work as I expected, great! HOWEVER, when I attempt to delete the second pose farther down the timeline and set a new pose, the original value is applied, not the new one. What I mean is, I did what you said, then set the Y axis rotation to -40 and got the desired result. So I deleted the second pose, double clicked the timeline to create a new pose and then the grouping went away – the cube rotated and the text did not. Frustrated, I did a File>Revert. I tried your instructions again, but when I applied a Y axis value (this time of 270) the rotation only executed a -40. I even closed the entire program and reopened it, started again. I’m really not this dense! I opened your PDF document again and did a Find on “Revert” and it came back empty so I can’t say that the Revert operation functioned as expected or not as I can’t tell what the real behavior is expected to be.

One thing I did discover which seems to be a MAJOR usability flaw is that, and if I’m wrong please correct me, you can not simply select the pose in the timeline when applying a movement. You have to select all on the screen AND select the timeline pose. My expectation from using other apps is that you’d have one selected if you selected the other, but that isn’t the case, is it? Couple that with the 2 box modal screen issue, and the fact that this is not running as a plug-in inside of After Effect but instead as a standalone program, well, I have to admit I’m disappointed.

So, I just finished typing the above details and went back and tried your instructions again. I reopened ProAnimator and the rotation is back to not working again.

I’d be more than happy to provide you with a screen movie to show you what I’m doing, and possibly help with improving the documentation if your other users are as inept as I am in learning how to use the application. I don’t know if this is a good thing to admit here or not, but I write software for a living, and the behavior within Zaxwerks ProAnimator is NOT consistent. Let’s say for a moment that I’m completely mis-using it. Using the same actions to attempt to execute a simple animation yields different results on different attempts. This includes closing the application (not saving, of course) and reopening and trying again. Is there some kind of caching mechanism in place? And to rule out my own stupidity, is there a log file somewhere I can look at that tracks my actions or keystrokes?

I know I’ve covered a lot in this posting, and I’m fully invested in this program (I even bought MILG 1 but I don’t want to try any of those things if I can’t make a simple cube rotation with a grouping work) so I’d like to help solve my own problems with PA instead of dragging anyone else into it. Please let me know how you’d like me to proceed.

Thanks again for your help,

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Thanks Edward, I saw the File:Import menu and saw the available file types included some of the 3d programs out there and thought I’d try to get my ProAnimator file in there some other way…. back to the drawing board 😉

Regards,

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Edward-

Thanks again for the info.

I’ll send my file to you and I really appreciate you taking the time to look at it. Yesterday was a very long day as I spent the entire day working with the ProAnimator app and trying to learn it. Because it’s a different tool for a different paradigm progress came slowly….

Regards,

Rich

[Rich Leach]

Hi Edward-

Thanks for the updates, the next version of ProAnimator sounds awesome!

I think the reason I got confused was that the docs (the PDF) reference ProAnimator and ProModeler and if my memory serves me correctly, they seem to reference each product without a whole lot of clarification as to if each is independent or they’re a collective set. Perhaps by the mere inclusion of both products’ docs in the same PDF has lead me to this incorrect conclusion.

BTW, those docs are nicely written, I’ve had to deal with some real poor docs in other applications but yours are done nicely.

Thanks,

Rich