[Sam Freeman]

From memory you used to be able to cycle through all the bezier tools using the ‘G’ key, but they changed that in CS6. I can’t imagine why they did it (unless they wanted to draw attention to the new variable feather tool) – as it really slows me down not having the shortcut. Is there a way to map your own shortcuts to alter this?

Maybe Todd will know more?

Cheers
Sam

[Sam Freeman]

I sometimes use the Preview panel, sometime use the keypad, and sometimes press space (although not all that often).

I’ll keep playing around and see if anything sorts it out. It’s no more than a minor annoyance.

I also sometimes find that when I RAM preview and head off to another program, when it finishes the segment I navigate back press the play button and it starts from scratch. Touch annoying!

[Sam Freeman]

Sorry Dave, should have been more specific. Apologies!

I’m doing a comic book layout with frames made in illustrator, (cont rasterise on) and then HD ProRes footage in the different frames. These are masked out using track mattes (solids). Then I animate around using a camera. There are lights but I turn them off until I render – same with motion blur etc. It’s nothing taxing really. Classic Renderer. I should note I work in quarter quality for the most part, when building (always have), and changing the resolution of the viewing makes no odds anway (as that’s absolutely fine for navigating around).

Also, it’s not the viewer that I can’t navigate around – that’s fine, it’s scrolling up and and down and left and right in the timeline that causes me issues. It just chugs down layer at a time when you try and scroll down. It’s fine when I use the scroll bars however… Just irritating when you’re in a hurry. I never had an issue with this in CS5 or 5.5, and it’s taken a few months of using CS6 (and the new tablet) for me to get annoyed enough to ask if other people experience it.

Thanks
Sam

iMac 3.4gHz i7
16gb Ram
CS6

[Sam Freeman]

Thanks guys for such complete answers and suggestions – I hope computers never get too fast otherwise we’ll loose Walters’ wisdom during his render breaks…

I’m off to do some more digging.

Thanks!

[Sam Freeman]

Thanks guys – that’s really useful information. That penring looks awesome – so simple, but effective.

I’m just doing a bit more research and there’s a lot of talk about the nibs wearing down really quickly – do you find this is a problem? Is there a way of protecting your tablet from scratching? Apparently replacement parts are more expensive over here in the UK…

Also, is it worth the extra cost for bluetooth (I know some people complain of a delay and drop out)…

Finally, am a foolish just narrowing my search to Wacom because I’ve heard of the brand?

[Sam Freeman]

Interesting! I’d imagine it would take a while to get used to…?

I also have a portable setup, so a small tablet might be more useful.

Thanks for the tip!

[Sam Freeman]

Try turning off the Global Cache and seeing if that helps – I’ve had all sorts of problems with the Global cache holding onto frames that don’t exist anymore. It’s great when it works, which is most of the time – but sometimes it fails. Also make sure you’re up to date in your CS6 version as I found some of the effects showed weirdness when I first installed CS6. An update helped hugely with this.

[Sam Freeman]

It sounds like your layers are too close together and are crossing. Try increasing the z-depth of your front and back layers.

If you’ve got motion blur on one layer but not the others that can also cause a problem as that layers mathematical position data will ‘blend’ (not sure on the right term) across a range of z-depth and interfere with your other layers.

Also, check your parenting is working right… It’s easy to move something, or not move something, by accident.

[Sam Freeman]

I’m pretty sure I’ve had this message (or something similar) when I’ve tried to Render to a drive that is no longer connected to the system. I’ve also had it when I’ve loaded an old project file that has a queue already set up, but the drive I’m set to render to has had it’s name changed. I would imagine that you would need to select an output module (destination) in the render queue…

[Sam Freeman]

Or sometimes I add a new keyframe (or copy and paste the one I want to alter) where I am – highlight both – then drag the value for both at the same time. Delete the new keyframe.

Sounds like it would take a lot of time, but it doesn’t really.