[Zax Dow]

Ouch! You’re twisting my arm!

Are you sure it wouldn’t bum you out to not have the addendum manual, or any of the new animation presets?

-Zax

[Zax Dow]

Hi everyone,

I’m sorry about the ruffled feathers all the way around.

First, let it be said that I CAN’T STAND BUGS! We don’t release one piece of software that we know has bugs. That being said, we don’t have 1000 computers to test on so bugs are going to crop up that we don’t know about. In order to find a bug we have to know about it, so never hesitate to write or call and we will go out of our way to get you up and running successfully. When you report a bug we are looking for patterns so make sure the bug happens more than once before you report it.

If you are having a problem please check our website’s Troubleshooting page. Problems dealing with the Out Of Memory Error and Illustrator files are all listed on that page.

John has had the Out Of Memory error happen due fonts so that’s going to be at the forefront of his mind. But that only happens after you try to open the Text Window or click on the Create 3D Text button. If you get the Out Of Memory error as soon as you add the effect then 99% of the time it is a driver problem. Drivers change every few weeks so they are very slippery fish. We try to keep up.

If you do get a Text Window crash then it’s probably a bad font. I’ll post a list of known bad fonts on the Troublshooting page but this is unfortunately a short list. People find their bad font and never tell us which one it is. The only way we can fix a bad font is to have the font sent to us. (Futura is a common culprit.)

If you are using the latest versions of our software you shouldn’t have any trouble with Illustrator files unless you are using Illustrator CS2. The Invigorator will open native Illustrator (.ai) files created in every version of Illustrator from 88 to CS, but CS2 broke Adobe’s own file format so you have to save it as Illustrator 10 or 8 to get a usable file. There is a whole chapter in the manual about prepping your Illustrator files and troubleshooting bad files. Once you know the basic steps you should have 100% success every time.

Hope this helps.
Zax

[Zax Dow]

Your investment is not gone. As a 3.0 Pro owner you qualify for the upgrade price to 4.0 which means you get 4.0 for $99 rather than having to repurchase it for $645.

You are correct that 3.0 won’t work in AE 6.5. Each time the host application changes, plug-ins have to change to keep in step. Sometimes the changes happen between versions, other times they happen right when a major upgrade is coming out.

-Zax

[Zax Dow]

Hi,

ProAnimator will become a plug-in sooner than you think.
We are in the middle of its development right now. Stay tuned!

The original Invigorator for After Effects (PRO and Classic) will still continue as plug-ins. The ProAnimator plug-in will simply be an alternative way to run ProAnimator 4.

-Zax

[Zax Dow]

Hi Doug,

This isn’t a particularly 3-D way of doing it, but here’s a technique which may work for you.

– Take the image that is to be the reflection and flip it vertically
– Then use the alpha of the ribbon as a track matte.
– If you need to distort the image so it follows the shape of the ribbon you can use AE’s Mesh Warp feature set to a low number of Rows and Columns (such as 1 x 3)
– Then blend a little of the image back onto the ribbon adjusting opacity to taste.

Zax

[Zax Dow]

Hey can you believe it! I aged 30 years in a day 😉

Maybe I should put on a long wig and glasses to fit the image better. ha.

-Z

[Zax Dow]

OK

I’ll see what I can do.

-Z

[Zax Dow]

Would you be interested in this functionality as a plug-in?

[Zax Dow]

Hi Denzel,

The ProAnimator is what you would need to get. The Invigorator plug-in for After Effects won’t work in Combustion. ProAnimator contains all the features of ProModeler so you won’t need that too, just ProAnimator.

ProAnimator will let you create beautiful 3D text and logo animations very quickly and very easily. Most people who use it don’t have any previous 3D experience. The ProAnimator will render movies or frame sequences which are then used in C4 just like any other movie file. The alpha channel is built into the movie so you get perfect composites with no matte lines or black halos.

I just got back from the Broadcast Design Association conference and I can’t tell you how many happy people we had coming up to the booth and telling us how happy they have been with the program.

Best,
Zax

[Zax Dow]

Adobe has once again, changed the file format with Illustrator CS 2. However, we’ve heard that saving it as Illustrator Legacy in version 10 works fine.

Like Matt says if that doesn’t work, send us the file and we’ll take a look.

Best,
Zax