Zaxwerks PROANIMATOR TUTORIALS

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials 1

Zaxwerks Inc.
5724 Camellia Ave.
Temple City, CA 91780
[phone] phone
[phone] fax
http://www.zaxwerks.com

Sales: [e-mail]
Tech Support: [e-mail]

© 1996 - 2003 Zaxwerks Inc. All rights reserved.

This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used or copied
in accordance with the terms of such license. The information in this manual is furnished for informational use
only, is subject to change without notice, and does not represent product specifications or commitment on the
part of Zaxwerks. Zaxwerks assumes no responsibility or liability for any error or inaccuracies that may appear
in this document.

The Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator is a trademark of Zaxwerks Inc. After Effects, Illustrator and Photoshop are trade­marks of Adobe Systems Inc. FreeHand is a trademark of Macromedia Inc. Apple and Macintosh are regis­tered trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are registered trademarks of
Microsoft, Inc. OpenGL is a trademark of Silicon Graphics Inc. All other product names or trademarks are the
property of their respective owners.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials2

Table of Contents

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

BASIC CONCEPTS

Modeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Surface Set-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Scene Set-Up & Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

ANIMATION TUTORIALS

ProAnimator Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Creating An Animation in Five Clicks . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Changing The Text In An Animation . . . . . . . . . 20

Changing The Speed Of An Animation . . . . . . . 21

Changing The Camera’s View

Of The Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Rendering An Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Rendering A Single Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .24

Saving A Single Frame Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Rendering The Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Changing The Timing And Speed

Of An Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

What is A Pose? What Is A Transition? . . . . . . 28

Creating A New Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Creating The 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

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Adding An Animation Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Changing The Track Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Moving Splice Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Adding More Hold Time To

The Beginning Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Changing The Position Of A Segment

Without Changing Its Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Slowing Down The Motion Of A Transition . . . 33
Resetting An Animation Back

To A Saved Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Increasing The Length Of

An Entire Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Setting The Loop Points For

The Work Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

Shortening The Length Of

An Entire Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Selecting Segments That Are

Difficult To Click On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Changing Object Motion During Transitions . . . . . . 39

Changing The Curve Of A Motion Path . . . . . . . 40

Changing The Direction Of

The Arch In The Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Controlling When Objects Start To Move . . . . . 42

Controlling The Order Of Objects

As They Cascade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Adding Start Ease And End Ease

For A Professional Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

Changing The Positions Of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48

Moving Objects To New Positions . . . . . . . . . . . 49

Spreading Objects Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51

Bunching Objects To A Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

Making Objects Spin As They Move . . . . . . . . . 53

Randomizing Object Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

Shuffling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

MODELING, SURFACING, & LIGHTING

Basic Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Creating And Working With 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Applying Object Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Changing The Depth Of An Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Coloring Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Coloring Objects: Method 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

Coloring Objects: Method 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68

Coloring Objects: Method 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Editing 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

How To Set The Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Using Lighting Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

How To Set The Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Saving A View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Think Like A Photographer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79

How To Render An Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

How To Get The Background To Drop Out . . . . . . . 81

Advanced Tutorials

How To Create a 3D Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

How To Make Objects Invisible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

Moving 3D Objects - Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86

How To Reset 3D Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88

Moving 3D Objects - Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89

Camera Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

Camera Shortcuts Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94

Adjusting The Thickness of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

How To Apply An Edge Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98

How To Apply A Single Material To An Object . . . 101
How To Add A Second Material To An Object . . . 103
How To Split A Profile To Fine Tune

Material Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

How To Create An Object Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

Coloring The Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

How To Make Lights Cast Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . 110

How To Move Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112

How To Save A Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Additional Tipes When Working With

Illustrator Files . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials4

Installation Instructions

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System Requirements

System Requirements - MACINTOSH

- G3 Power Mac (G4 recommended)

- Mac OS 9.1, 10.1 or 10.2.6.

- Apple’s OpenGL system extension

- QuickTime 5 or 6.1

- Color monitor capable of displaying at least
1024 x 768 in Millions of colors

- 128 MB RAM, (256 MB recommended)

- 100MB unused hard-disk space

- CD ROM drive

Software specifications subject to change without notice. Software used under license.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Refer to the Zaxwerks End User License for more information.

System Requirements - WINDOWS

- Intel Pentium III or 4 processor

- Windows 2000 or Windows XP Pro or Home Edition

- OpenGL system .dll file

- QuickTime 5 or 6.1

- Color monitor capable of displaying at least
1024 x 768 in True color

- 128 MB RAM (256 MB recommended)

- 100MB unused hard-disk space

- CD ROM drive

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Installing the Software

The Invigorator does not use an automatic installer. You only
need to do one step to install the software.

If you are installing from a CD...

1- Find the ProAnimator (or ProModeler) folder on the CD and
drag it into the Applications folder on your main hard drive.

If you are installing from a downloaded file...

1- Unstuff or Unzip the download, then drag the ProAnimator
(or ProModeler) folder into the Applications folder on your
main hard drive.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!
The ProAnimator/ProModeler folder contains many files
and folders. DO NOT touch the contents of the main folder.
Drag ONLY the ProAnimator/ProModeler folder to the
Applications folder and all these other files and folders will
be moved to the Applications folder too.

You are now ready to launch the program and create your first
Invigorator project. Open the Applications folder, then open the
ProAnimator or ProModeler folder, and double click on the
program icon.

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Fill in all fields then click the OK button.

Entering An Authorization Code For The First Time

The first time you launch the software it will ask you to enter
some information. Type your Name and Organization, and type
the Authorization Code exactly as it was given to you. Then press
the OK button.

A Temporary Code looks like this: A1234-B1234. A Permanent
Code looks like this: IPMS30-A1234-B1234-C1234 A Temporary
Code lasts for 30 days to give you time to contact Zaxwerks and
register the software. Once registered, Zaxwerks will give you a
permanent authorization code. (See the next section for infor-

mation on how to enter a permanent code.)

If you already have a Permanent Code there is no need to enter
the Temporary Code first. Type the Permanent Code when you
see the Authorization window and you’ll be ready to go.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP !
On some Windows systems you may have trouble typing
into the Authorization Window. If this is the case, open a
program such as NotePad and type the information there.
Then copy and paste the information, one line at a time,
into the Authorization window.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials8

Demo Mode

If you don’t have either a Temporary or a Permanent Authoriza­tion Code you can run the program in Demo Mode by clicking the
DEMO button at the bottom of the authorization window. Demo
mode adds a watermark to the renderings and also limits the
program in some ways, but other than that most everything
works. Demo mode lets you get an idea of how the program runs
so you can see how fast and easy it is.

Entering A Permanent Authorization Code

(If this is the first time you have run the software see the
previous section titled: Entering An Authorization Code For
The First Time.)

If you have been running the software using a Temporary Authori­zation Code, double click on the program icon to launch it. You
will see a message window saying how many days you have left
to run the program. At the bottom of this message window will
be a “Register” button. Click the “Register” button then enter
your Permanent Authorization Code.

A Permanent Code looks like this: IPAS30-A1234-B1234-C1234

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How To Get A Permanent Authorization Code

A Permanent Authorization code is sent to you directly from
Zaxwerks. Contact Zaxwerks in one of the following ways:

Register by email: [e-mail]
Register online: www.zaxwerks.com/Register_English.html
Register by phone: [phone]

You will be asked for your Temporary Authorization Code and
your contact information so you can receive notices about bug
fixes and updates.

Click this link on the Zaxwerks Home page to

get to the registration page.

If you bought the program directly from Zaxwerks you will have
received a green Invoice/Receipt with the Permanent codes
printed on stickers at the bottom.

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Basic Concepts

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Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials12

BASIC CONCEPTS

The Invigorator creates its own models and images. It does not
process existing footage to give it a “3D effect”. You create
models that have depth and size, arrange them in space, and then
take pictures of them.

The Invigorator is a true 3D program, but it has differences that
make it unique from any other 3D program. There is a tremen­dous amount of technology and workflow design packed into this
program, in order to make it easier to learn and faster to use.

If you are new to creating 3D graphics here is a short overview of
the steps involved:

Modeling

The Invigorator creates models out of Adobe Illustrator files and
fonts installed on your computer. Models can be modified using
the controls in the Object Tab. A selection of over 100 preset
edge profiles come built into the program or you can make your
own. You can also import models created in other programs.

DEFINITIONS

Modeling

The creation of the objects and adjustment of
their shape.

Surface Set-Up

The paint job that is applied to the surface of
the objects. Often called “Surfacing”.

Scene Set-Up

The positioning of the objects and lights within
the 3D scene and the positioning of the
camera which views the scene and takes the
picture.

Animation

Moving the objects or camera over time.

Rendering

Creation of the final 3D image or movie.
“Taking the picture”.

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Surface Set-Up

Animation

The Invigorator has a completely unique way of handling
surfaces. Up to six different materials can be applied to
each object and those materials can be used in a variety of
ways. Once you try it you will see how the Invigorator has
finally given artists the tools to create a new generation of
3D title and logo graphics. Graphics like you have never
seen before.

Scene Set-Up And Lighting

Setting up a 3D scene has been streamlined to make it
easier for 2D graphic artists to make the jump to 3D. A
scene can have as many objects as you need and objects or
groups of objects can be rotated and positioned indepen­dently. Up to six lights can be used, and once you get your
lights perfect they can be saved and reused in future
projects.

Object manipulation within the 3D scene is done in a way
that’s completely new. Single and multiple objects can be
manipulated with speed and fluidity. There are a full
compliment of short cut keys. Even nudge keys are
supported.

Animation is created in a new way that is visual rather than
technical. Feedback is continuous so you can watch the
animation as you edit it. There is no need to stop and
render a preview.

Rendering

The rendering engine is designed for the rigors of profes­sional production. It creates beautiful images of any
resolution with excellent antialiasing, image mapping, soft
shadows, transparencies for glass and chrome effects.
Images and movies come with alpha channels for composit­ing without the need to key the source footage.

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Animation

Tutorials

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ProAnimator Introduction

Hello and welcome to the world of the Invigorator ProAnimator!

The ProAnimator is different than any other animation program.
Other animation programs make you fiddle with things like
keyframes and velocity curves. The more objects you are animat­ing the more keyframes you have to fiddle with. Projects can get
very complicated very quickly.

The ProAnimator, on the other hand creates animations in a new
and unique way. The creation of an animation is more like
directing a movie. The user is freed to create and design rather
than be forced into the roll as technician. Start to finish is only a
few steps and animating one object or 50 is the same amount of
work.

There are several ways to create your animation. The first we’ll
look at is how to use a preset to make the entire animation in just
a few clicks.

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Beginning Tutorials
Creating An Animation In Five Clicks

Our first project will show you how fast it is to create an anima­tion from start to finish using the presets supplied with the
software.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: You must have installed the
program properly for the factory presets to be present. If
the TRY button doesn’t do anything or you don’t see any
presets in the menus when doing the following project, you
must quit and reinstall the program following the installa­tion instructions.

1- Double click the ProAnimator icon to launch the program.

2- When you see four large buttons click the “Create 3D Text”
button.

3- Type the words News Update. Then click the OK button.
The flat text will be turned into 3D models automatically. You
will now see many pictures of Object Styles on the right side of
the main window. An Object Style is a snapshot of all the settings
for creating an object’s “Look”.

Type the words that will become 3D.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials18

4- Click on the top right Object Style (the blue and white one).
Hold your mouse button down and then drag to the left. As you
drag you will see a dotted rectangle moving along with the mouse
cursor. When the tip of the mouse is over one of the text letters
let up on the mouse button.

You will see that all of your letters have turned blue and white.
This “click down - hold - drag to position - and let up” procedure
is called “Drag and Drop”. Drag and Drop can be done with many
things inside the ProAnimator.

Below the main window is another window which may be
partially hidden if your monitor isn’t big enough to hold them
both. Click once on the lower window to bring it to the front.
This window is called the Animation window.

5- At the top of the Animation window find the first red button
labled “TRY”. It is next to the button labled “Object Animations”.
Click it once.

Watch as an animation is constructed before your eyes. The
timeline will get several colored bars in “Object Track 1”, the
objects will jump to new positions, and the animation will play
back over and over.

That’s it. You’ve just created a complete 3D animation, and did
the whole thing in five mouse clicks!

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials

Drag and Drop an Object Style to color the letters.

Click TRY to auto-create an animation.

The colored bars represent the animation.

19

Click the Stop button to halt playback of the animation.

To experiment with other animations click the “TRY” button
again. Each time you click TRY a new animation will be con­structed using the text you typed.

Stop the playback of your animation by clicking the Stop button
and continue on to the next exercise.

Changing The Text In An Animation

Once you have created an animation you can change the text
without having to redo any other work.

1- Stop the animation if you haven’t already done so.

2- Click on the main Set-Up window (the large top window) to
bring it to the front, then double click on one of the letters. This
will open the same text window where you first typed the words,
News Update.

3- Erase the words “News Update.” In their place type “Evening
News”. Then click the OK button. If you get a message asking if
you want to modify the objects, click “Modify”. In the 3D window
you will see the letters change.

The gray Play button only plays the area

between the green and red markers.

4- In the Animation window click the gray Play button to play the
new animation. Notice that the animation is the same even
though the text is different.

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Changing The Speed Of An Animation

Changing the speed of an animation makes it run faster or slower.
As a general rule the faster an animation, the more punch it has.
While the slower an animation, the more grand it appears.

PREPARATION: Look at the blue bars in the Time Line. If there
is only one light blue bar then you can go to the next step. If not,
click the TRY button again and see if this new animation has only
one light blue bar. If not, click the TRY button again and again
until the program picks an animation with only one light blue bar.
Note that there will be three blue bars total. One light bar
between two dark blue bars.

To make an animation move faster all you need to do is shorten
the length of the Transition segment. A shorter segment means
less time, a longer segment means more time.

1- Position the mouse cursor over the right end of the Transition
segment (the light blue bar). When you do this you will see the
cursor turn into a left-right slider. Click down and drag the end of
the Transition to the left, making it shorter. Release the mouse
button when the Transition segment is half the length it was. Play
back the animation and you’ll see your objects are now moving
faster.

Start with an animation having two dark blue bars and a

light one in the middle.

Drag the end of the Transition segment to the left to

speed things up.

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Drag the end of the Transition segment to the right to

slow things down.

2- Next, drag the right end of the segment to make it shorter by
half and you’ll see the objects moving even faster. You can also
drag the right end of the segment all the way to the right and you
will see the objects moving slower.

See how easy it is to adjust the timing of an animation? The 3D
window will give you real time feedback so you can adjust the
timing while watching the animation play. And notice that you
are doing this for eleven letters without touching a single key­frame!

Changing The Camera’s View Of The Animation

The motion of the objects and the viewpoint of the camera are
independent from each other. Once an animation is created you
can move the camera to any position and view the animation
from that new position.

1- Keep the animation playing. Click on the SetUp window, the
window at the top, to bring it to the front. Find the row of tools
below the 3D preview window. These are the tools that let you
change the position of the camera, lights and objects.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials22

2- Click on the Camera button to make it blue (it may already be
blue).

3- Next click on the Tumble tool (first tool in the group of five
tool buttons).

4- Now you can click the mouse in the 3D preview window and
drag left/right or up/down. As you drag, the camera will change
position. You can tell that it is the camera moving because the
floor and all of the objects move together. You won’t see the
camera itself because it is what you are looking through.

Let up on your mouse button to watch the animation play back
from a different viewpoint.

The other three tools move the camera in different ways. Take a
moment to experiment with them to see what they do.

Tumble -Makes the camera orbit around the objects
Roll -Makes the camera tilt side to side
Track -Moves the camera left/right and up/down
Dolly -Pushes the camera closer to the objects or pulls

it further away.

Select the camera and the Tumble tool.

The Roll tool.

The Track tool.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials

The Dolly tool.

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A draft quality rendering.

Chapter 2
Rendering an Animation

Now that you have an animation it’s time to render it and save the
movie as a file which you can bring into your video editor,
compositor or other program.

The 3D window that the animation is created in only shows you a
draft mode view. Draft mode has no antialiasing, no motion blur,
no shadows, and no reflectivity. Only solid surface colors. That’s
because all of these things take extra time to render and the 3D
window tries to do things in real time.

There are two ways of seeing what the final image will look like:
rendering a single frame of the animation; or rendering the entire
animation.

Rendering A Single Frame

Single frame rendering is done to check what the final movie will
look like without having to render the entire movie. When you
render a single frame all of the rendering features are turned on,
so you will see the antialiasing, motion blur, textures and reflec­tions that are usually turned off when doing previews.

A final quality rendering.

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1- To render a single frame click the Render Frame button. The
current frame is rendered and will appear in a window. You can
leave this window open and do another rendering. You can also
save the image in this window to a file if you want to keep it. (See

Saving A Single Frame Rendering.)

By moving the Time Marker to different places in the animation
and rendering single frames you can do spot checks to see how
the animation is going to look. Once all of these spot checks look
good move on to rendering the whole movie.

Saving A Single Frame Rendering

After a single frame rendering is done is will appear in its own
window. When you close this window, the rendering will be
erased from memory. To save one of these pictures do the
following:

- Click on the image to bring it in front of all the other windows.

- Use the File> Save Picture... command.
You will be given a file dialogue where you can name the image
and choose the format to save it in.

If the Alpha channel checkbox was turned ON during the render­ing, you will be saving the Alpha channel into the same file as the
RGB image. This enables you to open the file in Photoshop or
other image editing programs that accept Alpha channels and get
perfect antialiasing by loading the Alpha channel as a selection.

Click the Render Frame button to render a final quality

image at the current time.

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Click the Render button to render the whole movie or part

of the move, depending on how the render options are set.

Rendering The Movie

To render the final movie click the Render button. This will
render the movie based on the options set on the camera tab.

After clicking the Render button you will see a file dialogue
where you can name the movie and choose where to save it.
After clicking the Save button you will then see the QuickTime
Compression Settings window. Choose the compressor that gives
you the best results for the editing or compositing system you will
be taking the movie to.

In most cases you will want to save your ProAnimator movie with
as little compression as possible. That way you will be able to
mix it with other footage in your editor or compositor. You will
probably also want to keep the alpha channel so the background
of the movie will be removed without you having to “key it out”.

There are two compressors you can use that fullfill both of these
requirements. One is the Animation compressor, the other is the
TGA compressor. Both of these compressors are standard
QuickTime options. There may be others that will work with
your specific editing hardware. Once you have selected either
one of these compressors you should put the Quality slider at
“Best”, and set the color depth menu to “Millions of Colors +”.
The “+” sign means you get the Alpha channel as part of the
movie file.

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Rendering Options

The rendering options are seen on the camera tab. These options
tell the program what part of the animation you are going to
render, what size you will be rendering it at and what the quality
of the rendering should be.

(See the section on Rendering Options later in this User Guide
for explanations of these options.)

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials

Render with or

without an Alpha

Channel.

The camera tab contains the rendering options.

Render the whole

movie or part of

the movie.

Choose the size

for the final

rendering.

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Chapter 3
Changing The Timing And Speed Of
Parts Of An Animation

Oftentimes the preset animations will get close to what
you want but you may still need to make some adjust­ments to the timing in order for it to be perfect. Next we
will look at how to change the timing of an animation to
better fit the requirements of a project.

What Is A Pose? What Is A Transition?

The first step in knowing how to change an animation is
to understand a little about how an animation is put
together. Animation is the movement of objects over
time. To show time the ProAnimator has a Time Line.
When you look at the Time Line you can see that time
runs from left to right. It starts at Time = 0 and goes to
Time = 10 seconds.

An animation is shown on the Time Line as a series of
light blue and dark blue rectangles. The dark blue rect­angles are called Pose segments and the light blue rect­angles are called Transition segments.

Pose Segments

The Time Line

Transition Segments

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A Pose is a snapshot of the position of your objects in space. A
pose is very similar to a keyframe, but a single pose cound
contain hundreds of keyframes. A Transition is the movement of
objects from one Pose to the next. A Transition segment must
always have a Pose segment on either side of it. The simplest
animation would be three segments: Pose-Transition-Pose. There
is no limit to how long an animation can be. You can add segment
after segment for a very long and elaborate series of movements.

The length of each segment shows you how long it lasts. The
length of a Pose shows you how long the objects will sit at that
one position. The length of a Transition shows you how long it
will take for the objects to move between two Poses.

If you did the first tutorial you were introduced to changing the
length of a Transition segment. There is more than one way to do
it so let’s look at this in more detail.

Creating A New Scene

If you are continuing from the last tutorial look under the File
menu and pick the New Scene command. When it asks if you’d
like to save the current scene click No.

If you are just starting, launch the program and click the New
Scene button.

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials

29

Creating The 3D Text

Look under the Object menu and choose the “Create 3D Text”
command.

When you see the text window, type “Moving along” then click
the OK button.

Adding An Animation Preset

1- Go to the Animation window and click on the Object Anima­tions popup menu. Find the preset called “Angle Slide”. Choose
it. You will see the animation start to play.

During the next series of instructions do NOT stop the
playback of the animation. The ProAnimator let’s you keep
the animation playing while you make changes.

Look at the Time Line. You can see that a single animation track
has been created. This track contains a starting pose, then a
transition segment, then an ending pose. To the left of the
segments are the words “Object Track 1” this is a name to
identify this track.

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