#Anim Studio Questions
6 messages in this thread
Dear Fellow Animators,
I just got Animator Pro and after finding that the CD version has to be
installed from the CD and not the diskette drive as the documentation
indicates, it works fine for the most part. I think it is a good step up from
Animator and Anim Pro which I have been using since 1989.
The tutorials worked fine except for a couple of things:
1) The scrip program – When I tried to run the script for all the animations I
built, it would not play all the way through each animation. It would start
re-sizing the window for the next animtion before it completed the one it was
on. HOW DO I GET THE ANIMs TO PLAY ALL THE WAY THROUGH IN THE SCRIPT? This
happened whether I used my animations or the provided sample ones in the
tutorial sub-directory.
2) Motion over time is not as smooth as I would like it to be but perhaps you
can tell me how it can be improved. For example, in the first tutorial (the
diver), when you hold down the mouse and draw the animation path, the playback
is not very smooth. Is this simply a system speed/graphics card problem? I
have a 486-66 with an ATI Graphics Ultra Pro.
It doesnt seem to matter whether you adjust the control points to be venly
spaced.
Even playing your provided samples under the Media Player (the diver and Mr.
Numo climbing the hill), the pace is not smooth throughout.
Your help is much appreciated
Peter Nowell Synergy Productions
Peter,
<< Is this simply a system speed/graphics card problem?>>
It's not a problem with the software, rather that Animator Studio is pushing
the limits of your hardware b/c it works in 24-bit. One thing I recommend is to
put the ATI in 16-bit mode instead of 24-bit(if it is that way). You should
notice some increase in performance and you're really not sacrificing color
choices.
<<It doesnt seem to matter whether you adjust the control points to be venly
spaced.>>
Control points are really just for controlling the shape of the spline
path-nothing more.
<<Even playing your provided samples under the Media Player (the diver and Mr.
Numo climbing the hill), the pace is not smooth throughout.>>
This can happen, especially with .AVI files. One remedy is to save your
animations using a codec. Animations saved this way tend to play better, albeit
at a somewhat lower quality. Something to note though is that playback inside
Animator Studio will generally be slower than the media player or Autodesk's
player b/c it's playing back uncompressed 24-bit animations.
Hope this helps!
Jh
<<2) Motion over time is not as smooth as I would like it to be but
perhaps you can tell me how it can be improved. For example, in the
first tutorial (the diver), when you hold down the mouse and draw the
animation path, the playback is not very smooth. Is this simply a
system speed/graphics card problem? I have a 486-66 with an ATI
Graphics Ultra Pro.>>
Peter,
I also run a Gateway2000 486- 66, 40M-RAM w/ ATI Ultra Graphics Pro.
I use ATI Video drivers in Windows at 1024 x 768
60 some thousand colors and all is fine.
I've rendered 420 frames at 756 x 480 seq. .tgas with KPT filtering
(Gradient Designer " What a GREAT piece of software! "FYI) and it took about 25
minutes. I'm making this comment in this reply to you Peter because I don't
want to start another message but I really have nothing but praise for ADESK.
In my humble opinion this is one of the best new programs, bug free for me!
that I've ever used. The other best is Gradient Designer for 3DS.
Anyway, how much RAM are you runnig? Do you use the ATI Windows
drivers? I have a 135 meg permanent swap file and AAS jumps out to it often but
we work with what we have. If I can be of any help feel free.
Randy Jackson, ComWorks Communications
Randy,
Thanks for your response. According to an answer to my question that I had
just previous to your letter, the difference in what we experienced with like
systems may be in your use of 16 bit color (Autodesk recommeded that as a
possible solution). I have not yet had a chance to try it because I am
teaching a course on Animator Pro and am busy discovering treasures in that
program I never knew about. Like the review in Planet Studio said about Anim
Studio, I plan on keeping both of them as they serve very different needs.
I too have unending praise for the many Autodesk products I have used. But I
am also critical of certain features or problems, because I care not only for
my being able to fully use their programs but also that they continue to be
successful. For example, the bugs I immediately reported in 3DS V4 were ALL
fixed in version 4c1. When I reported them here, many other users jumped on
the bandwagon and brought these problems swiftly to Autodesk's attention.
If I have trouble with 16 bit animations, I may contact you to see if there are
any other "x" factors involved. My dealer said that the newer chips for for
ATI card work far better (I had one of the first batch).
Best regards,
Peter Nowell
Synergy Productions
Randy,
I'd like to clear up some confusion regarding playback under Animator Studio.
For better or worse, we designed the program to work with our own lossless 24
bit AVI Codec. The problem with working with AVI was that it was lossy, so we
extended the functionality of AVI by providing a way you could work on files
over and over again without compromising quality.
When you load any file into Animator Studio it is translated into our CODEC,
which lets you work on it as you like. When you're finished save it twice.
Once with our CODEC (in case you want to add to it later), and once with a
DIFFERENT CODEC for playback. This could be Indeo 3.2, or Cinepak, or even as a
flc file. In any case, you can then use the File Browser to play the file (or
Soundlab).
The File Browser does not convert the file, but plays it as is. This is a
useful tip.
Good luck,
–marK