CompuServe Thread

Hello Tyler, As has been announced, we are shipping the c1 update version of Animator Studio, which installs the very latest version of Video for Windows and is much more robust in performance. Those who have already sent in their registration cards will have their copies shipped this Monday. It always pays to send those cards in. You'll find the Fax info and address is on the bottom of the cards. Also, the German c1version is being readied for manufacture as well. Concurrently, we are hard at work finishing the version that runs on Win95 and WinNT; this will be Animator Studio version 1.1 which will also be sent out to registered users at no charge around the official ship date for Win95. There is a slight risk that WinNT support may not make it in time for 1.1. However, it will certainly be available in time for the WinNT version of 3D Studio (which will be revealed at Siggraph in Los Angeles) BTW it has surprised us how many people have expected Win95 support before Win95 is commercially available. You are all Beta Testers for MicroSoft, which is fine but you must remember that being a Beta Tester means things don't always work as promised, and we never promised support for Win95 or WinNTin the first release. It's not that we didn't want to, but that Animator Studio fundamentally works inside Windows in a very sophisticated manner. Why is this? As you probably realize, Animator Studio is directly tied to Video for Windows, so any changes in the underlying structure, i.e. Win95 and WinNT versus Win 3.1 make it more difficult to port. Even updating your WinNT to use Win95 controls causes important changes to the system. Specifically in the case of Win95, certain subtle changes in "file registration" with Win95 throughout the Beta process have prevented us from finalising Animator Studio until the final version Win95 itself took shape. Over the long haul, the decision to base the product on Video for Windows will be a good thing because you will see the newest software and hardware codecs become available for Animator Studio the moment that they work with Video for Windows. This is because Animator Studio automatically uses any codec installed in the system and it's part of Autodesk goal of being an open system provider. Developers should contact Phillip Miller at Autodesk for further information about how to take advantage of the .AVI connection to Animator Studio. How is our progress? We have demonstrated the Beta Version of Animator Studio that runs on Win95 at the MicroSoft Interactive Conference earlier this week in Long Beach. (to be extra clear this version of Animator Studio is not available to the public yet) At this conference, we were very pleased with people's reaction to Animator Studio's ability to create eye-catchers for the Internet and MicroSoft Network. At this show we also previewed our Authoring technology, and happily many attendees understood how powerful Animator Studio can be for creating visually stimulating Web pages that move. I hope this helps clarify the current situation and that you get a lot of satisfaction and productive work accomplished with Animator Studio. ______________________________________________ BTW here is a little tutorial/tip for using Animator Studio: ______________________________________________ Find the Backgrounds\Fototrip directory on the cd-rom. (In case you are curious, these are photos I have taken from around the world. They are 24bit and mostly 640×480 so I'd resize them to 320×240 to work with them in Animator Studio.) Open Wat.BMP. Choose No Keying and load the file. Double click on the Magic Wand and select Additive Selection [+] and a tolerance set to 12. We will use the Magic Wand to select the Clouds behind the temple. With Additive Selection you can make one long selection or several shorter ones. After the clouds are all selected, press F10 to copy the selection set to a Mask. (Utilities/Assemble Mask/Mask Non-Selection) I use F10 and F9 (mask selection) all the time. This automatically turns on View/Mask and activates the Mask Icon. Once you have the Mask and Selection created, use File/Save As to save the file WAT.AVI. Next we will use Filter Inks. Animator Studio can use any PhotoShop Plug-In Compatible Ink. The people at Adobe have closed off their latest PhotoShop plug-ins so they are no longer open architecture and can't be shared. So Adobe believes in closed systems now which is quite an acrobatic flip flop there. However, there a many many third party routines and we have bundled HSC's Kai's Power Tools examples to get you going. HSC has a nice offer right in the box for additional Filter inks and the full set of Kai's Power Tools. Gallery Effects is also very cool series and these are very interesting when animated. (If you haven't already, configure the program by choosing Filter Ink. Right Click to open Ink Properties Now the Filter Ink Settings should be on screen. Choose Browse and go to the \Animator\KPT directory and click on any filter that has the .8bf extension. Now the system is configured.) Here is a tip to get certain filter inks to work best for version c0 of Animator Studio. Set the background color to white and the foreground color to black. We've changed this in version c1 so this step isn't necessary. Also, changing transparencies of the ink over time works better in c1; sometimes this caused c0 to become unstable. In all versions of Animator Studio, the foreground color does have an effect of on the ink when it makes sense, by the way. We want to choose the Category KPT 2.0 Extentions with Filter: Gradient Designer 2.0. We can apply this Gradient in several ways, such as: 1. Use a Paintbrush, 2. Use a box, or 3. Use Edit/Apply Ink to Selection. Use Edit/Apply Ink to Selection. Now Kai's Power Tools appears. Choose from the bottom Basic Gradients/EarthTones. Then rotate the gradient. Then Click OK to apply to your image. (By the way, if you haven't figured this out, the Edit menu changes state depending upon whether a selection tool is active or a brush is active. For example, if the Magic Wand is active, then the Edit Menu includes Copy Selection. If the Airbrush is active, then the Edit Menu includes Copy Frame. I hate this but it won't change until R2.) Now we will experiment with another category of Plug Ins. Before beginning, turn the Mask Icon off. Change the number of frames to 20. Use Settings/Movie Length and change to 20 Frames. Turn on Time Mode. The green bar over the FilmStrip changes to Blue/Magenta. Now on the first frame, change the Filter to Glass Lens Normal. Select the Circle Tool and draw a circle on the Wat image in the lower left corner. Hold the Control Key to constrain to a perfect circle. Because Time Mode is on, the circle will be "floating" with a flashing box around it. (If not then you can correct your mistake by turning on Time Mode and selecting Action/Float) Next go the the Last Key using the x] Icon. Move the Circle using the Cross-Bar icon. Preview the Motion Path Using Action/Preview Motion. Edit the Motion Path using spline-based tools using Action/Edit Motion Path. Click on the path to add new points to the spline. Shift-click on the points to remove them, if desired. Edit the size the Circle using Action/Stretch. You can set the Start Key [x and the End Key x] separately. Preview the motion again the Action/Preview Motion. Render the Result with Action/Render. Play your animation. Remember that you can undo each of these steps in Animator Studio and start over from that point forward. Use File/Save As to save as Wat_lens.avi Once you save, the undo buffer clears giving you more memory. You might want to reduce the undo buffer in the preferences to allow more memory for things like floating selection sets, too. Now we'll make a page curl effect. In the Filter Ink Settings, change the Category to KPT 2.0 Filters. Then Select the Filter Page Curl. Maximize the Wat_lens.AVI window [^] Button. Draw a rectangle Tool over the entire image with Filter Ink. Because Time is on, you have a floating selection of Page Curl. Choose the first key by pressing the [x button. This puts you on the first frame. Resize the box so it is tall and narrow and centered over the far right edge of the animation. Set the current color to blue and the ink strength to 100. Now choose the last key by pressing the x] button. This puts you on the last frame. Change the current color to gold.. (This means the page curl background color will change to gold over time. Choose Settings/Color Interpolation to Hue so the colors change over the color wheel.) To finish the animation, resize the box so that it covers the entire animation. Choose Action/Preview from the pull-down to preview the motion. Make sure that CAPS LOCK is off and that you don't press any number keys during the next step because Kai's Power Tools' settings change depending upon the number key that are pressed. Use Action/Render. This creates a Page Turn Effect on the Image. Additional things to try: Make Gradient Designer Filter, non-filled circle that expands into an ellipse and back into a circle like the RKO Radio Picture logo. Use Action/Envelope and choose the zig-zag preset so that your circle will expand to an ellipse and vice versa between the keys. _______________________________________________________________________________ __ Enjoy and let us know how you like the c1 version. Brent Blackett 3D Studio DOS Product Manager and acting Animator Studio Product Manager Autodesk, Inc.