#Disney anim&overscan
2 messages in this thread
Sorry for the late response, but I noticed your message about overscan and
Disney Animation Studio.
This has been a terribly confusing topic for me and prompted a lot of calls to
technical support back when the program was first released in 1990, all of
which resulted in no usable response from Disney. Finally, I got an answer here
on CIS.
This is the scoop on Disney and overscan:
1. Regardless of the type of screen that is loaded into Disney Animation Studio
(DAS), all you see is the standard non-overscan screen. If you play back your
animation, however, you then will see the appropriate screen in full overscan.
While you are drawing on the individual frames, though, you will only see a
non-overscan screen.
2. This means that, if you are working in overscan, a portion of the screen
will always be hidden from view while you are doing your work. To move the
screen around, to reveal the hidden areas, you push a combination of SHIFT and
the the ARROW keys. This is extremely vital information which was NOT
documented in the early manuals. This is a very awkward method, but it works.
3. Because of memory problems, probably in Chip Ram (even with a full two megs
of Chip Ram) you cannot save a high resolution animation in full overscan
screen in anim format, using DAS. It will save easily in the Disney
proprietary Cfast format, but this is of limited value and has frightfully slow
playback. When using pencil sketch mode in high resolution, I use non-overscan
modes, save the pencil-sketch in anim format, paint the frames in DeluxePaint,
and then process the individual frames with Art Department Pro (or the image
processing software of your choice) to make the frames into full overscan mode.
4. DAS is a heavily flawed program. It is also my favorite program. I love the
pencil sketch module, even with all of its irritating limitations. The
Exposure Sheet module is essential for me to create sound synchronized speech
in my cartoons. Ultimately, the majority of all of my finished animations are
in a different form for playback, usually as part of a script made with that
apparently now defunct program "The Director ver. 2". All of my animations,
however, start in the pencil sketch module of Disney Animation Studio.
5. From what I can gather, Disney software is only going to support the
IBM-compatible formats now. They still answer questions about the Amiga
program, but it seems that Amiga development is out. They have a BBS which
supports DAS: 1-818-567-4027. Some Mac fans have begged them for a Mac DAS,
but the response has been that "the market for a Mac product is simply not big
enough" (GADS! Where does that put the Amiga market…?). Anyway, the BBS is
pretty good. I phone in regularly.
Hope this helps!
Steven,
Thank you for your response.
After calling Disney and not getting an answer I decided to scrap DAS in
favour of DPaintIV. I agree with you that DAS is heavily flawed but it's
implementation of Onion skinning is faster and in some ways better that DP
and the animation tools are well thought out. However, all the little
negatives counteract the positives so I will likely continue to use DP4.
It's funny, DAS was one of the first packages that I purchased and after
using it for a couple months I left it alone for two years until I needed
to do a project a while ago. Then I remembered why I had stopped using
it.
Yes, I have heard that Disney isn't supporting the Amiga version any more
which is why it is so heavily discounted in the stores. So the Mac market
isn't big enough for them, uh? I believe that the Amiga version was a
fluke. From what I heard they had developed it inhouse for their own
animators to do tests and then decided to try and sell it.
I too will be using the Director for my animation. I have done various
other things but not animation. Do you have any pointers? Originally I
was animating in HiResLace but now I reduced it to lores to make use of
halfbrite colours. Can the Director animate in 256(or more) HAM mode?
I'm not sure if I should have a separate BG with animbrush paths or create
the whole anim in DP and only use the Director for sequencing. What do
you do?
Apparently, the Right Answers Group MAY be coming out with an AGA module
but aside from that I haven't heard anything about an upgrade. Keith is
still supporting it by answering questions here on CIS so that is good.
Didn't it take forever for version 2.0 to come out? Maybe it will be the
same with version 3, after all, ver.2 is only three years old 8^).
Again, thank you for your points. I will keep a record of it incase I
ever need those onion skins again!
Andrew