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Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials 1

Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator - ProAnimator - Tutorials2

Zaxwerks Inc.5724 Camellia Ave.Temple City, CA 91780(626) 309-9102 phone(626) 309-9142 faxhttp://www.zaxwerks.com

Sales: [email protected] Support: [email protected]

© 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 copiedin accordance with the terms of such license. The information in this manual is furnished for informational useonly, is subject to change without notice, and does not represent product specifications or commitment on thepart of Zaxwerks. Zaxwerks assumes no responsibility or liability for any error or inaccuracies that may appearin this document.

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


Table of ContentsINSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

BASIC CONCEPTSModeling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13Surface Set-Up . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Scene Set-Up & Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

ANIMATION TUTORIALSProAnimator Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17Creating An Animation in Five Clicks . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Changing The Text In An Animation . . . . . . . . . 20Changing The Speed Of An Animation . . . . . . . 21Changing The Camera’s View Of The Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

Rendering An Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Rendering A Single Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24Saving A Single Frame Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . 25Rendering The Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26Rendering Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Changing The Timing And Speed Of An Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

What is A Pose? What Is A Transition? . . . . . . 28Creating A New Scene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29Creating The 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30

Adding An Animation Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30Changing The Track Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Moving Splice Points . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31Adding More Hold Time To The Beginning Pose . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Changing The Position Of A Segment Without Changing Its Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Slowing Down The Motion Of A Transition . . . 33Resetting An Animation Back To A Saved Preset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Increasing The Length Of An Entire Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34Setting The Loop Points For The Work Area . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Shortening The Length Of An Entire Animation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Selecting Segments That Are Difficult To Click On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Changing Object Motion During Transitions . . . . . . 39Changing The Curve Of A Motion Path . . . . . . . 40Changing The Direction Of The Arch In The Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Controlling When Objects Start To Move . . . . . 42Controlling The Order Of Objects As They Cascade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43Adding Start Ease And End Ease For A Professional Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46


Changing The Positions Of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48Moving Objects To New Positions . . . . . . . . . . . 49Spreading Objects Apart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51Bunching Objects To A Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Making Objects Spin As They Move . . . . . . . . . 53Randomizing Object Positions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54Shuffling Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55

MODELING, SURFACING, & LIGHTINGBasic Tutorials . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Creating And Working With 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59Applying Object Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61Changing The Depth Of An Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65Coloring Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66

Coloring Objects: Method 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67Coloring Objects: Method 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Coloring Objects: Method 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Editing 3D Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71How To Set The Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Using Lighting Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74How To Set The Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75Saving A View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77Think Like A Photographer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79How To Render An Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80How To Get The Background To Drop Out . . . . . . . 81

Advanced TutorialsHow To Create a 3D Logo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82How To Make Objects Invisible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84Moving 3D Objects - Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86How To Reset 3D Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88Moving 3D Objects - Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Camera Shortcuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92Camera Shortcuts Exercise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94Adjusting The Thickness of Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95How To Apply An Edge Profile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98How To Apply A Single Material To An Object . . . 101How To Add A Second Material To An Object . . . 103How To Split A Profile To Fine Tune

Material Placement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105How To Create An Object Style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107Coloring The Other Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108How To Make Lights Cast Shadows . . . . . . . . . . . . 110How To Move Lights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112How To Save A Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Additional Tipes When Working With

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


Installation Instructions


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

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

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


Installing the SoftwareThe Invigorator does not use an automatic installer. You onlyneed 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 anddrag 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 yourmain hard drive.

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

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


Entering An Authorization Code For The First TimeThe first time you launch the software it will ask you to entersome information. Type your Name and Organization, and typethe Authorization Code exactly as it was given to you. Then pressthe OK button.

A Temporary Code looks like this: A1234-B1234. A PermanentCode looks like this: IPMS30-A1234-B1234-C1234 A TemporaryCode lasts for 30 days to give you time to contact Zaxwerks andregister the software. Once registered, Zaxwerks will give you apermanent 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 enterthe Temporary Code first. Type the Permanent Code when yousee the Authorization window and you’ll be ready to go.

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

Fill in all fields then click the OK button.


Demo ModeIf you don’t have either a Temporary or a Permanent Authoriza-tion Code you can run the program in Demo Mode by clicking theDEMO button at the bottom of the authorization window. Demomode adds a watermark to the renderings and also limits theprogram in some ways, but other than that most everythingworks. Demo mode lets you get an idea of how the program runsso 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 Authori-zation Code, double click on the program icon to launch it. Youwill see a message window saying how many days you have leftto run the program. At the bottom of this message window willbe a “Register” button. Click the “Register” button then enteryour Permanent Authorization Code.

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


How To Get A Permanent Authorization CodeA Permanent Authorization code is sent to you directly fromZaxwerks. Contact Zaxwerks in one of the following ways:

Register by email: [email protected] online: www.zaxwerks.com/Register_English.htmlRegister by phone: 1-800-549-0250

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

If you bought the program directly from Zaxwerks you will havereceived a green Invoice/Receipt with the Permanent codesprinted on stickers at the bottom.

Click this link on the Zaxwerks Home page toget to the registration page.


Basic Concepts


BASIC CONCEPTSThe Invigorator creates its own models and images. It does notprocess existing footage to give it a “3D effect”. You createmodels that have depth and size, arrange them in space, and thentake pictures of them.

The Invigorator is a true 3D program, but it has differences thatmake it unique from any other 3D program. There is a tremen-dous amount of technology and workflow design packed into thisprogram, 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 ofthe steps involved:

Modeling

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

DEFINITIONS

ModelingThe creation of the objects and adjustment oftheir shape.

Surface Set-UpThe paint job that is applied to the surface ofthe objects. Often called “Surfacing”.

Scene Set-UpThe positioning of the objects and lights withinthe 3D scene and the positioning of thecamera which views the scene and takes thepicture.

AnimationMoving the objects or camera over time.

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


Surface Set-Up

The Invigorator has a completely unique way of handlingsurfaces. Up to six different materials can be applied toeach object and those materials can be used in a variety ofways. Once you try it you will see how the Invigorator hasfinally given artists the tools to create a new generation of3D title and logo graphics. Graphics like you have neverseen before.

Scene Set-Up And Lighting

Setting up a 3D scene has been streamlined to make iteasier for 2D graphic artists to make the jump to 3D. Ascene can have as many objects as you need and objects orgroups of objects can be rotated and positioned indepen-dently. Up to six lights can be used, and once you get yourlights perfect they can be saved and reused in futureprojects.

Object manipulation within the 3D scene is done in a waythat’s completely new. Single and multiple objects can bemanipulated with speed and fluidity. There are a fullcompliment of short cut keys. Even nudge keys aresupported.

Animation

Animation is created in a new way that is visual rather thantechnical. Feedback is continuous so you can watch theanimation as you edit it. There is no need to stop andrender a preview.

Rendering

The rendering engine is designed for the rigors of profes-sional production. It creates beautiful images of anyresolution with excellent antialiasing, image mapping, softshadows, transparencies for glass and chrome effects.Images and movies come with alpha channels for composit-ing without the need to key the source footage.


Animation

Tutorials


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 likekeyframes and velocity curves. The more objects you are animat-ing the more keyframes you have to fiddle with. Projects can getvery complicated very quickly.

The ProAnimator, on the other hand creates animations in a newand unique way. The creation of an animation is more likedirecting a movie. The user is freed to create and design ratherthan be forced into the roll as technician. Start to finish is only afew steps and animating one object or 50 is the same amount ofwork.

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


Beginning TutorialsCreating An Animation In Five Clicks

Our first project will show you how fast it is to create an anima-tion from start to finish using the presets supplied with thesoftware.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: You must have installed theprogram properly for the factory presets to be present. Ifthe TRY button doesn’t do anything or you don’t see anypresets in the menus when doing the following project, youmust quit and reinstall the program following the installa-tion 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. Youwill now see many pictures of Object Styles on the right side ofthe main window. An Object Style is a snapshot of all the settingsfor creating an object’s “Look”.

Type the words that will become 3D.


Click TRY to auto-create an animation.

The colored bars represent the animation.

Drag and Drop an Object Style to color the letters.

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 youdrag you will see a dotted rectangle moving along with the mousecursor. When the tip of the mouse is over one of the text letterslet 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” procedureis called “Drag and Drop”. Drag and Drop can be done with manythings inside the ProAnimator.

Below the main window is another window which may bepartially hidden if your monitor isn’t big enough to hold themboth. 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 buttonlabled “TRY”. It is next to the button labled “Object Animations”.Click it once.

Watch as an animation is constructed before your eyes. Thetimeline will get several colored bars in “Object Track 1”, theobjects will jump to new positions, and the animation will playback over and over.

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


To experiment with other animations click the “TRY” buttonagain. Each time you click TRY a new animation will be con-structed using the text you typed.

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

Changing The Text In An AnimationOnce you have created an animation you can change the textwithout 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) tobring it to the front, then double click on one of the letters. Thiswill open the same text window where you first typed the words,News Update.

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

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

Click the Stop button to halt playback of the animation.

The gray Play button only plays the areabetween the green and red markers.


Changing The Speed Of An AnimationChanging 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 thereis 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 onlyone light blue bar. If not, click the TRY button again and againuntil the program picks an animation with only one light blue bar.Note that there will be three blue bars total. One light barbetween two dark blue bars.

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

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

Start with an animation having two dark blue bars and alight one in the middle.

Drag the end of the Transition segment to the left tospeed things up.


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

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

Changing The Camera’s View Of The AnimationThe motion of the objects and the viewpoint of the camera areindependent from each other. Once an animation is created youcan move the camera to any position and view the animationfrom that new position.

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

Drag the end of the Transition segment to the right toslow things down.


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

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

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

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

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

Tumble -Makes the camera orbit around the objectsRoll -Makes the camera tilt side to sideTrack -Moves the camera left/right and up/downDolly -Pushes the camera closer to the objects or pulls

it further away.

Select the camera and the Tumble tool.

The Roll tool.

The Dolly tool.

The Track tool.


Chapter 2Rendering an Animation

Now that you have an animation it’s time to render it and save themovie 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 adraft mode view. Draft mode has no antialiasing, no motion blur,no shadows, and no reflectivity. Only solid surface colors. That’sbecause all of these things take extra time to render and the 3Dwindow 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 entireanimation.

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

A draft quality rendering.

A final quality rendering.


1- To render a single frame click the Render Frame button. Thecurrent frame is rendered and will appear in a window. You canleave this window open and do another rendering. You can alsosave 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 animationand rendering single frames you can do spot checks to see howthe animation is going to look. Once all of these spot checks lookgood move on to rendering the whole movie.

Saving A Single Frame RenderingAfter a single frame rendering is done is will appear in its ownwindow. When you close this window, the rendering will beerased from memory. To save one of these pictures do thefollowing:- 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 imageand choose the format to save it in.

If the Alpha channel checkbox was turned ON during the render-ing, you will be saving the Alpha channel into the same file as theRGB image. This enables you to open the file in Photoshop orother image editing programs that accept Alpha channels and getperfect antialiasing by loading the Alpha channel as a selection.

Click the Render Frame button to render a final qualityimage at the current time.


Rendering The MovieTo render the final movie click the Render button. This willrender the movie based on the options set on the camera tab.

After clicking the Render button you will see a file dialoguewhere you can name the movie and choose where to save it.After clicking the Save button you will then see the QuickTimeCompression Settings window. Choose the compressor that givesyou the best results for the editing or compositing system you willbe taking the movie to.

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

There are two compressors you can use that fullfill both of theserequirements. One is the Animation compressor, the other is theTGA compressor. Both of these compressors are standardQuickTime options. There may be others that will work withyour specific editing hardware. Once you have selected eitherone 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 themovie file.

Click the Render button to render the whole movie or partof the move, depending on how the render options are set.


Rendering OptionsThe rendering options are seen on the camera tab. These optionstell the program what part of the animation you are going torender, what size you will be rendering it at and what the qualityof the rendering should be.(See the section on Rendering Options later in this User Guide

for explanations of these options.)

Render the wholemovie or part of

the movie.

Render with orwithout an Alpha

Channel.

Choose the sizefor the finalrendering.

The camera tab contains the rendering options.


Chapter 3Changing The Timing And Speed OfParts Of An Animation

Oftentimes the preset animations will get close to whatyou want but you may still need to make some adjust-ments to the timing in order for it to be perfect. Next wewill look at how to change the timing of an animation tobetter fit the requirements of a project.

What Is A Pose? What Is A Transition?

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

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

Pose Segments Transition SegmentsThe Time Line


A Pose is a snapshot of the position of your objects in space. Apose is very similar to a keyframe, but a single pose coundcontain hundreds of keyframes. A Transition is the movement ofobjects from one Pose to the next. A Transition segment mustalways have a Pose segment on either side of it. The simplestanimation would be three segments: Pose-Transition-Pose. Thereis no limit to how long an animation can be. You can add segmentafter segment for a very long and elaborate series of movements.

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

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

Creating A New SceneIf you are continuing from the last tutorial look under the Filemenu and pick the New Scene command. When it asks if you’dlike to save the current scene click No.

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


Creating The 3D TextLook under the Object menu and choose the “Create 3D Text”command.

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

Adding An Animation Preset1- Go to the Animation window and click on the Object Anima-tions popup menu. Find the preset called “Angle Slide”. Chooseit. You will see the animation start to play.

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

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


Changing The Track Name1- Double click on the track name. You will see that it becomeshighlighted. Type the words “Moving along” to rename the track.After typing click the Return or Enter key on your keyboard, thisturns off the editing of the name so you won’t accidentally changeit.

(NOTE: if you accidentally clicked and removed the highlightfrom the name, click and drag over the words to select themagain, then type “Moving along.”)

Moving Splice PointsAs the animation plays watch the yellow time marker. When thetime marker is at the beginning of the animation the 3D objectsare positioned below the lower left corner of the preview win-dow. Notice that they stay there for a bit before the letters beginto move. The movement of the letters happens when the timemarker is over the light blue Transition segment. Once the timemarker gets over the end pose, the letters stop moving and theyhold until the end of the final pose is reached.

Move the mouse cursor so it is over the place where the first poseand the transition touch each other. This is called a “SplicePoint”. When the cursor is over a splice point you will see that itchanges to the Splice Point Editor. Once the cursor changes itmeans you will be able to change the position of the splice pointwithout moving the other end of the segment. When positioned over a Splice Point the cursor will

change and you can then drag the Splice Point.

Double click the name to change it.


Adding More Hold Time To The Beginning Pose1- With the cursor over the first splice point click down and dragthe splice point until it lines up with the 2 second mark on theTime Line. Then release the mouse button.

The animation will now hold for 2 seconds at the beginning, thenall the letters will quickly move into position before holding againat the end.

Why do the letters now move so quickly? It’s because moving thesplice point made the transition segment become much shorter,meaning the letters have less time to move the same distance, sothey have to move faster.

Changing The Position Of A Segment WithoutChanging Its Length

In the previous step you changed the length of a segment bymoving its splice point. If you drag on the center of a segment,instead of its splice point, you can change where the pose ortransition happens on the Time Line.

1- Click on the center of the transition segment, hold your mousebutton down, and drag to the left. You will see that the transitionsegment sticks to your mouse cursor and moves left as you drag.

Drag on a Splice Point to change the length of the segments.


2- Drag left until the segment stops at the left end of the TimeLine, then release your mouse button.

You will now see that there is no pause at the beginning. As soonas the time marker gets to time “zero” the letters immediatelybegin to move. Once they reach their final position they holdthere until the time marker reaches the end of the final pose.

What happened to the starting pose? If you look closelyyou will see that it is still there, but it’s only one frame long.Remember, a transition always has to have a pose oneither side, even if the pose is just one frame long.

Slowing Down The Motion Of A TransitionThe speed that the letters move is related to the length of thetransition segment. The longer the transition, the slower themovement.

1- Do this: Drag the splice point at the right end of the transitionall the way to the right. Make sure the cursor changes before youclick and drag, otherwise you may not get the desired result.

What happened to the speed of the letters? The transitionsegment is now 4 seconds long so it takes the letters 4 seconds tomove from their starting pose to their ending pose. This makesthe letters all move much more slowly than before.

Drag on the center of a segment to changethe position without changing its length.

Drag the right end of the Transition all the way to the right.


Resetting An Animation Back To A Saved PresetIf you change an animation and want to restore it back to thesaved version all you have to do is to select the animation presetfrom the menu again.

Click on the Object Animations popup menu. Find the presetcalled “Angle Slide”. Choose it. This will erase the existinganimation and reapply the preset animation to the objects.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP: If nothing happens, click on theTrack’s name so it becomes dark. This tells the programwhich track you want to apply the preset to.

Increasing The Length Of An Entire AnimationSometimes you have an animation that you need to make shorter.Other times you have an animation that needs to take up moretime. In both of these cases you must scale the duration of thewhole animation. Not just change a single segment, but affect allof the pose and transition segments at one time. Here’s how youdo it...

1- If the animation is playing, click the Stop button.

Reselect a preset from the popup menu to erase your changes.


2- Click once on the starting pose to select it. You will see a reddotted line surrounding the pose segment.

3- Next, hold down the Shift key on your keyboard. Keep holdingit down.

4- Now click your mouse once on the end pose. Let up on theShift key after having clicked on the end pose.

You will now see that there are dotted lines surrounding all of thesegments on this track. This means that all segments have beenselected. Shift-clicking is a very fast way to select all segmentsthat lie between two points. To scale the length of all the selectedsegments do the following...

5- Hold down the Option (Alt) key on your keyboard. Positionthe mouse cursor over the end of the last segment. This shouldbe at the 4 second mark. Click and hold down on your mousebutton, then drag to the right. You will see the segments growlonger as you drag. Drag until the right end of the last segment isunder the 8 second mark. Release the mouse button.

6- Click the gray play button. You will see that the objects nowmove much more slowly than before. You should also see thatthe animation doesn’t play all the way through to the end. Oncethe time marker gets to 4 seconds it jumps back to the beginningand starts over. To make it play all the way through you will needto adjust the end loop point for the work area. (See next step.)

Shift Click between two points to select multiple segments.

1 2

Hold the Option (Alt) key and drag the end to the8 second mark.


Setting The Loop Points For The Work AreaThe Work Area is the portion of the animation that is played whenthe gray “Play Work Area” arrow is pushed. If the black Playarrow is pushed the animation plays all the way through from thebeginning to very end. But if the Play Work Area arrow is pushedthe animation starts playing at the green arrow and stops when itgets to the red arrow. Additionally, if the Loop button is turnedon, the animation will play over and over until you click thesquare Stop button.

The little green and red arrows in the Time Line set the beginningand ending of the Work Area. Between the green and red arrowsthe timeline is dark gray. This is to let you easily see the workarea. Playing only the work area lets you see part of your anima-tion without having to watch other parts that you may not beinterested in.

In the last step you made the animation 8 seconds long but onlythe first 4 seconds is playing back. This is because the red arrowthat marks the end of the work area loop is still sitting at 4seconds. To set the end marker to be able to see the entireanimation, position the mouse cursor over the end marker, (thered marker) click down and drag to the right until the marker isat the 8 second mark. Now you can click the Play Work Areabutton and watch the animation all the way through.

Work AreaStart Marker

Work AreaEnd Marker

LoopButton

Play WorkArea Button

Drag the end marker to set the end of the loop.


Shortening The Length Of An Entire AnimationYou can shorten an entire animation the same way that youmade it longer.

1- Shift-click to select all segments. (Click on the beginning pose,hold down the shift key then click on the end pose.) You willsee dotted lines surrounding all of the segments indicating thatthe whole animation is selected.

2- Next, hold down the Option (Alt) key on your keyboard.Position the mouse cursor over the end of the last segment.When the mouse is in the correct position you will see the cursorchange from an arrow to the splice point editor.

3- Click and hold down on your mouse button, then drag to theleft. You will see all of the segments grow shorter as you drag.Drag until the right end of the last segment is under the 2 secondmark. Release the mouse button and the Option (Alt) key.

Click the Play Work Area button. You will now see the objectsmoving much more quickly.

You will also see that after the objects stop moving, the anima-tion sits still for quite a while. This is because the the timemarker must reach the red end marker before it can loop back tothe beginning. To remove the pause, drag the red end marker tothe 2 second mark. Now the animation will loop the first twoseconds over and over.

With all segments selected, hold down the Option(Alt) key and drag the end to the left.

Drag the end marker to the 2 second markto play back only the first two seconds.


Selecting Segments That Are Difficult To Click OnWhen segments are made very short it is sometimes difficult toclick on them. The ProAnimator has a way to select segmentswithout clicking on them.

1- Don’t hold down any other key. Click on the last segment tothe right. This segment is large so it will be easy to click on.With one segment selected you can use the arrow keys on yourkeyboard to move the selection to the right or left.

2- On your keyboard, click the left arrow key once. You will seethe red selection dots move to the transition. Click the left arrowkey again and you will see the dots surrounding the thin segmentthat is the first pose.

If you hold down the Shift key while arrowing left and right youcan extend the selection. For instance, now that the startsegment is selected, hold down the Shift key and click the rightarrow two times. You should now see the dotted selection linessurrounding the entire animation.

Hold down the Shift key as you click thearrow keys to add to a selection.

Click the left arrow key on your keyboard tomove the selection from Position 3 to 2 to 1.

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Chapter 4Changing Object Motion During Transitions

There are a great many ways you can change the motion of yourobjects during an animation. When a Transition segment isselected, and the animation is not playing, the paths that theobjects move along are shown as red lines in the 3D window, andthe controls for the selected transition are shown at the bottom ofthe animation window.

IMPORTANT! Before you continue with this next section youshould

1- Create a New Scene,2- Create 3D text of the word “Transitions”, and then3- Add the object animation called Angle Slide.

If you don’t know how to do these things please follow theinstructions at the beginning of Chapter 2.

When you select a transition in the Time Line themotion paths will be displayed in the 3D window.

The motion paths of the Angle Slide animation.


Changing The Curve Of A Motion Path1- When you play the Angle Slide animation you can see that theletters are moving along a straight path. Stop the playback andclick on the transition segment to select it. When a transition isselected you can see the paths that objects move along as redlines with red dots on them.

At the bottom right end of the animation window you will see aslider titled “Arch”. When this slider is set to 0 there is no arch orcurve in the path. The objects move from their starting pose totheir ending pose in a straight line. The Arch slider enables youto curve the path making it look more interesting.

2- Drag the Arch slider to 10 then release the mouse. The pathswill now curve upward a little. Drag the Arch slider to 25. Seehow the paths are now curved quite a bit. Click the gray playarrow to start the animation playing and see how the letters nowlook like they are dropping into their final position instead ofsliding up into position.

3- Drag the Arch slider to 50. Now the letters look like they aredropping into place from the top of the screen. Most likely youcan see the letters lifting up before they fall down, but the liftingis happening offscreen. Only the light colored area in the middleof the preview window will be rendered in the final movie.Anything that is happening in the dark gray area won’t be seen.

4- Set the Arch slider to 20, before you go to the next tutorial.

The Arch Slider.

An Arch of 10 gives the paths a slight curve.

An Arch of 50 gives the paths an extreme curve.


Changing The Direction Of The Arch In The PathUp to this point the Arch of the path has been up and over, as ifthe letters are riding over the top of a hill. We can change thisdirection. Find the Arch Direction knob located to the right ofthe Arch slider. See how the arrow on the knob is pointing up.

1- Drag the Arch Direction knob so it is pointing down. Play theanimation if it has stopped. See how the letters now swoop upfrom the bottom of the screen. This has quite a different lookthan the when the animation was dropping in from the top.

2- Drag the Arch Direction knob so it is pointing to the right, thenincrease the Arch slider to 50. Now the letters are moving off inthe distance before turning and traveling right toward the camera.This is a very cool multi-overlapping look and is very difficult toget with any other software.

3- Often a little change can make a lot of difference. Instead ofsetting the Arch Direction arrow to the right, which would be the3 o’clock position on the face of a clock, try setting it to the 2o’clock or 4 o’clock positions. Experiment with different posi-tions and see the effect.

4- When you are done experimenting stop the animation and pickthe Angle Slide preset from the Object Animations popup menu.This will reset the animation to its original form. The Arch Direction control will make

objects swoop down, or to the side.


Controlling When Objects Start To Move

In the Angle Slide animation notice how each letter flies onscreen a little bit later than the one next to it. The secret is the“Cascade” slider. The Cascade slider controls the timing ofobjects as they move along their motion path.

1- Stop the animation. Select the transition segment if it’s notalready selected. For the Angle Slide animation you’ll see thatCascade is set to 9. Drag the slider so that Cascade reads 0. Playthe animation and you will see that now all the objects aremoving together. When Cascade is at 0 all objects start moving atexactly the same time.

2- Set the Cascade slider to 20. Now you will see that there isspace between each letter. Each letter waits a little bit before itstarts to move. This creates a spread-out cascade of letters.

3- Set the Cascade slider to 50 . Now you will see that there isquite a bit of space between the letters. You still get the cascad-ing effect but the spacing is so large that each letter now lookslike it is moving on its own.

4- Set the Cascade slider to 100. This is the top end of the rangeand it means that each letter completely finishes its move beforethe next letter starts to move. In other words the first lettermoves to its end position before the second letter starts to move.


Then the second letter goes to its final position before the thirdletter begins to move. This pattern continues until all the lettersreach their final position.

One thing to notice is that as you increase the amount ofCascade, the letters move faster . This is because part ofthe time a letter has to complete its move, is being spentwaiting for its turn to go. So once the letter starts moving ithas to move faster to get to the final position.

5- Set the Cascade slider back to 9, and start playing the anima-tion if it has stopped.

Controlling The Order Of Objects As They CascadeIf you look at the Angle Slide animation as it plays you will seethat the last letter of the word comes on screen first, then thenext to last letter, and so on. The final letter to appear on screenis the first letter of the word. The feature that controls the orderof the letters as they begin to move is called the Cascade Order.

1- The Cascade Order popup menu is located to the right of theCascade slider. It is currently set to “Right to Left”. Click on itand choose “Birth Order”. Let the animation continue to playwhile you make this change The animation will now play withthe “T” first followed by the “r” and then the rest of the letters insequence. Birth Order means the order that the letters werecreated in.


2- From the Cascade Order popup, choose the Random option.Now the letters build on in random order. This is a very coollook. You can change the order of the random sequence bypicking the Random option again. In other words if you don’t likethe cascade order that the Random option picked for you, youcan choose the Random option again and again until the cascadeorder is more to your liking. For instance, if you wanted the T inthe word Transitions to be the very first letter that flies on, youcan pick the Random option over and over until T happens to bepicked as the first letter in the order.

The other options fit various other purposes. Top to Bottom, Leftto Right, and the others tell you what they do. There is one otherCascade Order option that is very useful. This is the option calledSelection Order. What the Selection Order option does is it letsyou pick the letters one by one in the order that you want them tomove. Let’s do this so you can see what this can be used for.

3- Stop the animation. Click on the Transition segment to selectit, then click on the yellow Time Marker and drag it left or rightuntil you can see all the letters on the screen.

4- The selecting must be done in the 3D Scene preview window.Click once on this window. Select the Selection Tool icon. (Thisis the icon next to the Magnifying glass icon.) Click somewherein the 3D window but don’t click on an object. This will deselecteverything. You should not see any red or green selection boxessurrounding letters.

The “Selection Order” option lets you choose the exact orderthat objects will fly onto the screen.


5- Now let’s decide which letters we want to fly on first. Say thatyou want the word to build on from the ends towards the middle.Select the T by clicking once on the letter. If you select it you willsee a red wire box around the letter. If you don’t see the wire boxtry clicking on the letter again.

6- Next hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and click onceon the “s” at the end of the word Transitions. If you selected ityou will see a green wire box around the “s”. If there is a red wirebox around the “s” then you forgot to hold the Shift key down.Go to the top of this page and start over.

7- Next select the “r” then the “n” and so on back and forthworking toward the middle. Be sure to pay attention as you areselecting. You might not click on a letter. If you don’t the wirebox does not appear. Or you may accidentally click on a letterthat was already selected. If you do this the wire box will disap-pear so you will have to select that letter again.

8- Once you have all of the letters selected go to the Animationwindow and choose “Selection Order” from the Cascade Orderpopup menu. This locks the selection order into the program’smemory. Now play the animation. You will see the letters cas-cade onto the screen in the order that you selected them!

Hold down the Shift key then select the objectsin the order you want them to move.


By the way you don’t need to select every letter. Sometimes youjust want a few main letters to come on first and the order reallydoesn’t matter for the rest of the letters. If this is the case justselect the main letters and leave the rest unselected. The lettersthat were selected will appear at the beginning and the lettersthat were unselected will follow in birth order.

Adding Start Ease And End EaseFor A Professional Touch

Real life objects accelerate when they start to move and deceler-ate when they slow to a stop. Think of a car. When a car beginsto move it speeds up over a few seconds until it gets to full speed.It doesn’t just go from sitting still to full speed in an instant. Ittakes several seconds for it to get going.

The same thing happens when you stop a car. If you are going 40and you step on the brake the car does not stop instantly. It takesit a few seconds to slow down first and then it stops.

Start Ease and End Ease are animation terms that mean thespeeding up at the beginning of a movement and the slowingdown at the end of a movement. Start Ease and End Ease are oneof the little things that makes your work look really good. With-out this feature letters tend to bang into place. With this featurethe letters will settle into place. As a general rule the more Easeyou use, the heavier the objects will appear.

Start Ease and End Ease are both applied using this slider.


Find the Ease slider next to the Cascade control. Notice that ithas two slider arrows. The light arrow on the left controls StartEase, the acceleration of objects as they begin to move. The darkarrow on the right controls End Ease, the slowing down ofobjects as they near their final pose.

1- Drag the End Ease (dark) arrow to the left so it reads 60. Playthe animation and you will see that the letters now settle intoposition very nicely. By setting this control to 60 you told theprogram to keep the letters at a constant speed for the first 60% ofthe transition, and then slow down over the last 40%.

Since the letters begin offscreen there is no need to add StartEase. You only need to add Ease when you see the letters start orstop while on screen, in the live area that will be rendered.

Dragging the End Ease arrow to 60 makes the objectsslow down over the last 40% of the animation.


Chapter 5Changing The Positions Of Objects

Poses are the positions of your objects. An animation is createdby placing objects in different positions at different times, andthen having the program move the objects from one Pose to thenext. We saw in the last section how to change the way thatobjects move between two poses. Now we will learn how to putthe objects into those poses.

IMPORTANT! Before you continue with this next section youshould:

1- Create a New Scene,2- Create 3D text of the word “Positions”, and then3- Add the object animation preset called CrashZoom.

If you don’t know how to do these things read the instructions atthe beginning of Chapter 3.

If you followed the IMPORTANT step above you will now belooking at an animation of the word Positions. Notice how thestarting Pose has the letters positioned behind the camera so thatthe first you see of them is when they appear to crash through thescreen from behind. The middle Pose has the words come to arest in the center of the screen, and the final Pose is once againbehind the camera as the word flies past the camera and out ofview.


Moving Objects To New PositionsThe Move control is one of the tools you will use the most. Whenyou are setting up an animation and placing objects into theirpositions the tendency is to want to drag the objects in the 3Dwindow. This is the old way of doing it. In fact, in most 3Dprograms this is the only way you have of positioning objects, butin the ProAnimator we call this Tweaking.

Tweaking is the very last method you should use to positionobjects. It is the technique you use when you can’t get the Posecontrols to do exactly what you want. One advantage of usingthe Pose controls is that you will be able to save your animationsas presets and apply them to any other group of objects, so youshould get used to using these controls as quickly as possible.(For more information about Tweaks see the section called

“What is a Tweak?” later in this guide.)

We will use the Move controls to make the objects fly to a differ-ent place on the screen. As you play the animation you can seethat the second Pose is responsible for the position of the objectsat the center of the screen.

Stop the animation playback (by clicking your spacebar), andclick on the second Pose to select it. You will see the controls forthis Pose appear at the bottom of the Animation window. Thereare two parts to the Move controller; a set of direction click-points, and a slider to set the amount of distance to move.

The Move controls.

The Distance slider. Direction Buttons.

Dragging objects in the 3D window is called Tweaking- youshould NOT tweak objects if you can avoid it.


Currently the slider is set to 0 meaning that the objects aren’tbeing moved anywhere. They are all sitting at their Home posi-tion.

Instead of having the letters fly to the center of the screen let’shave them fly to the top third of the screen. Here’s how you do it.

1- First make sure that the second Pose is selected.

2- Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard and drag the Moveslider back and forth a few times between 0 and 500. Notice howthe letters come closer to you. This is because the center buttonon the direction indicator is dark. Click on the UP arrow, anddrag the slider until the letters are positioned about a third of theway down from the top of the screen. This should be at about150.

3- Now play the animation. (Tap your spacebar.) You will see theletters flying to this higher position instead of the center of thescreen.

4- Leave the animation playing and double click the centerbutton. Now you will see the letters flying to a far away position.A single click on this button moves the objects forward, and adouble click move the objects away.

5- Leave the animation playing and click the DOWN arrow. Nowyou will see the letters flying to a lower third position.

1st Pose 2nd Pose 3rd Pose

By default objects moveforward.

Click the UP arrow to moveobjects up.

Double click the centerbutton to move ojects back.

Click the DOWN arrow tomove objects down.


Pretty amazing how a single click could reposition all of thoseletters, changing all of those animation paths, and you never evenhad to stop the animation to do it! This is something you couldnever do with the Tweak method, and shows you the second mainbenefit of using the Pose controls: you can make extremely fastchanges.

Spreading Objects ApartWith the word now flying to the lower third of the screen, let’sadd some spacing between the letters to give it a different look.The Bunch/Spread slider enables you to quickly spread objectshorizontally.

1- Tap your spacebar to stop the playback of the animation. Thesecond Pose should still be selected. If it isn’t, click it so you seethe red dotted lines around this Pose segment.

2- Hold down the Shift key and drag the Bunch/Spread slider backand forth a few times. See how the letters bunch together as youdrag to the left and spread apart as you drag to the right.

Stop dragging when the letters just about fit the width of thescreen. This should be around 85.

3- Start the animation playing to see the word flying to this spreadposition.

Drag to the left to bunch objects together.Drag to the right to spread them apart.


Bunching Objects To A PointThe Bunch/Spread slider also enables you to quickly bunch theletters into a clump. This is useful when you want the objects toall fly from a single point. Let’s bunch the letters at the first Pose.

1- Stop the animation. Select the first Pose segment.The controls will update to show you the settings used by theselected Pose.

At the beginning of the animation the objects are off screenwhich makes it hard to see the adjustments we make to the Pose.

2- Hold down the Shift key and drag the Move slider from itscurrent position of 1000 to a valueof 500. This will bring theobjects into view so we can see the effect of the Bunch/Spreadslider. When we are done with the Bunching we’ll return theMove slider to its original value.

3- Hold the Shift key down and drag the Bunch/Spread slider tothe left until it reads -100. This puts all the letters on top of eachother.

4- Set the Move slider back to 1000.

5- Play the animation. Now the letters spread out as they move.


Select the first Pose.

Setting Bunch/Spread to -100 puts all the objects on top ofeach other, as you can see in the picture below...


Making Objects Spin As They MoveYou can also make objects spin as they move. There are twoways of doing this. One way is to set the rotations as part of thePoses. The second method is to use something called a PathAction which adds a rotation to the objects during the Transition.We’ll show you how to do the first method here. The secondmethod is discussed in the section on Path Actions.

1- Stop the animation. Select the first Pose segment if it’s notalready selected.

2- Drag the Move slider to 500 so you can see what you are doing.(By the way, you can also move the camera to see what you aredoing, but then you have to worry about getting the camera backto the same position. It’s much easier to drag the Move sliderinstead.)

3- Hold down the Shift key and drag the green oval on the Rota-tion control. Watch the letters and stop dragging when they haverotated once around. It may take you a couple of drags to get allthe way around. You don’t have to be perfect.


5- Play the animation. Now the letters both spin and spread asthey fly into position.

Drag the green oval to rotatethe letters around the Y axis.

Watch the letters in the 3D window as you drag thegreen oval on the rotation tool.


Randomizing Object PositionsThe Randomize slider gives you a quick way to jiggle objectpositions. The larger the value the more distance the objects aremoved away from their original positions. Each time you click onthe slider a new random direction is picked so you can click overand over until you get the pattern you want. For instance some-times random positioning places two letters on top of each other.If this happens just click on the slider and a new set of randompositions will be calculated.

Let’s randomize the positions of the letters in the final Pose.

1- Stop the animation. Select the last Pose segment. Posenumber three. The Pose controls will update to show you thesettings used by this Pose.

2- Drag the Move slider from its current value (should be 950) to avalue of about 500.

3- Hold the Shift key down and slowly drag the Randomize slider.As you drag you will see the letters jumping further and furtheraway from their original positions. Values around 10 leave theword still read-able, but just a little jumbled. As the valuesincrease the letters get more and more jumbled until you can’tread the word anymore. Set the Randomize slider to 40.



Select the 3rd Pose.


You may see bits of a letter poking into the screen. If you do, it isbecause the Randomize feature has accidentally moved an objectdown in front of the camera. Each time you click on the Random-ize slider arrow a new set of random directions will be picked, soall you have to do is to click on the arrow and you will see theletters jump to new positions. Click on the arrow over and overuntil you can’t see any letters on screen.

5- Play the animation. Now as the letters fly from their lowerthird position past the camera they jumble up a bit making theanimation more interesting to look at.

Shuffling ObjectsAnother type of randomizing can be done by shuffling the objects.Shuffling is the process of substituting one object for anotherobject. The Shuffle control does a variety of different types ofshuffling. For instance if you choose the Mix 2 option every twoletters may or may not get switched for each other. This willproduce a word that is almost the same as the original word. Asyou mix more and more letters together the word becomes moreand more unreadable.

A bit of one letter that has been moved in front of the camera.Click the Randomize arrow until it goes away.


1- Select the last Pose segment if it’s not already selected.

2- Click on the Shuffle popup menu and choose the Mix It Upoption. This causes all of the letters to get shuffled together withno regard to where the objects started. It creates the maximumamount of shuffling.

Now as the animation plays you will see that as the letters fly offscreen they go to even more random positions giving each letter alife of its own.

Objects that have been both Randomized and Shuffled.

Choose “Mix It Up” for the maximum amount of shuffling.


Modeling, Surfacing and Lighting

Tutorials


In this series of tutorials you will learn how to create and edit 3Dtext models, apply basic attributes, set up a 3D scene and renderthe final image.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP !You must have installed the program properly for thefactory presets to be present. Be sure to read and followthe Installation Instructions at the beginning of this UserGuide.

Creating And Working With 3D TextStart off with the program closed. If it is already running, Quit orExit the program.

1- Double click on the application icon to launch the program.

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

3- Type the words “Coming Up Next...”

4- Change the justification to Centered.

5- Use the Command+A (Control+A on Windows) keyboardshortcut to select all the letters, then change the font to ArialPlain. (If you don’t have Arial on your computer then use

Helvetica or some other font.)

Font List Justification Buttons


6- Double click on the word “Next...” to select the whole word,then change the font to Arial Black. (If you don’t have Arial

Black on your computer then use Helvetica Bold or some other

font.)

Once you have selected a font you can use your keyboard’s upand down arrow keys to step through all the fonts in the list.

7- Click the up or down arrows a few times to change the font onthe word “Next...” Change the font several times so you can seehow easy it is to experiment and find the right font for the job.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP !If clicking the keyboard arrow keys doesn’t change thefont, use your mouse to click on the font list, pick a font,then release the mouse. Don’t click on anything else. Ifyou click on something after picking a font, the up anddown arrow keys won’t work.

Once you are done experimenting select Arial Black from the fontlist again. Leave the word “Next...” selected.

8- Make the word “Next...” larger by clicking the up/down arrowbuttons next to the Size field. If you hold down the Shift keywhen you click, each click increases the size by 4 points per click.Stop when you get to 96.

Change fonts by choosing them from the fonts list.

Click the little arrows to step the values up or down.


9- Click the cursor between the t and the first dot. Increase theKerning by picking the 100 option from the Kerning values popup.This will add a little space between the characters.

10- Drag the Block Size arrow to the left so there is a minimum ofwhite space on either side of the letters. If you drag too far to theleft you will see the word “Up” wrap down to the second line.Don’t go this far. “Up” should stay on the first line.

11- Click the OK button. This will close the Text Window andcreate 3D models of the title you just made.

Applying Object Styles(continuing from the last tutorial)

When you OK out of the text window each character is turnedinto an independent 3D model. You can see in the Scene Previewwindow that each character has a red or green wire bounding boxaround it.

1- Move the cursor to where there are no characters and clickonce. This will deselect all of the objects and the wire boxes willdisappear.

The right half of the interface shows a bin full of little pictures.Each picture represents an Object Style. An Object Style is agroup of settings for such things as the Depth, Bevel, and Colors.

Drag the Block Size arrow to remove excess white space.

Click where there are no objects to deselect everything.


2- Click down on the Object Style in the top right corner. Itshould be blue with a white bevel. Keep your mouse buttondown and drag toward the 3D window. You will see an outline ofthe picture following your cursor. Continue to drag until thepoint of your cursor is over the “p”. Once in position let up onyour mouse button to “drop” the Object Style onto the 3D model.You will see it change to blue with a white edge.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP !If you do not see any Object Styles in the right half of thewindow, then you do not have the program properly in-stalled. Quit the program and install it properly, followingthe Installation Instructions at the beginning of this guide.

3- Repeat the drag and drop sequence again. Drag the blue ObjectStyle from the bin and drop it onto the U. Notice again thatnothing is selected. When nothing is selected dropping ObjectStyles only affects the single object that is below the point of thecursor.

4- Click on the Selection Tool in the toolbar. Select all of thecharacters in the word “Coming” by holding down the Shift keyand clicking on each letter one at a time. As each object isselected you will see a red or green bounding box appear aroundit.

Shift-click on each letter you want to add to the selection.

Drop Object Styles onto letters to make themlook like the Object Styles.


5- Now drag and drop the red and white object style. It should bethe first picture in the second row. When you drop it onto one ofthe selected letters, all selected letters will receive the sameObject Style.

Click on an empty part of the Scene Preview window (wherethere are no 3D objects). This will deselect the 3D models.

6- With the Selection tool still active, position the cursor at thelower right corner of the 3D window and drag up and left. As youdrag you will see a red box being drawn from the point of thecursor. Drag the box so that the red box touches a little bit ofeach letter of the word “Next...”. Don’t let the red box touch anyof the letters on the top line. When the cursor is properly posi-tioned let up on your mouse button. This will select all 3Dmodels that the box either surrounded or touched.(NOTE: Some versions of OSX will not show the red box. How-ever the selection process will still work. Just imagine there is ared box there... think different ;-)

7- Now double click on the first Object Style in the third row.Double clicking an Object Style is another way to apply it to theselected objects.

The picture of the Object Style you just applied in step 7 looksvery reflective but the objects in the 3D window don’t lookreflective at all. This is because reflections are turned off whenyou start the program.

Click down at point 1 and drag to point 2 to selectall objects the rectangle touches.

1.

2.

Apply an Object Style to many objects by dragging it from thebin and dropping it onto one of the selected objects.


There are two rendering levels: Draft quality and Best quality.Normally the 3D window shows you Draft quality which disablesthings such as textures, reflections, shadows, transparency andantialiasing. All of these add to the look of the final image, butthey take extra rendering time and are not usually needed whencreating objects and positioning the camera.

8- To see draft versions of the textures and reflections click onthe sphere icon on the toolbar. This changes the display levelfrom Wireframe, to Solid, to Solid with Draft Textures andReflections.

If you click too many times you will see the display level return towireframe. Once on wireframe click two more times to get toTexture and Reflection mode, and see the reflections on thebottom word.

9- Click on the Camera button in the toolbar, (it may already beselected), then click on the Tumble Tool.

10- Now position the cursor over the center of the 3D window.Click and hold the mouse button down. Drag slowly, left, right,up and down. You will see that you are Tumbling the cameraaround the objects. You can tell that you are moving the camerabecause the floor grid is moving too. If you were rotating theobjects, the floor would not move. As you drag you can see thereflections moving across the faces of the bottom word.

Putting the Camera into Tumble mode.

Solid with Draft Textures and Reflections

Solid

Wireframe

Click this button to change the display levels.


Reflections are nice to look at but they can slow down theinteraction speed.

11- Click the sphere icon once to change the display level towireframe, and then click once more to change the level to Solidbut without reflections.

12- From the Views menu, pick the High Left view.

Changing The Depth Of An Object(continuing from the last tutorial)

Object Styles apply all the settings needed to create a model.However sometimes you need to refine those settings to custom-ize your look.

1- Select all of the characters in the top line, (“Coming Up”).

2- At the top right of the window is a tab that says Object. Clickon the Object tab to make it active. The Object tab contains allthe settings for adjusting the shape of an object.

In the lower right corner of the Object tab you will see the Depthslider.

Choosing a view from the Views menu.

The Object Tab.

The Depth Slider.


3- Drag the Depth slider arrow to a value of 40. If you watch thenumbers in the box just above this slider you will see when youget to 40. Release your mouse button and the models will sud-denly get bigger.

To watch the models get bigger or smaller without having torelease the mouse button, hold down the Shift key as you drag.

4- Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, then drag the Deptharrow left and right. You will see the model changing as you drag.

This is a very useful feature! All sliders in the Invigoratorwork this way. By holding the Shift key down as you drag aslider, you will see the models change as you drag.

5- Stop dragging when the Depth value is at 10.

Now the top text is thin and elegant while the bottom text isheavier with more punch.

Coloring Objects(continuing from the last tutorial)

It is often necessary to change the color from what is built into anObject Style. Here are three ways to do it.

Set the depth of the top line of letters to 10.


Coloring Objects: Method 1

When objects have all had the same Object Style applied to themthey share the same materials. When you need to change thecolor of all objects using the same Object Style all you have to dois to change the color of the base material.

1- Select the letter “C” in the word “Coming”.

2- Click the Palette checkbox to display the active materialpalette used on this letter.

3- Show the Materials Tab by clicking on the tab titled “Materials”which is located at the top right corner of the Set-Up window.

4- Drag the swatch in dock 1 of the palette, (the Red Material),and drop it into the Material Editor dock on the Materials tab.This will load the material and make it ready for editing.

5- Click on the color rectangle to open the color picker, andchange the red to a medium pink. OK out of the color picker.

You will see that the swatch ball is now colored pink, and so arethe objects in the 3D window. All of these objects use the samematerial, so by changing the color of the material, all of theseobjects receive the change.

Click here to open the color picker.

By changing the color of the material, theobjects receive the change too.

Drag the swatch from dock 1 and drop it into thedock in the Materials Editor.


Coloring Objects: Method 2(continuing from the Method 1 tutorial)

Instead of showing the Materials Palette, you can drop newmaterials directly onto the 3D objects.

1- Make sure that no objects are selected by clicking on a blankpart of the 3D window.

2- Show the Materials Tab.

3- Find the black swatch in the top row and find the letter “U” inthe word “Up”. Drag the material to the left and drop it when thecursor is positioned over the blue part of the letter “U”. You willsee the front and side of the word “Up” turn black.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!When you release the mouse, the position of the arrow issignificant. If you miss the colored part, and instead dropthe material onto the white bevel, Undo and try again. If youmiss the object entirely nothing will happen, so just try again.

NOTE: If you would like to know how to make the front and

side different colors, do the Advanced Tutorials.

After completing step 3 you may have noticed that although youdropped the black material onto the “U”, the “p” received the newcolor too. This is for the same reason that the whole word inMethod 1 received the new color. All of these letters share thesame Object Style. For individual letter control, read on...


Coloring Objects: Method 3(continuing from the Method 2 tutorial)

When you want to change the color of a single object withoutaffecting any other objects, you need to unlink the Object Stylefirst, then apply the new color.

IMPORTANT: For this next exercise you must have the pinkmaterial sitting in the Material Editor dock. (see Method 1) Ifit is not, you must do the following before you go on: - Click on a pink object in the 3D window. - You will see a pink swatch appear below the 3D window. - Drag the pink swatch to the editing area, and drop it in the Material Editor dock.

1- Make sure that no objects are selected by clicking on a blankpart of the 3D window. Then select the “p” by clicking once on it.

2- Show the Object Styles Tab by clicking on the tab titled “ObjectStyles” which is located at the top right corner of the Set-Upwindow.

3- Find the Swatch/Library... menu in the top right corner andchoose the “Unlink Object Style” command from it. This will notchange the appearance of the “p” but it unlinks the object so youcan change its color without affecting any other objects.


4- Show the Materials tab, and drag the pink material from theMaterial Editor dock and drop it onto the black part of the “p”.The “p” will now be colored pink.

Now let’s color the “C” black.

1- Click on the “C” to select it. Make sure it is the only objectselected.

2- Show the Object Styles Tab.

3- Choose the “Unlink Object Style” command from the Swatch/Library... menu.

4- Show the Materials tab, and drag the black material from thefirst row of the bin, and drop it onto the pink part of the letter“C”. The “C” will now be colored black.


Editing 3D Text(continuing from the last tutorial)

You can change text at any time and the new text will take on allthe colors and shape settings of the existing letters. Usually thisis a simple matter of just typing new text. However when there ismore than one Object Style being used in the same text block,you need to know the way the Invigorator applies Object Styles tonew objects.

Say we want to change the words “Coming Up Next...” to “Ap-pearing Tuesday...” And we want the look of the new title tomatch the look of the old title; meaning we want the first “A” tobe black, the rest of the word pink, and the word “Tuesday” to begold and silver.

If we open the Text Window and erase all the letters, when wetype in the new ones they will all be colored the same as the “C”because the “C” was the first letter in the text block.

When only some of the letters are selected at a time, the Invigo-rator uses the first letter in the selection as the “Master” and allthe new text is made to match the master. So by selecting theletters in three groups, it will keep all three of the Object Stylesused in this title. Here’s how to do it...

1- In the 3D window, double click on one of the letters. This willopen the Text Window.

Double click on a letter to open the Text window,


2- Select only the letter “C” in the word “Coming”.

3- Type an “A”, which is the first letter in the word “Appearing”.

4- Select the letters, “oming Up”, which are the rest of the letterson the top line.

5- Type “ppearing”, which are the rest of the letters in the word“Appearing”.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!If you make a selection then hit the delete or backspacekey before typing the new text, the attribute matching won’twork as described in this section. All you have to do is tomake a selection and start typing.

6- Select the whole bottom line. (“Next...”)

7- Type “Tuesday...”

8- Set the justification to Left Justification.

Do not drag the Block Size arrow. If you change the position ofthe block size arrow, it will change where the text is inserted intothe scene. This may push the text off the screen.

9- Click OK. You will see the new title in the 3D window with thesame “look” as the old title.


How To Set The Lighting(continuing from the last tutorial)

Lighting is set from the Lighting tab.

- Click on the Light mode button to reveal the lighting controls.

The Invigorator’s lights have parallel rays, they are not cones likeyou would find on a spotlight. Parallel lighting is much easier touse. You can’t accidentally put a light behind an object, or point itin the wrong direction.

Adjusting the direction lights are pointing is very easy. Find thelighting manipulator below the 3D window. The arrow with thered box around it is the light that will be manipulated.

- Click and drag on the lighting arrow. You will see it move as youdrag. Once you stop dragging, the lighting in the 3D window willupdate to show you the effect.

You can also manipulate the lights by dragging in the 3D window.

- Select the Lighting Tumble tool if it’s not already selected, thendrag in the 3D window. You will see the lighting change as youdrag. Note that you don’t see the light itself, you see the effect ofthe light on the objects in the scene.

To move one of the other lights select it from the Lights list.

Click and drag inthis window to movethe selected light.

Click this button to revealthe lighting controls.

The Light Tumble tool.

Select other lightsfrom the Lights list.


When you do this you will see the red box switch to a differentarrow. Then you can drag to move this other light.

Each light can have its own color. Each light can also castshadows. Turn on these features in the Lighting tab.

Using Lighting Styles(continuing from the last tutorial)

Just as objects can have Object Styles, lights can have LightingStyles. Lighting Styles contain the settings for all the lights in ascene.

1 - Click on the Lighting Styles tab.

Here you will see presets for many different lighting setups. Youcan apply a Lighting Style by either dragging and dropping theicon into the 3D window, or by simply double clicking on theicon.

2 - Start at the top icon and work your way down the list. Doubleclick on each icon, then take a look at the effect it has on theobjects in the 3D window.

Especially look at the difference between the Lighting Stylescalled: Side Lights, High Key, and Footlights. Each of these hasthe main light coming from a different direction. See howchanges in lighting can change the mood of the image.The Lighting Styles Tab.

The Lighting Editor.

Set lightcolor here.

Turn onshadows here.

Set thebrightness here.

This swatchpreviews

what the lightwill look like.


3 - Scroll down to the bottom of the list. These Lighting Styleshave variations in color, not just in intensity. Apply each LightingStyle and see the effect. Notice how lights with strong colorstend to override the colors applied to the objects. For instance,with Melrose and Sunset you pretty much loose any sense thatthe front faces are pink.

4 - End by applying the Red Light District Lighting Style. This onedoesn’t affect the faces too much but it applies a nice red glow tosome of the edges.

How To Set The Camera(continuing from the last tutorial)

Camera manipulation is just as easy as moving the lights. Youclick the Camera Mode button, to tell the program you want tomove the camera, then you select one of the manipulator toolsand drag in the 3D window.

Say for instance that you want to look at the title from belowinstead of above.

1 - Select the Camera Mode button.

2 - Select the Tumble Tool.

The Melrose Style. The Red Light District Style.


3 - Click in the 3D window and drag directly up. You will see theobjects rotating to a different position. Actually it is the camerathat is rotating around the objects. You can tell this because theFloor Grid is moving along with the objects. If the objects wererotating the floor would be still.

4 - Stop dragging when the bottom of the word “Tuesday...” isparallel to the bottom of the 3D window.

At this point the Floor Grid is getting in the way. The Floor Griddoesn’t render in the final images and we can turn it off any timewe want.

5 - Find the Grids popup menu. Choose the Floor Grid menu itemto toggle it OFF. Notice that there are other types of grids heretoo. A Title Safe grid, a Lower Third grid, even a special gridcalled “4:3 Inside 16:9”. When you are using an HD resolution(16:9) format, this grid shows you what will appear within astandard TV (4:3) screen if you cropped off the sides.

With the Floor Grid turned off you can see the image much better.You can also see the effect of the red lights much more stronglyfrom this lower angle. That’s an important point to remember.The effect of the lighting will change as you view a scene fromdifferent directions.

Viewing the scene from a low angle,with the Floor Grid turned ON.

The Floor Grid Turned OFF.


Saving A View(continuing from the last tutorial)

Sometimes you need to save a camera view. For instance if youhad to move the camera to check positioning and then wanted toreturn to that previous view, a saved view will get you back with asingle click.

If you did the last tutorial, the camera should still be looking atthe title from a low angle. To save a view do the following...

1 - Click on the Camera Mode button, (if it isn’t already blue.)

2 - Find the “Views...” popup menu.

3 - Choose the “Save View...” command from the Views popup.

4 - You will see a window to name the view. Type in a name andclick the Save button.

The preset you just saved will now appear in the “Views...” menu.To return to this view at any time just select this preset.

Naming the saved view.

Use the “Save View...” command to save a camera view.


Take a little time right now and experiment with the rest of the camera manipulation tools. See what each does. Forpractice here are some other views of this title. See if you can match them. You will need to use all four camera manipula-tion tools to do it, but you won’t have to move the objects themselves.


Think Like A Photographer

It’s important to remember that when you work with the 3DInvigorator you are using a real 3D program. 3D programssimulate a photographer’s studio. You can move objects, setlights, and reposition the camera.

You are always looking at the scene through the lens of thecamera. The Scene Preview window shows you what the camerasees. What you see through the Camera lens is what you will getin the final rendering.

Thinking like a Photographer helps you figure out what to do.For instance, moving one object closer to the camera will makeonly that object bigger. However, moving the camera closer tosome objects will make all objects bigger.

If you are taking a picture of a group of people and you can’t seethem all in the camera’s viewfinder, what do you do? Haveeveryone move back? Or move the camera back? Both wouldwork, but one is easier.

Once you start to think like a person shooting a picture with acamera, things make more sense.


How To Render An Image(continuing from the last tutorial)

Once the objects have been created, colored and lit, and thecamera and lights are ready to go, it’s time to render the finalimage.

1 - Click the Render Frame button to render a final quality imageat full resolution with all features turned on.

If you are using the ProModeler the Render button does the samething as Render Frame. It will render a single frame and put itinto a display window. If you like the image you can save it todisk by using the File> Save Picture... command.

If you are using the ProAnimator, there are two Render buttons.Render Frame will render a single image. If you like the imageyou must save it to keep it. The other Render button will render amovie. (See the section called Rendering the Movie in the

Animation Tutorials section.)

A Best Quality rendering is shown in a displaywindow when the rendering is completed. However,

it has not yet been saved to disk.

To save a rendering to disk use the “Save Picture...” command.


The alpha channel makes the backgrounddrop out so all you see are the 3D objects.The Invigorator creates perfect alpha channelsso there is no need to render the objects over agreen or blue background, then try to key outthe background. All you need to do is turn onthe creation of the alpha channel then save tothe correct format when the rendering is done.

How To Get The Background To Drop Out(continuing from the last tutorial)

Usually when you get done creating a picture the next step is totake it into some other program to combine (composite) it withother images. Having a good alpha channel is key to the compos-iting process.

To create an alpha channel do the following:

1 - Turn on the Alpha channel checkbox.

This checkbox is turned on by default so it may already have acheckmark in the box.

The main problem comes when you save the image or the movie.If you don’t save the image in a format that supports alphachannels, the alpha channel won’t be there when you take it intoPhotoshop or your compositing or editing program.

Fortunately the ProModeler only saves renderings to PICT orTARGA file formats and both of these support alpha channels.However if you have the ProAnimator, you have to make sure thatyou choose a file format that has “Millions+” in the CompressorOptions. The “+” sign means alpha channel. So saving a movie inMillions+ means you will have the RGB image as well as theAlpha channel in the same movie file.

The RGB Channels. The Alpha Channel.


Advanced TutorialsLet’s create a 3D logo and work through some of the problemsyou may run across. Logos are oftentimes more difficult thanstraight text because they usually have overlapping elements andthere is a need to preserve the integrity of the original design.

The “look” of the logo is often the point about which a client getsthe most picky. So the great challenge with doing 3D work is howto give the logo a 3D look while still preserving the look of thelogo. Sounds like a paradox, but it’s not too hard to overcome.Let’s start with creating the logo as a 3D model and we’ll discussthe design challenges as we go.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP !You must have installed the program properly for thefactory presets to be present. Be sure to read and followthe Installation Instructions at the beginning of this UserGuide.

How To Create A 3D LogoStart off with the program closed. If it is already running, Quit orExit the program.

1- Double click on the application icon to launch the program.

2- When you see the window with four large buttons click the“Open Illustrator File” button.

The Advanced Tutorials assume that you knowall of the skills covered in the BeginningTutorials. If you find yourself lost, or things aremoving too quickly, stop and do the BeginningTutorials first. Then do the Advanced Tutorials.


3- Go to the Tutorials folder and find the “Kings Crest Logo.ai”file. Do NOT double-click on the file or click the Select button.

4- Before you open the Illustrator file put checkmarks in front ofthe following options:

Turn ON:- Open By Layers- Use Illustrator Colors- Move Objects to Center

Do not turn ON:-Dismantle Incoming Groups-As Layer Cycling Object

5- Now click the Select button.

This will open the main Set-Up window and create 3D models outof the paths in the Illustrator file.

6- Turn off the Floor Grid, then select the Dolly tool and drag yourmouse up to move closer to the models.

What happened? The 3D logo looks terrible! This is becausethere are many overlapping pieces in this logo. When the logowas in its 2D form, the “stacking order” of the pieces kept it allreadable. (Look at the picture to see what the logo looks like in

its 2D form.)The 2D logo. First look at the 3D version.


When you are in a 3D program there is no such thing as stackingorder. The only thing that matters is whether an object is closerto the camera than some other object. Since an Illustrator filedoesn’t have any Z information, all of the models start off with thesame Z position, so all the overlapping parts are equally close tothe camera.

This confuses the camera so it shows part of one object and partof another creating a visual mess. What’s worse is that as theviewpoint of the camera changes different parts of the modelswill flash into view because the camera can’t figure out which ofthese overlapping objects to show. To get rid of the mess all weneed to do is to move the objects so some parts will be closer tothe camera than others.

How To Make Objects Invisible(continuing from the last tutorial)

Let’s turn off the visibility of the text objects so we can concen-trate on the center part of the logo.

1- Click on the Object Mode button to reveal the small tabbedarea below the tool bar.

2- Click on the Object List and choose the Deselect All item. Youwill see all the green and red selection boxes disappear.

Object Mode Button Object List


TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!Click on the Object List again and look at it. If it containsnames such as Shield, King Text, Face, Eyes, etc. then youcan proceed with the rest of the tutorial. If it says thingslike Object 1, Object 2, Object 3, Group 1, Group 2, etc.then you did not properly do Step 4 of the previous tutorialon “How To Create A 3D Logo”. Quit the program and startthe Advanced Tutorial again.

3- In the Object List choose the “King Text” item.

You will see a red wire bounding box appear around the word“King” indicating that it is selected.

4- Hold down the Shift key on your keyboard, and from theObject List choose the “Entertainment Text” item.

You will see a green bounding box appear around the word“Entertainment”. Click down on the Object List and look at themenu items for the two objects you have just selected. Noticethat they are written in BOLD. This is to let you know that thesetwo items are selected.

Click off the Object List making sure that you don’t accidentallydeselect the objects, by clicking on a menu item.

5- Make the objects invisible by turning on the “Make Invisible”checkbox. Find this checkbox just below the Object List.

When items in the Object List are selected,their names will be written in bold.

Turn ON “Make Invisible” to make all selected objects invisible.


Moving 3D Objects - Part 1(continuing from the last tutorial)

So far you have only moved the camera. You can move individualobjects by using the manipulation tools while in Object Mode.You should still have the Object Mode button selected from Step 1of the last tutorial, and you should still have the Dolly toolselected. (If these two buttons are not blue, select them now.)

1- Click once on the Shield to select it.

A single click with any manipulator tool will select objectsas long as you don’t drag, just click. This keeps you fromhaving to use the Selection Tool each time you want tomake a selection.

2- Click down in the 3D window and drag up until the blue of theShield is no longer visible on the front of the yellow Face object.What you are doing is moving the Shield backwards.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIP!If you have the ProAnimator you will see a message sayingthat you are about to Tweak something. Read the sectioncalled “What Is A Tweak” in the Animation section forimportant information about tweaking objects. For thepurpose of this tutorial however, just click the OK buttonand repeat Step 2 again.

Drag up to push the Shield away andmove it behind the other objects.


3- Click once on the Face object to select it, then click down inthe 3D window and drag down to pull the Face forward. Stopwhen you can see the face clearly.

4- Click on the Crown to select it, then drag down to pull itforward until it is in front of the Face object.

Next we need to select the Eyes, but this object is partiallyhidden by other objects. The best way to select the Eyes is to doit from the Object List.

5- In the Object List select the Eyes object, then drag in the 3Dwindow to pull the eyes forward until they are in front of theFace.

At this point the logo is looking fairly good. However there is onebig problem which the next step will show to you.

6- Switch to Camera mode by clicking on the Camera button,then choose the Front View from the Views... menu.

What happened? All the objects have been shifted sideways!When you were dragging the objects forward and backward youwere pulling them straight toward the camera, and since thecamera was looking at the objects from an angle the objects werebeing pulled out of alignment.

Drag down to pull the Crown and Eyes forward.

Drag down to pull the Face forward.


How To Reset The 3D Objects(continuing from the last tutorial)

We need to reset the objects back to their starting positions soyou can learn a different way to move them. But first let’s returnthe camera to the previous view.

1- From the camera Views... menu choose the High Right view.

2- Switch back to Object Mode.

3- Double click on the Selection Tool. This is a shortcut for theSelect All command which selects all visible objects.

4- Click the Reset button, located below the Object List.

What happened? The objects jumped to the top corner of yourscreen! The reason why is that the Reset button moves theobjects back to their original positions where they were createdin the Adobe Illustrator program. When you first opened the fileyou had the “Move To Center” option turned on. Move To Centerrepositions all of the objects to the center of the world so theyare easier to work with. When you clicked Reset it removed thedragging you did in the last tutorial but also removed the center-ing process. However, to get the objects back to center is easy.

5- Click the Move To Center button, located next to the Resetbutton. Now the objects will be back where you expect them tobe.

Use Move To Center to bring all selectedobjects to the center of the world.

Double click the Selection Tool as ashortcut for the Select All command.

Click the Reset button to return objectsto their original positions.


Moving 3D Objects - Part 2(continuing from the last tutorial)

Now let’s learn how to move objects forward and back withoutpulling them off to the side. Pay attention because this techniquewill be very useful in your future projects.

1- Click on the background to deselect all objects, then click onceon the Shield to select it. You should see only one bounding boxand it should be around the Shield.

2- Select the Dolly tool, then click and drag down in the 3Dwindow. As you drag you will see that the Shield is being pulledstraight toward you. You are looking “through” the camera’s lensso the Shield is being pulled straight toward the camera. This iswhy the parts were pulled out of alignment.

What we need is a way to move objects forward or back, butwithout pulling them off to the side.

3- Release the mouse button and use the Undo command fromthe Edit menu. This will return the Shield to its previous position.If it only gets part way there you may have let go of your mousebefore the dragging was completed so just select Undo again, andagain until the Shield is back to where it started.

If you Undo too many times you can the use the Redocommand to step forward again.

Click on the shield to select it.

Dragging down pulls the shield directly toward the camera.


4- Turn on the “Drag Using Object’s Axes” checkbox, locateddirectly above the Object List. Remember where this checkboxis. It is the key to keeping your objects in alignment.

The Shield should still be selected.

5- Click and drag down in the 3D window.

Notice that the Shield is now moving toward the left side of thescreen instead of coming straight at you. What’s happening isthat the Shield is moving forward and back along its own axisinstead of the camera’s axis. This means that it will stay alignedwith all the other pieces. With the “Drag Using Object’s Axes”checkbox turned on you are able to move objects forward andback directly along their Z axis. If you drag up you will see theobject go behind the other objects and off into the distance.

6- Drag the Shield until it is just behind the other pieces.

7- Select the Face and drag down to pull it forward just a bit.

8- Select the Crown and drag down until it is just in front of theFace.

Dragging up and down will now make the shieldmove back and forth along its own Z axis.


9- In the Object List select the Eyes, then drag in the 3D windowto pull the eyes forward until they are even with the front of theFace.

Getting objects to align can sometimes be hard to do. There is atechnique for doing this that can be helpful. As you drag, look forthe red wire box surrounding the eyes. Pull the eyes forwarduntil you can easily see the red wires, then push the eyes backuntil the lowest of the red wires just disappears behind the yellowof the Face.

10- Select the “Crown Insignia” from the Object List and pull itforward until you can see it in front of the Crown.

Now let’s check how the logo looks from the front.

11- Switch to Camera mode, and pick the Front view from theViews... menu.

As you can see the logo pieces are still aligned and readable. Inthe next sections we will fine tune the look and turn the logo intoa finished piece.

...then slowly push them back until the red wires just disappear.

Pull the eyes forward until you see the red wire box, ...


Camera Shortcuts(continuing from the last tutorial)

As you are working on a logo you will find that it is useful to beable to move the camera to look at the objects from differentangles. Up to this point we have been moving the camera byswitching to camera mode, selecting a manipulation tool, andthen dragging in the 3D window. That’s three steps. However thecamera has shortcut keys that will let you move it around in onestep. Here’s how....

1- Hold down the Spacebar and the Command key on yourkeyboard, (Alt key on Windows). Then drag left/right in the 3Dwindow.

This is the shortcut for Camera Tumble. It’s easy to rememberbecause it is the spacebar and the key right next to the spacebar.You can drag left/right/up and down with this tool to look at everyside of the object. You will find that this one shortcut is used allthe time so take a second and memorize it.

2- Select the Front view from the Views... menu.

3- Hold down the Spacebar and the Control key on your key-board, (same keys for Mac and Windows). Then drag up/down inthe 3D window.

The shortcut for Camera Tumble.

The shortcut for Camera Dolly.


This is the shortcut for Camera Dolly. It’s easy to rememberbecause it is the spacebar and the key furthest away from thespacebar. Drag up while holding these keys down to dolly upcloser to the object, and drag down to pull back away from theobject. You are moving the camera remember, so up pushes thecamera closer to the object and down pulls the camera awayfrom the objects. You will find that this is the second most-usedshortcut and it is worth memorizing too.


5- Hold down the Spacebar all by itself. Then drag left/right in the3D window.

This is the shortcut for Camera Tracking. It’s the most easy toremember because it works just like the spacebar in Photoshop.Holding down the spacebar and dragging is like moving the viewof your Photoshop canvas.

Notice that all of the Camera shortcuts use the spacebar.

For the rest of the tutorials instead of telling you to switch modesand select this or that tool, we’ll just say “Tumble the camera tolook at the sides of your objects,” or “Dolly-in to get a closer lookat how the two parts interact.”

Let’s take a second and do an exercise to get you more familiarwith these shortcut keys.

The shortcut for Camera Track.

Tracking the Camera acts like the grabber hand in Photoshop.


Camera Shortcut Exercise(continuing from the last tutorial)


2- Using only the shortcut keys, Dolly-in close on the Eyes.

3- Track so the K is centered.

4- Tumble so you are looking at the objects from the left.

5- Dolly out until you can see all objects.

6- Tumble so you are looking from the front.

7- Track so the objects are centered and you are back where youstarted.

Got it? Great. Then let’s move on.

2

3 4

1 & 7

65


Adjusting the Thickness of Objects(continuing from the last tutorial)

When objects are first created each object is made the samethickness. The next step toward completing our logo is to makeeach object the proper thickness.

1- Tumble the Camera so you are looking at the objects from theright.

You can see from this view how far apart the objects are spaced.You can also see that parts of objects are too thick and stick outwhere they shouldn’t. Usually the thicker an object is the moresolid it appears. The thinner it is the more delicate it feels. Thethickness of an object is controlled by the Depth slider. Find theDepth slider at the bottom right corner of the Object Tab.

2- Select the Shield. Drag the Depth slider to 0. Release yourmouse button.

As soon as you release the mouse the Shield gets completely thin.A Depth of 0 creates a plane. However, notice that the Shielddidn’t change shape until you released the mouse button. If youhold down on your keyboard’s Shift key while you are draggingthe slider, you will see the object change depth as you drag.

3- Hold down the Shift key and drag the Depth slider to 30.

Look at the logo from the right...

A Depth of 0 creates a plane.


While you are dragging notice that the front face of the Shield isstaying in the same place. As the Depth gets larger the objectgrows toward the back. It does not get bigger around its center.That’s because Depth doesn’t scale the object, it rebuilds theobject with new dimensions. If you use the Scale tool the objectwill expand or contract about its center.

4- Tumble the Camera to a 3/4 view. (Use the Shortcut keys!)

5- Select the Face object, and set its Depth to 12.

6- Select the Eyes object, and set its Depth to 2.

7- Switch to Object Mode and use the Object List to select theCrown Insignia object. Then set its Depth to 4.

8- Pick the Select Invisible command from the Object List. Thiswill select the invisible text objects. Next uncheck the “MakeInvisible” checkbox. This will make the text objects reappear.

9- Give the King Text object a Depth of 12, and the EntertainmentText object a Depth of 4.

We’ll leave the Crown the same Depth that it already is. Thatleaves us with the White Holes object. If you Tumble the camerato the side you will see that this object sticks out behind the Faceobject. All it is supposed to be is a background color to prevent

Use the Select Invisible command to select the invisible objects.

The White Holes object is sticking out behind the Face.


you from seeing through the mouth and eye sockets of the Face.The White Holes object is needed or else you’d see the blue of theshield and that would spoil the look of the logo.

In order to put the White Holes object in the correct place we willneed to use all of the techniques that we’ve learned so far.

1- Select the White Holes object, then set its Depth to 2.

2- Pick the Dolly tool and turn on “Drag Using Object’s Axes”mode.

3- Drag up and down and watch the object pass through the otherobjects. Watch the lower corner of the red bounding box andposition the object so that it is near the back of the Face objectbut not behind it.

4- Tumble and Track the Camera to look at the logo from thefront.

Pretty good! We’re almost done.

Watch the red lines. As you dragthey will move through the Face.


How To Apply An Edge Profile(continuing from the last tutorial)

Edge Profiles are the bevels used to dress up the object. Thereare over 100 profiles built into the program and you can makeyour own too. Think of an Edge Profile as fancy molding thatgoes around the perimeter of your objects.

1- Select the Shield object.

2- Click on the Material Set-Up button, located above the 3Dwindow.

The 3D window will be replaced by a window showing you theEdge Profile being used by the Shield. Imagine that you areabove the Shield, looking down at it, and you take a slice throughits center. You would have the front of the Shield at the bottom ofthe slice, and the back of the Shield would be at the top of theslice. Look at the Material Set-Up window and see that this iswhat it is showing. We’ve labeled the Front and Back in thewindow so you can remember what you are looking at.

This cross-section view also shows you the Edge Profile appliedto the outside edges of the Shield on the left, and on the rightwould be the Edge Profile applied to the holes in the Shield, if ithad any.

The Material Set-Up window shows you a cross-section type ofview so you can see which Edge Profile is applied to the object.


The Edge Profile being used by the Shield is called the MediumBevel. If you look at the top right corner of the Object Tab youwill see the name “Bevel, Medium” in the first menu. This menuis where you select the profiles. Let’s change the Edge Profile tosomething that you might see on a wooden plaque.

3- Click on the Edge Profile menu, find the Stacks submenu andthen find the “Tiers, Rounded” item. Select it.

The Material Set-Up window now shows a three-level bevel.

4- Click on the Scene Preview button, located above the 3Dwindow, to go back to the 3D image of the logo.

The Shield now has a triple-level bevel on it.

Next, let’s apply the Edge Profile called Power Groove Bevels, tothe “King Text” object.

1- Select the King Text object.

2- Display the Material Set-Up window.

3- Click on the Edge Profile menu, find the Inset Face submenuand then find the “Bevel, Power Grooves” item. Select it.

The Rounded Tiers Edge Profile as it appearsin the Material Set-Up window.


You can see that this Edge Profile has lots of angles on it. Theseangles catch highlights very nicely.

4- Switch back to the 3D Scene Preview window.

Unfortunately the King Text object doesn’t look much differentthan it did before because it’s colored black. When you open upIllustrator files with the “Use Illustrator Colors” option turnedON, any objects that are colored black in Illustrator will end upblack in the Invigorator. Black looks fine on the printed page but3D models that are painted black don’t look very good at all.

To help out the logo we need to choose a few new colors that willenhance the look.

The Power Grooves Edge Profile as it appearsin the Material Set-Up window.


How To Apply A Single Material To An Object(continuing from the last tutorial)

Using the drag and drop method to Apply a material to an object,let’s make the King Text object gold.

1- Click on the Materials Tab, located at the top right of the Set-Up window.

Here you will see a bin full of pre-created materials. Each of thecolored balls is called a Material Swatch. We call it a MaterialSwatch instead of a color swatch because there is more to amaterial than just a color. For instance when making realistic-looking gold, the reflectivity of the gold is just as important as thebase color.

Below the bin is the editing area where you can change the colorsand other details about a material. Look over this area and readthe names of the different attributes that are used to create amaterial.

2- In the second row of the bin, find the gold material swatches.There are two of them. Double click on the one on the left.

When you double click on a material it is loaded into the materialeditor located below the bin. You will now see the gold swatch inthe single docking station in the editing area. Look for its name.

MaterialBin

MaterialEditor

Double click on a material in the bin (TOP)to load it into the editor (BOTTOM).


You should see the words “Punchy Gold” in the field at the top ofthe editing area.

You will also see a thick red line surrounding the swatch in boththe editor and the bin. This red line indicates that these are boththe same material and if you make changes to the swatch at thebottom you will see the changes affect the swatch at the top.

3- Double click on the other gold material in the second row ofthe bin. This one is called Polished Gold.

These gold materials are very similar, however one is “busier”than the other meaning there are more lights and darks in thereflections. The busier one, Punchy Gold, works very well on flatsurfaces. The other one, Polished Gold, works well on curvedsurfaces.

4- Apply the Punchy Gold material by dragging it from the bin anddropping it onto the King Text object.

Be sure that the point of your cursor is over the King Text objectotherwise the material may be dropped onto something else. Ifyou make a mistake you can always Undo it.

5- Turn on the display mode that shows reflections by clickingonce on the 3D Display Style button.

Busier reflections are goodfor flat surfaces.

Smoother reflections aregood for curved surfaces.


6- Use the shortcut keys to Tumble the Camera. Now you cansee the reflections in the gold dance across the surface of theKing Text object.

Even though the King Text object is now gold, it lost a little of itspunch. The best thing would be for the face of the object to begold while the edges were black. This would put a black edgearound the gold and the contrast will really make the logo pop.

How To Add A Second Material To An Object(continuing from the last tutorial)

The King Text object should still be selected.

1- Click on the Material Set-Up button.

In the top window is the Power Grooves bevel that you applied tothe model a few steps ago. Notice that there are little green chipswith the number 1 on them. One is next to the Front, the Back,and the Outside part of the cross section.

Now look at the area below this window where you will see sixsquare docking areas the same size as a Material Swatch. Thisarea is called the Material Palette. It shows the materials that arebeing used on the selected object.

MaterialSet-Up

MaterialPalette


The first dock in the Palette has the Punchy Gold material in itand the green chip next to it has the number 1 on it. When youlook at the Palette and the Material Set-Up window together,these green number chips show that the material in the first dockis being applied to the Front, Back and Sides of the selectedobject. What we’re going to do next is to apply a black materialto the sides of the object. Here’s how...

2- In the top row of the Material Bin find the black materialswatch. Drag it from the bin and drop it into dock number 2.

Once the black material has been loaded into the Material Paletteyou can then apply it to the object.

3- Drag the black material from the Palette and drop it onto thegreen chip sitting next to the Outside Edge Profile.

As you drag you will see that when the mouse cursor moves intothe Material Set-Up window a little green chip with the number 2appears at the point. Drag until this chip is over the existing chipthat you want to replace. When the two chips get close to eachother they will snap together and the side of the model willhighlight in red. If you release the mouse button before you seethe red highlight then nothing will happen.

When you have successfully done the drop the green chip willhave the number 2 on it. This indicates that the material in dock2 is now applied to the sides.

Drag from the Palette into the Set-Up window. Snap the greenchips together before you release the mouse.


4- Click the Scene Preview button to switch back to the 3D view.

This looks better but if you Tumble the Camera around the objectyou’ll see that the sides are still a bit blocky because they arecompletely black. The ideal scene would be for part of the edgeto be black and part to be gold. Fortunately we have a way to dothat.

How To Split A Profile To Fine TuneMaterial Placement(continuing from the last tutorial)

The King Text object should still be selected.

1- Switch back to the Material Set-Up window.

We need to split the edge into two parts, then we can apply blackto one part and gold to the other.

2- Find the Split tool and select it. Click once on the edge, neargreen chip #2. (Don’t double click, just click once.)

This will create a red arrow on the line, and you will now see two#2 chips.

TIP!To delete a split arrow drag it off the line and release themouse when the arrow turns light pink.

The Split Tool is selected when it is blue.

Click once on the line to split the edge into two parts.


3- Drag the gold Material Swatch from the Palette and drop itonto the top #2 chip. This will be the chip closest to the back ofthe object.

Notice that when the chips snap together only half of the edgehighlights in red. This shows you that only part of the edge willreceive the new material. When complete this chip will have a #1on it.

Switch to Scene Preview and tumble the Camera around theobjects. This is looking better but there is still too much black.Let’s make the black area smaller.

Switch back to the Material Set-Up window.

Split arrows are not locked in position. They can be draggedalong the line.

4- Click on the red Split arrow and drag it down to the lower leftcorner. When it gets close, the arrow will snap onto the cornerand turn white in the center. When the arrow looks like this it isto let you know that it has snapped onto a corner point.

Switch back to the Scene Preview window, and Tumble theCamera to look at the logo from the front. Perfect! Now youhave an edge of black surrounding the gold face and there is moregold on the sides to add extra sparkle.

Drag the arrow to reposition the split point.

Drag the gold material in the palette anddrop it onto the top chip.


How To Create An Object Style(continuing from the last tutorial)

Once the colors, materials, depth and Edge Profile used on anobject are done you can save this batch of settings as an ObjectStyle. You used Object Styles in the Beginning Tutorials to set upyour models with a single drag/drop. Here is how to create yourown.

1- The King Text object should still be selected. If it isn’t selected,do it now.

2- Click on the Object Styles tab and find the Swatch/Library...menu.

3- From the Swatch/Library menu choose the “Save Object Style”command.

A window will appear asking you to name the Object Style. Bydefault it will say King Text-style.

4- Click the Save button. The Object Style is saved to the bin.

5- Scroll down to the bottom of the Object Style bin. You will seea number 2 that has been built with the same settings and materi-als as the King Text object.

This Object Style can now be used like any other Object Style. Bydropping it onto other objects those objects will receive the samesettings and materials as the original King Text object.

Go to the Object Styles tab.

Saving the Object Style.


Coloring the Other Objects(continuing from the last tutorial)

Most of the colors on the other objects are fine so let’s quicklyapply colors to the two that still need changing.

1- Switch back to the Materials Tab, and deselect all objects.Tumble the Camera and Dolly-in so you can see the front and sideof the Crown.

The crown already has two materials applied to it, yellow on theface and black on the sides. The crown in the original Illustratorfile had two colors applied to it too, a fill color and a stoke color.When you open an Illustrator file with the “Use Illustrator Colors”option turned ON, the fill color is applied to the face of the objectand the stroke color is applied to the sides of the object.

HOT TIP!Once an object has been split into two parts you can dropmaterials onto the individual parts in the Scene Preview.This keeps you from having to go to the Material Set-Upwindow every time you want to change the material.

2- Drag the Punchy Gold material from the bin and drop it ontothe front face of the Crown in the 3D window.

Move the Camera so you can see the front and side of theCrown at the same time.

Drag and drop Punchy Gold onto the front of the Crown.


3- Drag the Red material from the bin and drop it onto the side ofthe Crown. Make sure that the point of the arrow cursor is overthe black side of the Crown object before you release the mousebutton. If you accidentally drop the red on the Crown’s front oronto the Shield, just Undo the mistake and try again.

Now let’s give the K on the Crown a white front and a black side.

4- Select the K Insignia object. Switch to the Material Set-Upwindow.

Here you can see that a black material is applied to the Front,Back and Sides of the object. The black is already being used onthe sides so we can leave it as it is. All we need to do is put awhite material onto the Front face.

5- Drag the White Material swatch from the bin and drop it intodock #2 of the Palette.

6- Drag the White Swatch from the palette and drop it onto thegreen chip next to the word Front.

7- Switch back to the Scene Preview and choose the “Front” viewfrom the Camera Views... menu. Dolly in a bit and take a look atyour work.

For the K, load the white material into dock #2, then the dragthe swatch onto the Front green chip.

Drag and drop the red material onto the side of the Crown.


How To Make Lights Cast Shadows(continuing from the last tutorial)

The last step in this project is to set the lights for a more dramaticeffect.

1- Click on the Light Mode button.

When you click on the Light Mode button the area below theScene Preview window changes to show the Light Manipulatorball. The area where the Materials Tab used to be, changes toshow the Lighting Tabs.

The Light Tab is divided into a top half and a bottom half just likethe Materials Tab. The top half holds Light Swatches. The bottomhalf is the editing area where you change specifics about theselected light.

The Light Editor works a little differently than the MaterialsEditor. You don’t “load” a light into the editing area. When a lightgets selected the editor automatically updates to show you thesettings the selected light is using.

Light Manipulator Lights List

LightBin

LightEditor


2- In the editing area, turn on the Shadow Casting checkbox.

This will enable shadows for the selected light. In a 3D programyou have to tell the program which lights will cast shadowsbecause rendering the shadows takes extra time and you don’talways need them.

When you turn the Cast Shadows option on you won’t see achange in the Scene Preview window. This is because shadowsaren’t rendered in the preview. In order to see shadows you needto do a final rendering.

3- Click the Render Frame button, (or the Render button in theProModeler.)

When the rendering finishes it will be displayed on screen in itsown window. Notice that the shadows are too dark and they fallin the wrong direction. They are a little distracting. So let’s makethem not so dark and change their position.

4- Set the Shadow Darkness slider to 40. Render the frame andsee that the shadows are now present but they don’t overpowerthe image.


How To Move Lights(continuing from the last tutorial)

Find the Light Manipulator ball. You will see the top arrow has ared wire box around it, meaning it is selected. The name of thislight, “Light 1”, is shown on the Lights List to the right of the ball.

Look at the position of the selected arrow. The arrow representsthe direction that Light 1 is pointing. To move the light drag thearrow to a new position.

1- Click down on the center of the Light Manipulator ball and dragleft, right, up and down.

As you drag right the arrow will be pulled to the side of the ball.If you continue dragging right the arrow will go around to theback of ball. If you drag up the arrow will stop at the top of theball. If you drag down the arrow will stop at the bottom of theball.

2- Undo the changes so the arrow is back to where it started.

Since shadows are cast from a light, you need to change thedirection the light is pointing in to change where the shadows willfall. If we want the shadows to fall to the left of the face we willneed to move the light to the right side of the ball.

If you drag too far the lightmay go behind the ball.

The Light Manipulator ball.


3- Click in the center of the ball and drag slowly to the right. Don’tdrag up or down, try to keep the arrow at the same level. Stopdragging when the arrow is on the right side of the ball, but nottoo much on the right.

4- Render the frame.

You will now see the shadows falling to the left side of the Faceobject. If the arrow is too far around the side, the shadows willbe very long. If the arrow is to much in front the shadows will bevery short. Try moving the arrow and rendering a frame a fewtimes until you start to see how the direction of the light isaffecting the shadow.

5- When the final image is rendered make sure it is the foremostwindow by clicking on it, then use the Save Picture... commandto save the image to disk.

If you forget to save the image it will be deleted from memorywhen you quit the program.

Drag the arrow to this position.

The final logo.


How To Save A Project(continuing from the last tutorial)

When your work is done you will need to save the project file.

1- From the File menu pick File> Save Scene As...

This will open a window where you can name the file and choosewhere to save it.


Additional Tips When Working With Illustrator Files

Here is some addition information that will help with your logocreation.

When you draw shapes in a bezier-based vector drawing programsuch as Illustrator, FreeHand or Corel Draw, the files need to besaved in Illustrator format. Any version between 88 and 10 willwork. You can also use vector clip art such as the Art Explosionseries as long as the clip art is saved in Illustrator format.

The vector shapes must be outlines. Pixel images or scans (alsocalled Raster images) won’t work unless you turn them intovector outlines by tracing them. (See the section called Using

Scanned Artwork To Create Models in the Special Topics sec-

tion.)

Don’t over-build the vector shapes. Keep the line art simple.Most of the pizzazz comes from the Edge Profiles, materials andthe shading applied to the models when the image is rendered.

When the vector paths are given a Fill color in their drawingprogram they create solid 3D objects when brought into theInvigorator. Paths that have no Fill color but are given a Strokecolor create hollow 3D objects in the Invigorator. The width ofthe Stroke is ignored.

Filled paths become solid objects.

Stroked paths become hollow objects.

Use VectorOutlines.

Raster imageswon’t work.


When an Illustrator file is opened, and the “Use Illustrator Colors”option is turned ON, the Fill color of the path is applied to thefront and back faces of the 3D model, and the Stroke color of thepath is applied to the bevels and sides of the 3D model.

When creating text in the Illustrator file be sure to convert it toOutlines before saving the file.

(There is another section in this guide called Prepping Your

Illustrator files which goes into more detail and should also be

read.)Convert Text to Outlines before saving.

A Text Object Vector Outlines

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