Anim8or Community

i'm currently trying to teach a friend the rudiments of anim8or - he's not doing too badly, but he seems to keep forgetting where the 'mode' menu is.  it's quite important, as that's how you get to 'the movie part of the program', aka. 'scene mode'.  In the top menu bar, click 'Mode' (on the left, next to 'Edit'), and select 'Scene' - that'll take you to the bit where you can make stuff move.  Once you're in there, you can add an object or figure to the scene by going to 'Build' (about half-way along the top menu bar), and selecting 'Add Object' or 'Add Figure'.  obviously, that only works if you've already built some objects and/or figures!

i won't write a ton about animating scenes here, as there are plenty of tutorials out there that explain all that, but once you've got your scene finished, you can save a video file of it by first making sure you're looking at it from the right view (usually you want to be in Camera view), then going to the 'Render' menu, and choosing 'Render Movie'.  that'll bring up a dialog which lets you set up your video (eg. file name, frame size, and stuff like that), then when you 'OK' that, it'll give you a list of codecs.  the default is 'Uncompressed', which will take up lots of hard disk space, but give you maximum image quality.  If you want a smaller file size, you might want to have a look at other codecs.  once you 'OK' your choice of codec, you can then sit back and watch at your leisure, while anim8or renders your scene into a finished video clip, which can then be played back in Windows Media Player (or whatever), and/or put into a video editing program (if you've got Windows XP, then Microsoft Movie Maker should have come with your pc, it's not great, but it'll do the job if you haven't got another one).

hope that helps 

- colclough

i hope your cpu doesn't walk out on you, ensoniq, but it does sound like you're tempting fate there... 

- colclough

that's totally bizarre, but i love it   i agree with dosser that the water/grass combo works really well.

just wondering, could we see the background fractal on its own?  and what program did you use to make it?  i've been curious about making fractals, but i don't want to start spending money on it, so if you're using something that's freeware, then could you send the link?  thx

- colclough

yeah, i thought anim8or was probably only using one core.  i've found the working views are now much better (e.g. i can have a much more complex scene now, and it'll still play back at full speed, whereas the old machine would drop to just a few fps, and i can turn on the shader preview thingies), which i guess is down to the graphics card, but renders still seem to take a while, which is sort of what i meant in my last post about anim8or not having sped up much.  yes, i know my last post sort of seems to contradict my signature, but that's why - animation *is* more fun, but the renders still take time.

*well, got that explanation off my chest*

- colclough

now that's a nice sword!  i agree that the simplicity of the helmet is quite nice too.

and 3333 is such a conveniently tidy number, isn't it?  i love those sorts of coincidences.  

- colclough

i'm not sure exactly what spicy was thinking, but he's given me an idea here - how about the ability to play back another video within anim8or's scene mode, with the playback set up in such a way that you can play, or step forwards or backwards, in both the anim8or scene and the other video simultaneously?  i.e. you advance one frame in the anim8or timeline, and the video also advances one frame, etc etc.  that could be helpful for loads of stuff, because you'd then have an easy way to match your animation (e.g. lip movements, or even some types of physics simulation) to a live-action reference.  from what i've seen on behind-the-scenes documentaries, it looks like the pros (e.g. at pixar) do that sort of thing all the time.

- colclough

i only discovered the joys of the PNG format quite recently, but i really like it now.  i'll jump on the bandwagon and join in the request for PNG implementation in anim8or.  *jumps*

- colclough