General Category > General Anim8or Forum
Where can I start?
Owl:
Kreator, great tutorials!
The problem I am having is not knowing where I am. I will go through all the documentation and all the drop down menus and can't find a menu I had just a short while ago. In other words there are modes that are turned on that reconfigure what and how the mouse and UI react. For example: "Environment Settings"
I found it once but for the life of me can't find again. In other words different paths change your working tools and unless you know where you are in the path you are stuck.
Using "Environment Settings" ONLY as an example: I believe this should be listed in the documentation or examples with all the settings necessary to find and use it such as:
"Environment Settings"
MODE>Scene
OPTIONS>??
VIEW>??
BUILD>?? etc
Then UI buttons such as:
SCENE: Edit or View
ENABLE: x,y or z
VIEW: zoom, rotate or view
SHOW: ....
ANIMATE: ...
It ALSO would be useful if the software UI included a note tucked in some corner as to where it is in the decision tree of modes, functions and features that are enabled.
I acknowledge that there is great diversity in people’s working styles and realize that different people have different ways of understanding. For example even thought I know most of the hidden details of Windows OS and of my state of the art smart Android phone, I find Apple products hard to use.
Is there any hope for me with Anim8or? ??? (Which is very impressive otherwise)
Thank You,
Owl
kreator:
Owl:
There are Four Modes, Object, Figure, Sequence and Scene,
If you go to the options menu You can turn on Tool Tips and whenever you hover over an icon its function will be displayed in the bottom left of the screen.
Environment is in Scene mode and relates only to the scene you will not have it in any of the other modes
I would concentrate on one section at a time, Object mode is the one you should master first, make a few models etc then when you have them saved out, progress to scene mode as you will no doubt want to animate them.
This is where Build comes into play. You must Build the scene with objects, lights cameras etc
Keep reading the manual ( make a hard copy of it to refer to )
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Anim8orWorld/
Raxx:
On a side note, Owl, learning and retaining how to use software is part of the ball game. You can't just skip it, especially for production tools. It's a simple matter of coming to an understanding of what you're using and where to look based on what they do--which will come through practice and an actual effort to learn to use Anim8or. Anim8or isn't a super difficult maze or confounding puzzle, it'll click after a while of working with it, don't worry :)
Owl:
Raxx and Kreator,
Thank you very much for your comments. We don't know each other and I am just a geek, but please take my word ... I know and have done all that you suggested and MUCH more 20 hours or so ago. I am highly skilled at lots of things (especially 3D), it's just different people have different ways of understanding.
Back on topic:
Here I am in Scene mode again. I have made: models, animated bones, animated camera, textured surfaces, looked at every hover-over, menu and sub menu and finally found it, again.
So after a lot of effort, I found the information I was asking about: "Environment Settings" under Scene>Properties (labeled "Scene Parameters")>Environment .
Using "Environment Settings" ONLY as an example. I believe information like above should be listed in the documentation or examples with all the settings necessary to find and use it. I think a UI tree is a very useful part of documentation for who people who think like me.
Thank You for your help.
Owl
thecolclough:
Owl - not sure which build of Anim8or you're using, but it sounds like you might have one of the latest development previews. There have been some changes to the menu structure in recent development builds, including moving the 'Environment Settings' menu; the documentation only covers the official v0.98 build (i think) and will not reflect these recent changes to the menus. That might be a contributing factor to your difficulties!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version