Comments on: After Effects: A workflow with ProAnimator

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:26:34 +0000

Good to hear Nick. Since I started using ProAnimator I completely stopped using 3D Invigorator. Best wishes, John.

By: Nick

Nick — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 06:18:06 +0000

Thank you, to both Brett and John. Well, the difference is quite much what I expected it to be. I had a project in mind and didn’t know which tool to use. Now I know which one I need. Thank again to both of you.

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:20:05 +0000

Hi Nick, ProAnimator is completely separate from 3D Invigorator. Check out this product comparison I did which should clear up the confusion!

ProAnimator vs 3D Invigorator

Best wishes,

John

By: Brett Perry

Brett Perry — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 21:46:14 +0000

Hi Nick,
Check out the Zaxwerks site for the difference between 3D Invigorator and Proanimator. In 3D Invigorator, you assign an object or group of objects to a set. You can then animate the set using the traditional keyframes. Proanimater uses a system of animations that can be called behaviors. It supplies many presets but you can customize them or create your own. You don’t have the animate window in 3D Invigorator, but you do have the same set up window as Proanimator. Hope this helps.
Brett

By: Nick

Nick — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 13:59:26 +0000

Thank you for the tutorial, it’s very useful! I have never realized Proanimator is such a powerful plug-in.

Just one question: what is the difference between 3D invigorator and ProAnimator? The plug-in that I have is called 3D invigorator and it’s actually quite much the one I saw in your tutorial, but it doesn’t have animator window, thus I can’t do some operations. Can you help me with this? Do I need to re-install the plug-in in some different way? Or is ProAnimator different plug-in and I need to buy it? I would be very thankful if you’d reply. Once again, thanks and I’ll wait for your reply.

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 22:02:20 +0000

Good to hear Zaher, glad to have you visiting us here at Motionworks. Best, John.

By: Zaher

Zaher — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:09:18 +0000

Hi John ,
I learned about your website through video copilot after you did the interview with Andrew ,since that time I am addicted to your awesome tutorials ,please keep up the great work .
Best regards

By: Maxime

Maxime — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 23:41:27 +0000

Hey John !

Is it better to buy a camera that shoots videos, or to buy a camcorder that takes pictures ?

What Camcorder or camera would you recommend ?

By: 40 great AE tutorials | Detroit Digital Media

40 great AE tutorials | Detroit Digital Media — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:42:03 +0000

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By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:30:20 +0000

Hi Roy, I upgraded Shadowbox and hadn’t set it up correctly. All is working fine now so thanks for the heads up. Best, John.

By: Roy

Roy — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:13:32 +0000

Hi John…

Unfortunally, the tutorial doesn’t load in my FF. :S If I click on the link, the website will turn gray, but without the FLV player. Then I’ll have to reload the page, because I can’t get out of the gray screen. Ofcourse I did already found a workaround. Don’t worry for that. I did just download it by right clicking. This is possible, because the link seems to link directly to the FLV file, rather than the FLV player.

Thanks for the tutorial, I’m going to watch it right now!

By: samitha

samitha — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:53:30 +0000

Thank u sir. a await this tutorial for many many times. Nice work & goodluck.

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:58:13 +0000

Hey Peter, the font is Faricy and no, there is no way to use your 3D Invigorator project inside ProAnimator that I know of. Best, John.

By: Peter Somers (TC-Productions)

Peter Somers (TC-Productions) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:52:11 +0000

Once again, a super tutorial!

Two quick questions:
1. The font used in your tutorial title screen, is that Quicksand?
2. At work, we use ProAnimator. However, I found this really cool free AE comp online the other day which uses the Invigorator plugin. Is there a way to import this comp into AE and translate the Invigorator data to ProAnimator, or are we talking about 2 completely incompatible things here?

In any case, major congrats again!!

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:04:31 +0000

Thanks Klas, isn’t that what they say… “good things are worth waiting for”? Best, John.

By: Zaxwerks Blog » Gangster ProAnimator Tutorial

Zaxwerks Blog » Gangster ProAnimator Tutorial — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:59:26 +0000

[...] Motionworks [...]

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:56:44 +0000

Hi Brett, Ed has answered those questions for me! Best, John.

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:53:21 +0000

Hey Hussin, I hope you found it useful. Best, John.

By: John Dickinson

John Dickinson — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:52:48 +0000

Absolutely Paul, sometimes I use Cinema 4D, sometimes I use ProAnimator, it’s all about choosing the right tool for the job. Best, John.

By: Klas

Klas — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:46:55 +0000

Thanks for a really helpful tutorial. I do love 3D-text
It was worth the wait, and it was nice for a change to not get everything “right here, right now”
There is a lesson to be had in waiting

Anyway, love your site!

//Klas

By: Edward Wu

Edward Wu — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 20:01:18 +0000

Hi Brett,

To apply a single image on all the text, you could try grouping the text in Illustrator, then using the “Open Illustrator File” command, and bringing the text into ProAnimator/3D Invigorator.

The text will come in as one object. When you apply a texture map/layer map onto your object, it will now be applied onto the whole text instead of individual characters.

As for replacing the material presets, if you are using version 4.5.0 (or newer), the swatches are set up with a master copy (located in the After Effects Plug-ins folder), and also an user set of swatches located in the “Documents/My Documents > Zaxwerks > ProAnimator/3D Invigorator” folder.

If you delete the ProAnimator/3D Invigorator folder, the swatches will be reset the next time you launch the program. Be careful to back out any important swatches first though!

Best,
Edward

By: praveenVFx

praveenVFx — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:18:33 +0000

thanks Jhon. I got here Very Good Tutorial…

By: Brett Perry

Brett Perry — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:52:49 +0000

Hi John, Thanks for another excellent tutorial. I do still have a question about layer mapping. How do you apply a layer map (a targa or jpeg image) across all of your text rather than to each of the individual letters. If I select all the text and apply the layer map, it appears individually assigned to each letter, not stretched across all letters. Is there a way of grouping the text into one object and then applying the layer map. I have both 3D Invigorator and Proanimator. I think it might be possible in Proanimator with the group and ungroup functions, but I don’t see a way in 3D Invigorator. My other question is totally unrelated. In the early days of playing around with 3D Invigorator, I mistakenly deleted some of the materials supplied in the material bin (ouch). Is there any way to get these back ie a reload feature (I hope). Keep up the good work!

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:12:23 +0000

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This post was mentioned on Twitter by motionworks: TUTORIAL | Stylish, moody 3D text with After Effects and Zaxwerks ProAnimator. New tutorial on Motionworks http://bit.ly/3Aq1Xy...

By: Hussin Khan

Hussin Khan — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:55:11 +0000

Hey JD, I’ve not seen it yet but I bet I’ll learn something new!! AE + ProAnimator – match made in heaven!! Thanks buddy!!