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Image texture in style pallette

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 10:23 am
by muuvist
I know this has been discussed before however I would urgently like to know when the Import Image Texture bug is going to be fixed in the OSX version of Anime studio pro.
Can you import image textures in the windows version??

The studio I'm working for due to start working on a pilot for a TV series and we would like to use AS. We are intending to maintain a watercolour style from a children's book. In the tests we've done so far we have imported PNG images and added bones, however we would also like to try a vector drawn outline of the character with a bitmap texture, this way we may have more control and avoid problems with bone strength etc. distorting bitmaps. I'd really appreciate any suggestions.
BTW I have tried the image texture method in the tutorial with masking etc. however I find this to be quite complicated with too many layers. I'm sorry that I can't post an example of the character yet, I'll have to check with the Producer first.

Posted: Fri Jan 05, 2007 11:52 pm
by Lost Marble
I've fixed the bug (and some others), but I think we're waiting for a few more bug fixes before releasing an update. If you're planning to use this on lines specifically, have you tried using brushes?

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 12:17 pm
by muuvist
Lost Marble wrote:I've fixed the bug (and some others), but I think we're waiting for a few more bug fixes before releasing an update. If you're planning to use this on lines specifically, have you tried using brushes?
Great to hear your fixing the bug, please take a look at this test anime file.
http://idisk.mac.com/muuvist/Public/
In answer to your question, no I don't want any texture in the line work, I want a pen and ink look to the line work.
I'm trying to use a bitmap texture with a pen and ink line drawn with vector shapes but I'm having trouble with the masking. You'll see from the example that I want the vector "fur" to overlap the bitmap, hence the 3 levels:bottom level is a vector shape with no outline, second level is the texture and the third level is the vector detail. Is this the right approach?
You'll see from my example that masking isn't working in the body layer, only in the arm layer.
Please excuse the crappy example but at this stage it has to be non-specific. I've included the texture image as a separate file. I'm sorry but I'm not very familiar with posting and linking in forums, I hope you don't have too many problems with my clumsy attempt.
kind regards

Posted: Sat Jan 06, 2007 4:24 pm
by Rhoel
The image Texturing works fine on the Xp version I have. I haven't tried bones with image texturing but I found the texture doesn't rotate with an object. This can be both a plus or a minus, depending on what you are doing.

I have just finished a project where I textured mapped mechanical objects and it looks really good, even in HiDef. Once the sound layback is finished, I'll upload it somewhere so people can [s]rubbish it[/s], offer their critique :wink:

BTW, working at HiDef presents some unique problems - some are clearly bugs in rendering. The other is very slow render times ... 4-5 hours for one scene is common, three days for some killer scenes. I currently render HDTV as stills sequences then compile in Conbustion - this is because long or memory intense scenes can cause avi files to corrupt.

I'll be sending my data file to Mike for analysis once we are completely finished, so he can examine the problems encountered - there is no way I can upload them to here - scene files are 45 megs. :D This is just me and once you see the film, you will understand why the file sizes are so big - it is unusual, I was deliberately testing the program to breaking point in a studio environment.

To get an overall outline to your charatcer, you can put all your layers into a group layer, then use the group layer options to add a black line around the outline of the shape (aka Mr Bean animation) - this works really well and is great if you are reusing animation in longshot and closed up - just change the line expansion to get the look right in long and close shots. This technigue is brilliant since if the character picks up an object or twocharacter cross (in the same group layer) you only get one outline which changes as the characters cross or separate.

I'll look at your file and see if there is anything else to add later.

Hope this helps.

Rhoel

edit
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The texture mapping I used was not an imported layer map (the way you used with your example) but as fill image textures, using effect1 and 1 fro mthe fill box. This means the textures stay inside the shape: There is asome limited stretch and shape bending but its not a true fill to shape - (be good if it was Mike). This way you need no matting.

The "down side", as said, is the texture doesn't rotate or distort with bones.

Here is a still from my short - all the metal bits are texture maps applied with fill/image_textures. The result is really nice.

Image

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 1:32 pm
by The400th
three days for some killer scenes
Good grief! How many frames were you doing? What's your average HD render time per frame? What's the complexity that's causing the slowdown? This should be revealed so that others can work around it, we can't all afford a render farm... :(

Posted: Mon Jan 08, 2007 6:31 pm
by Rhoel
The400th wrote:
three days for some killer scenes
Good grief! How many frames were you doing? What's your average HD render time per frame? What's the complexity that's causing the slowdown? This should be revealed so that others can work around it, we can't all afford a render farm... :(
SC6 was one of the killers, over a minute long and very render heavy - lots of blends and blurring, recursive calls etc - the file size was 46M.

I siad before I was testing the program to destruction, yu really have to try hard to slow the machine up. But it did prove useful - once the film is finally finished (in post now) I'll post a copy here and send some of the source files back to Mike .. there are lessons to be learned, procedural things which will speed the program up. I was rendering on a stock PC, no dual processors or expanded memory, no render farm.

Once the film is online, I'll post more about how I put it together. - Mike has already helped out on one floating point error I encountered. Hopefully, the test information will help expand the knowledge base.

But for most people, relax, unless you are working in HD/4K with long 45M+ vector files, you won't encounter the problem.

Rhoel

Posted: Tue Jan 09, 2007 11:32 am
by The400th
Thanks for the info, Rhoel, it's good to know the (few) limitations AS has, so that we can concentrate on creating rather than technical problem solving. :D