Am I Driving You Crazy Yet???

Wondering how to accomplish a certain animation task? Ask here.

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Pixelpusher
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Am I Driving You Crazy Yet???

Post by Pixelpusher »

Don't you just get annoyed with us newbs???? I'm needing another answer.

OK, here is what is happening. I'm creating a head, and on that head I want to just add some basic lines... no fill. I can draw the lines but when I select the line to change the line color, nothing happens. I can't see a line color at all, just the line. If I render to see it, nothing. It doesn't show up. I just want to create a few highlight lines that are curvy and a different color than the head.

What am I doing wrong that would cause this?
"Life...animated, one keyframe at a time!"
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

press 'U', select the line and press space to create an object. Then you can change its colour using the palette.

It's not n00bs that drive us crazy, its n00bs who havn't done the comprehensive tutorials that come with the program and then expect us to tell them how to do even the most basic of operations. RTFM.
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synthsin75
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Post by synthsin75 »

:lol: I had to look up 'RTFM'. Thanks Funk. I like it, though I'm guilty of not following that advice for stuff like Photoshop, but I guess the difference is that I'm not on a Photoshop forum asking questions.

:wink:
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heyvern
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Post by heyvern »

I hate reading manuals. I usually judge an application in most cases by how "intuitive" the interface is. How much I can do without reading any instructions... er... uh... I do however absolutely exclude AS from that "rule". It does have a "funky" interface. ;)

When I have problems with any program the steps I use are in this order:

1. Read the manual
2. If that doesn't work, search the web (forum)
3. In extreme cases, by a book.
4. Finally... ask the forum.

What usually happens after step 4 is that 5 minutes later I find the answer either in the manual, a book, the forum or I figure it out on my own. It never fails. 5 to 10 minutes later every time. ;)

-vern
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

Also, generally, in the time it would take someone on the forum to reply, i've worked it out by clicking every button and bashing the keyboard like an excited monkey... its the easiest way to learn new software!

but i can't stress enough how important the AS tutorials are, more so than any other program as it can be a little bewildering to the n00b.

:)
chucky
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Post by chucky »

And if all else fails.... press the space bar. :wink:
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rookwings
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Post by rookwings »

If I may add my two pennies' worth, as another new user, I would have to say that the tutorials would be much more useful - AND READ - if there was a search function! I personally love tutorials, but, so many times I find that the AS tutorial assumes I am telepathic. We pure newbies need a glossary!
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funksmaname
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Post by funksmaname »

well you need to do them all, it doesn't take that long - by which point you'll have an idea of where stuff is if you need to reference it :)

Start at the beginning, and work your way through... if you skip fundamentals thinking its too basic that's where you get yourself in a muddle.
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synthsin75
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Post by synthsin75 »

I'm will Funk on this one, but I would suggest changing the help menu entries. Sounds like people often go to the 'Online tutorials' first, which is not the best route. It would be better if 'Help>Help...' read 'Help>User Manual' like it does from the start menu in windows.

But yeah, AS is a fairly simple program compared to others with years of feature creep. It doesn't take much time to read and work through the whole thing.

I've recently started to copy and paste from the manual, just to prove that the answer is in there.
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rookwings
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Post by rookwings »

Right. So, instead of quoting the manual, just refer us to the exact spot that we have missed?
My copy of ASP was a christmas gift. It is 11th jan now, and I have still hardly got my head out of the user manual to actually achieve anything creative. I don't want to learn the manual by rote, but to simply UNDERSTAND it.
(And I still can't find where it says to "right click" to assign layers in a switch to animate them.)
Help>user manual - with a search bar would virtually empty this thread, I'm sure.
I, for one, am incredibly grateful to you guys in this forum. If it hadn't been for you lot, my present would have been consigned to the recycle bin days ago, and I would have reverted to my old frame by frame method of animating.
To anyone who doesn't like our persistent questions, don't bother posting; people who don't try the user manual first generally won't stay the course anyway.
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mkelley
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Post by mkelley »

I don't think any of us mind questions -- but I also think we ALL mind folks who pretty obviously *haven't* done the tutorials (which isn't all the people who ask questions by a long shot).

I do understand folks who come here without going through the online tutorials. Most software has a set of such tutorials and most of the time they are either pretty worthless or unnecessary. I know I rarely do such tutorials. But AS has such a very different approach to things it behooves even those of us experienced in other software to run through the lessons.

Now -- the tutorials (and certainly most of the other online materials) are far from perfect in how they are written and presented. So I think it's very fair to ask about something that a lesson has covered as long as you've really tried the lesson.
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synthsin75
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Post by synthsin75 »

Please don't take any of this too personally. Sometimes we just have to gripe. If you've done your best with the manual, then we're not really picking on you. If you hang around here long, you'll see how many basic questions keep getting re-asked over and over.

Oh yeah, that switch info is under Help>Help...>Using Anime Studio>Layer Types>Switch.

On the subject of a searchable manual, many of us are big enough fans of AS that we contribute scripts, utility programs, tutorials, etc. If you ever feel so inclined, I'm sure many a newb would appreciate a searchable manual (perhaps in PDF form?). Many of us who would do this, don't really have a need for it (which is usually what drives the production of our contributions).



:wink:
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synthsin75
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Post by synthsin75 »

Also there is an actual online version of the html help documents.

So if you use: http://www.lostmarble.com/moho/manual as the site to search in Google's advanced search options, then you can search the manual now. You just have to know what to ask for. For example, 'control switch layer' found another place which tells you about right-clicking a switch layer.

Hopefully that helps. :wink:
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