Anime Studio 6 Info

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:44 pm

I said MANY of those things were brought up.

I also took that to mean that Mike way aware of "many" of those bugs.

In every single case Mike explained why things either couldn't be done at this time or why he felt they shouldn't be done for whatever reason.

I don't think that was an over-exaggeration. Maybe you didn't mean what it sounded like you meant, but it sounded like "many" of these were known by Mike and he either couldn't or didn't fix them.

CartoonM!ke · Post by **CartoonM!ke** » Sat May 30, 2009 11:58 pm

Thanks to Mike, Vern, Steve and the AS6 beta testers!

I downloaded and installed the trial for ASP 6 for Mac and on first blush, it cranked up the dial for upgrades to 12! Finally I can set up the palettes across my dual monitors and not have to readjust them across restarts! The new interface colors are great as they fade to the background and allows me to focus on the work at hand.

Having a quickstart and manual in PDF format (rather than the HTML based that was in earlier versions) is great.

As far as all this bruhaha (or whatever ya wanna call it), Having some beta experience and being pals with programmers, there is no way to take in account every single variable that exists on the many systems out there. Deadlines sometimes mean that the Perfect can't be achieved. So, imho, look at the new features and improvements. I feel very confident that any bugs or such will be addressed in any updates.

I'm just glad that Mike didn't let the Perfect be the enemy of getting an new version out.

rylleman · Post by **rylleman** » Sun May 31, 2009 12:33 am

heyvern wrote:Linux sales would have to be WAY higher than 11 to make the development cost effective. And if this is being done in the fashion you describe they would know exactly how many they have sold since they have to deal with those people on a one to one basis...

No, they would not. Linux users heads over to this page; http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/animepro/updates.html, and download the linux version, using a windows license, registered as a windows sale.
That linux sale in the drop-box has just got there in the last couple of days. I bought my latest license about two mouths ago, having to buy windows license then even though it was for linux.
If the eleven sales is since they put that buy-option up I'd say it's pretty good sales.

Vern, why is it you feel you need to jump at everything that is slightly questioning or negative about AS, Mike or SM?
I use AS in productions. It's my main work tool. I love the software but it does have a lot of issues and bugs.
As soon as someone brings issues up you're there barking as a terrier.

windstormer · Post by **windstormer** » Sun May 31, 2009 1:10 am

With any software, there will be a bug (some more than others) but AS has been overall a VERY strong and stable product. I am VERY proud to be using this product as to be a part of a forum that is as involved as this one is in the products future. I was happy with ASP 5.6 already. Now, I know that the product has a bigger and longer future with what has been done with it. Also, as with any product, not everyone will get what they want or how they see that the product should work. Fortunately, AS gives us the ability to make some additions and modifications, as needed, in Lua. Not many programs will let you do that. I have looked at many animation products and used many. This is a quality product that just got ten times better.

I applaud SM, Agent Smith, Mike, Vern, and all of the others involved in moving this product forward and listening to the users. You guys are TRULY the best.

With this kind of support I know that the bugs, if any, will be ironed out.

I will be buying the upgrade as soon as it comes out.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Sun May 31, 2009 1:21 am

Agent Smith:

I've been hearing about the new ability to animate the order of layers. I don't find anything in the new version 6 manual about how to do this or when it would be desirable.

Specifically, I would normally construct my composite character as a series of views: Front, Left 3/4, Right 3/4, Left, Right and Back. I have been using Switch layers to move from one view to another, but there is no interpolation between the "Switch Groups", which causes a "snap" from one position to the next.

Animating the order of layers within a bone group could provide a solution to this problem of separate "view groups", just by allowing an arm or leg to move with interpolation from "in front" of the torso to "in back" of the torso.

Could you or anyone else describe the process of keyframing the order of layers in any document? I've tried just moving the time slider and then moving the order of the layer in question, but this does not result in the setting of any kind of keyframe.

Or, alternately, could you point me to the page in the documentation that outlines this process?

Thank you,

Greg Smith

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Sun May 31, 2009 1:55 am

To animate layer order, you must have the layers in a group layer of some sort, like a switch or bone layer. You can then animate them, and the keys for this will show up in the group layer's keys.

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Sun May 31, 2009 1:58 am

My biggest annoyance currently in AS is that you can't multiply select layers and edit their properties as one. The largest amount of wasted time on my last project was changing the vector settings in layers over and over to what I wanted. To just be able to multiselect layers, open the properties panel and adjust them all at once would be a massive time saver for me. For selected layers which don't have tabs which are shared (say if you selected a bone layer and a group layer) then don't display the tabs in the properties panel.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Sun May 31, 2009 2:13 am

Dodgy:

I have two bone layers: One called "Body", with its associated vector layer as a child of that layer; and a second layer called "Arm", with its associated vector layer as its child.

Starting at frame 1, the bone layer "Body" is at the top of the list. I move the time slider to frame 12, then I move the bone layer "Body" to the bottom of the layer list. No keyframe appears anywhere and there is no visible animation of layer order taking place.

Please tell me what is wrong with the process I have described above, would you?

Thanks,

Greg Smith

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun May 31, 2009 2:42 am

Greg, you now need to go into the bone (or group) layer's layer settings depth sort tab to enable animated layer sorting. Then moving the layers will actually add these keyframes to that grouping layer.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Sun May 31, 2009 4:48 am

I did go into each bone layer and check those boxes you noted. This didn't help. No keyframes were set by advancing the time slider and by moving the layers in the list.

Are you sure you have actually tried this yourselves?

Greg Smith

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun May 31, 2009 4:55 am

If you are doing these layer sortings within a grouping layer, it will work. Just like 5.6, layer sorting only occurs within a grouping layer. So if you want to sort layers, you need all the layers you want to sort in a parent grouping layer, as it is that layer that gets keyed.

If you missed this feature in 5.6, you might want to search the forum for that info. It's old news.

GregSmith · Post by **GregSmith** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:04 am

When you say "a grouping layer", do you mean a bone group or a regular "Group" layer?

I've done all the searching and the answers are like yours, not very clear.

I have now put my bone "group" layers as children of a "Group" layer type, checked "Sort Layers By Depth", set the time slider, moved a bone layer from one position in the list to a position higher up, selected the master "Group" layer to see if a keyframe is set, and no keyframe was set, moved the slider again, changed the order of the child layers again, selected the parent "Group" layer - and still no keyframes appear in the timeline.

I selected the "Group" layer again, moved the time slider to the beginning of the line and pressed play, and still, no motion in the layer list or in the main window.

It may be old news, but if this can be done at all, it is not being communicated anywhere that an ordinary person could interpret the process.

And, for such an important and powerful feature, that was announced during the release of 5.6 and actually would serve to set AS Pro ahead of the competition, to go undocumented makes me wonder what the authors of this software were and are thinking.

Does anyone care to make sure that this feature is not only well explained, but the process thoroughly demonstrated - so that everyone can make use of it? Perhaps a 30 second video might make it clear to me and everyone else.

Greg Smith

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:24 am

Okay, you have your layers like this

Group
>>>Vec1
>>>Vec2

Go to a new frame, and change it to

Group
>>>Vec2
>>>Vec1

By dragging the vec1 layer below the vec2 layer.
There will be a key in the Group layer's channels for the layer change.

synthsin75 · Post by **synthsin75** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:25 am

No "Sort Layers By Depth", no one ever said anything about that. If you can't follow these very clear instructions, you may just be hopeless.

1. Take all of the layers you may wish to animate the sorting order of and place them in a single group or bone layer (both of these are 'grouping' layers).

2. Open the layer setting dialog of the group or bone layer you just put all of these layers you wish to sort into.

3. Select the depth sort tab.

4. Check only the "Enable animated layer order" check box. Checking "Sort layers by depth" will gray this option out and will not allow you to animate sorting layers in the layers window.

5. Select any frame other than zero.

6. Now, in the layers window, move one of the layers in that grouping layer (remember, either a bone or group layer, your choice) to somewhere else in that grouping layer.

7. Select the grouping layer and you will now see a keyframe at that frame.

TaDa!

Dodgy · Post by **Dodgy** » Sun May 31, 2009 5:30 am

LOVE the new morph mixer thing, but is there any way it can be made non-modal, or assigned a hotkey pls? Having to open it every time I move through the timeline is a pain in the butt