Animated BackDrop (3D)

Hello,
I am currently trying to insert an animated backdrop into a
3d scene, and
am encountering some difficulties.
My problem is first, that I only want a small area of the
backdrop animated.
Now, I cant use overlays for this as the animated sections
need to appear
behind the 3d object in my scene. I have tried layering
multiple images on the
camera.backdrop, but it seems it will only display the
backdrop that is highest
up in the cameras backdrop list at any one time. This forces
me to have all the
animation on an 800x600 image, instead of an large still
image for the backdrop
and small 50x50 animations placed around it. This is unlike
the
Cameras.Overlay, which will display multiple Overlays
(obviously if they have
an alpha or arn't ontop of each other).
Currently I have a function, that on Start Movie, will build
a lists of all
the frames from my cast for each animation. So I give it
Smoke_Anim as the name
and it will search the cast and build a list of anything
Matching Smoke_Anim_1
or _2 or _3 etc. etc.. On Prepare Frame, I then Increment
through this list,
finding what frame its on. deleting that frame from the
Overlay and replaceing
it with the next frame of animatio. This works fine for a
small animation thats
mabey 25kb per frame, but when I try to use this method on an
entire backdrop
(800x600) the frames are just too big too handle.. even
compressed as .jpg they
are 300kb, And its having problems swapping them @ 30 Frames
per second
Could anyone suggest an alternative method, or tell me what
Im doing wrong. I
checked out the available tutorials on backdrops and grabbed
the lingo behavior
by 'Christophe Leske'. Even though this has a tick box for
animated images (so
it updates everyframe) I dont see how to use it, as
apparently the backdrop can
only be of these types (#bitmap, #vectorShape, #flash,
#text). What would have
been very handy is if I could have just put a quicktime or
avi as the
background.
Any help Greatly Appriciated - Thanks in Advance
Rob

Hi, I have recently been using video in director 3d utilsing
code modified from a tutorial hosted here @ adobe:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/director/articles/streaming_video.html
I have found the best results come from embeding your movie
as a .swf in the miaw .dir. In addition tom higgins did a little on
using video in shockwave 3d:
http://poppy.macromedia.com/~thiggins/articles/videotextures/_archive/index.htm
If you dont want to go down the video path you may be able to
use the undocumented nextcamera call to stack your backdrops. Not
sure tho but here is a ref just in case:
http://nuttybar.drama.uga.edu/pipermail/dir3d-l/2004-March/005690.html
hope this is of some help, pop

Similar Messages

How do I play iTunes Extras?

I have upgraded my AppleTV with the new 6.2 upgrade and my laptop with iTunes 11.3 that are supposed to support iTunes Extras on the AppleTV. How do I access the content on the Apple TV?
I have tried with newer movies that I have in HD like The LEGO Movie and Frozen both of which are listed as having compatible iTunes extras which I can watch in iTunes 11.3. (The LEGO Movie was purchased directly from iTunes, Frozen was a Digital HD copy that came with the BluRay).

Well, I'll chime in with my own test….
Cleopatra (Burton/Taylor 1963) downloaded to iTunes some time ago in HD.
iTunes Extras files also downloaded with animated backdrop on menu screen.
AppleTV:
Movies>Purchased (cloud) No iTunes Extras
Computers>iTunesLib>Movies Main movie only
Pretty poor show really - no legacy format support, cloud only it seems and inferior quality (static vs animated)…..I'm actually very very surprised and cannot fathom why it should be so difficult to implement unless it's a new format with better options going forward…

Publishing within flash 5.5

Hi all,
If I publish for ios within the flash 5.5 environment, does that output as air 2.7? Or do I have to use swf then the ADT command line?
Ta,
James.

Works nice, thanks a ton =)
I'm guessing there is no way to use either GPU / CPU on the fly? CPU is great now but I use a lot of big slow moving paralax items for animation backdrops and they look much better in GPU, but being able to filter other items would be handy.
James.

Help - time sensitive project

Ok, I probably have no business being here...except I'm the only one in my organization that (was dumb enough to?) say, "Hey, I'll take care of that..." I'm producing a concert that airs 30 Oct with a live band and lots of production. Getting to the point, I'm creating animated backgrounds that will be projected on a big blow-up screen behind a live band to create a backdrop for the entire concert. It will rotate between 'live scenery' and various video snippets. (Think, halloween themed concert, spooky scene with rolling fog, flickering jack o'lanterns, and tree branches blowing in the wind...)
So, without knowing the exact size of the screen, I need to know what my best bet for success is concerning video settings. I've spent days pouring through tutorials learning how to create what I've done so far and I like the product in its raw form. I initially created the project to be 1080p / 5.2gb, but after the first test render of a 30 sec clip, the playback (.avi) was incrediblly jerky. So, then I've lowered the settings to half resolution, and dropped the comp to NTSV-DV which created a MUCH smaller file and plays back fine, except there is now a border on the left and right.
I know, I know, I should know what I'm doing before starting this....but I don't, and the project still has to be finished and I'm building the plane in the air. Is it a reasonable question to ask...what would be my best bet for comp/project settings to ensure the video will project to screen with success? I'm not creating a masterpiece here....just entertaining, animated backdrops.
Please let me know what you think, or at least, some questions that I could answer to help figure it out.
TYVM!

You should definitely do your project at 1080P or better (barring getting actual instructions from the venue).
You are going to need to get instructions on what sort of deliverable to create. That being said, I hope you kept the jerky playback file because that's what you should have. You should then take that file into the Adobe Media Encoder and create a WMV or h.264 wiith it.
The reason it plays back all jumpy is that it's a large file with a very high data rate and your hard drive can't deliver the data quickly enough.
It's all explained in this FAQ entry.
As someone who's new to AE, you really need to start here. Otherwise you will run into more problems like this and we might not be able to help in time. Seriously, spending a little time now to understand the foundational elements will save you a lot of time and frustration in the future.

Upgrade or Fresh Install of VC3

I've been using VC 2.5 for a year now. Just got VC3 the other day. Is it better to upgrade or do a fresh install of VC 3? I did perform a fresh install but noticed many media files missing from Ver.3. that I had gotten use to using in 2.5 For example VC3 only showed 6 animated backdrops, where I had access to nearly 30 in VC 2.5. VC 3 also lacked a large number of the audio clips from ver 2.5. (VC 3 actually has a number of other music clips in labelled file folders, but they weren't the same types of music. Would performing an "upgrade" have merged all the media files and made them all available to me or did I fail to load some media file folder somehwere on the new VC 3 disk?

There is additional content available for VC3 that should restore all the backgrounds etc that you aren't seeing. (it was split from the application install to make trial downloads easier for people. 200MB versus 3GB download to try the product)
If you bought the DVD version, the additional content installer is located in a folder called "content" on the DVD. Just run the setup.exe there and you should be fine. (There is also an option during the main installer to install the additional content when you install the application, but if you already installed the app, just run the setup.exe in the "content" folder.)
If you purchased the ESD version, you should be able to download the additional content installer from the same page that you downloaded the app install. It is about a 2.5GB file.

Animated gif from .ICO files - Indicates layer is partially locked

thanks for helping the non-graphics newb out...
trying to create my first animated gif. I have 8 .ico files that i converted to .png to open them. once all are open i try to combine into one file with 8 layers but am unable to do it!?!? If I click on the main layer in any file it shows as locked and says "Indicates layer is partially locked"

in any file it shows as locked and says "Indicates layer is partially locked"
That is normal. Just open the file you want to use as the base/background layer. Now open the file that will be the first layer up from that, press ctrl+a (cmd+a on a mac) to select all of it, then ctrl+c (cmd+c) to copy it. Switch back to the background layer, click in it, then press ctrl+v (cmd+v) to paste it and use the move tool to position it. Repeat for each layer. Note that layers in an animated gif do not play in front of hte base layer the way cartoon cels do, so that you see action in front of a backdrop. You must include everything you want to see at once in each layer.

Photo Booth, iChat animation green, red, black pixels

Since my upgrade of Leopard, I have a anoying adverse side effect. I notice that when I use the cool new backdrops that have animation in iChat or Photo Booth, that the windows will flicker with (usually green) pixels in a diagnal pattern. I suspect this is a core animation issue but would loved to be proved wrong (only if there is an resolution to my issue . I am able to duplicate the issue 100% of the time. I have also seen this happen to my task bar as well except it will turn black.
Answers to question you might ask me;
MackBook Pro 2.3 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo
2 GB Ram
256 Video Ram
Im not running any other apps to possibly overdriving ram
Issue happens with iChat, Photo Booth
I have a screenshot that I uploaded here http://telcon-solutions.com/apple/Picture2.jpg
Please help, this is about to make me go back to Tiger!
Thank you in advance

Another picture of issue that may help with me describing this.
http://telcon-solutions.com/apple/Picture3.jpg
Again, Thank you for your help.

Animation Performance and Optimization

Hi, and thanks for reading in advance!
I'm struggling with getting "smooth-enough" performance for a simple application I'm writing. I was hoping someone could give some pointers. Briefly my proof of concept application creates between 1 and 10 independently moving filled circles over a PNG backdrop. I'm currently getting a very dissapointing, stuttering animation and unacceptably slow frame rates - I would guess in the 10FPS area.
I removed all Alpha from the fill (originally I did want some alpha)... the only way I get smooth animation is if I totally remove the background PNG (leave white background) and limit the bubbles to 2-3 at a time. As soon as I introduce a backdrop however even 1 bubble does not animate smoothly.
Basic architecture I am using:
"bubble Class" -- creates an individual "bubble" and manages that bubble's life
the class draws a filled circle shape - then tries to cache it per Adobe Recommendations for GPU acceleration.
my "main" class then addsChild and modifies .x and .y to translate bubble's motion. I also tried doing translation via matrix transform with no better results.
Excerpt from Bubble Class:
myBubble:Shape = new Shape();
myBubble.graphics...........
this.addChild(myBubble);
myBubble.cacheAsBitmap = true;
myBubble.cacheAsBitmapMatrix = new Matrix();
Now I am doing 2 movements per bubble. I'm doing a rock (rotate) using the following transform matrix (which I'm assuming will be accelerated by GPU?)
Further code from Bubble Class
private function rotateAroundCenter (ob:*, angleDegrees) {
var point:Point=new Point(ob.x+ob.width/2, ob.y+ob.height/2);
   var m:Matrix=ob.transform.matrix;
m.tx -= point.x;
    m.ty -= point.y;
    m.rotate (angleDegrees*(Math.PI/180));
    m.tx += point.x;
    m.ty += point.y;
    ob.transform.matrix=m;
And I'm doing a translation in X and Y.   I do this in the root class....ie:
code from Main Class
var thisBubble:Bubble = new Bubble();
addChild(thisBubble);
bubbles.push(thisBubble);
this.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, processFrame);
function processFrame(myEvent:Event):void {
   var thisBubble:Bubble = bubbles[0];
   thisBubble.x++;
   thisBubble.y++;
or something like that
Is this too many layers of embed? should I be caching somewhere other than at the Shape level within my Bubble class? I basically addChild for my shape in the bubble class and then I addChild bubble instance to my stage.
Any help is appreciated!!! I am ready to give up on animating with AS3 and resorting to Objective-C (I hate Objective-C)..... so please!!! what else needs to be done to take advantage of Hardware GPU acceleration?
Cheers,
Tom

Mr 12 - you are the man. I really appreciate the time you took in writing your reply. It was indeed helpful.
I did the following (see below the line) and it has improved performance. I can now get smooth-ish animation but by sacrificing significant frame rate. I also am somewhat limited to the number of moving parts (7).
My question to you --- can I cache bitmapData? right now I am only caching bitmaps...... is that the right thing to do? reason I ask is when I pop these bubbles I'd like to cycle through a series of bitmap images which I'm now pre-loading at bubble creation into bitmapData variables. I'm then adding a Bitmap to the stage as child and cycling through each to execute a "pop" animation. IE
addChild(myBitmap)
mybitmap.bitmapData = mybitmapData1; // first frame
mybitmap.bitmapData = mybitmapData9; // 9th frame of animation etc.
would be nice to be able to pre-cache that BitmapData in the GPU... can that be done?
Here is a list of the changes I made which did improve performance:
1) Changed animation event driver from ENTER_FRAME to TIMER events.   I had to set my timer period as low as 0.15 to get smooth execution. Anything faster still results in sputtering. (.15 is really kind of slow and a problem stil....)
2) added myEvent.stopPropagation(); to all event handlers (now I only have 1 such handler for the Timer).
3) removed the "rocking" rotation effect from the Bubble class.
4) removed code which used graphics class to draw the bubbles. Instead I pre-drew them in Fireworks and imported to flash library.   I am then loading each bitmapData on application launch. I assign a unique bitmap pointer on bubble creation, cache it, and then pass it to the Bubble class for use and display like this: (bubType is an Array that contains 3 unique bitmapData objects which reference).
Bubble creation routine: (run 1x per bubble at creation):
private function timerBlow(myEvent:TimerEvent):void {
   myEvent.stopPropagation();
if (bubbles.length < 7) {
      var bubBM:Bitmap = new Bitmap(bubType[randomType]);
      bubBM.cacheAsBitmapMatrix = new Matrix();
      bubBM.cacheAsBitmap = true;
      var thisBubble:drawnBubble = new drawnBubble(bubBM,10,0xFFFFFF,"up"); // my bubble class
      thisBubble.x = 100;
      thisBubble.y = 300;
      addChild(thisBubble);
      bubbles.push(thisBubble);
5) removed variable creation in my old ENTER_FRAME (now TIMER) event handler to move the bubbles as such:
private function processFrame(myEvent:TimerEvent):void {
   myEvent.stopPropagation();
   if (bubbles.length > 0) {
      var numBubbles:uint = bubbles.length;
      for (var i:uint = 0; i < numBubbles; i++) {
         checkBounds(drawnBubble(bubbles[i]));
         drawnBubble(bubbles[i]).x += drawnBubble(bubbles[i]).xVelocity;
         drawnBubble(bubbles[i]).y += drawnBubble(bubbles[i]).yVelocity;
Any other clues that someone has as to how to do this faster or things to try are *very* much appreciated.
Cheers
Tom

Animating in After Effects with video footage

When animating in After Effects, instead of using a solid background, can I use a video as the background and have it playing while the character is moving? I can't see why it wouldn't work. I've saw people question about animating in Flash ect and bringing it in, but I need to animate within AF. Hope someone can help me out!

Hi Claudia.
Are you using "AF" to stand for "Adobe Flash" Or "AFter effects"?
If you are trying to composite character animation over a background in After Effects, yes, it is a fantastic application for it.
You can create many types of backdrops easily (and very easy to modify elements back/forth from Photoshop)
As for character animation, there are multiple standard tools within After Effects. There are also third party plugins that may help you.
One plugin that I like to use for character animation is DUIK. DuDuF R&D » Duik – DuDuF IK Tools
(free)
Another plugin that is excellent is Mettle Freeform http://www.mettle.com/tutorials-digieffects-freeform-freeform-v2/
($99)

How do you have specific buttons call up animations and make previous animation reverse/rescind?

So I will start off by listing my experience: adobe photoshop, flash, aftereffects, dreamweaver. I additionally have an experienced understanding of html and css with a basic (yet growing) understanding of javascript.
So I am working on a fully interactive website for a client who does stage lighting and production. My layout is rendering of a stage which has curtains, spotlights, a backdrop, and a video screen rendering (there is no video footage just text) What I am trying to make occur is that different actions occur depending on what the user selects. For instance if they select the about button the curtains pull back and the screen subsequentially rises to display text. If the user pickthe contact button I would like the aforementioned video screen to submerge and after this I would like the spotlights to come on and hightlight the contact info and so forth. I have all the animations laid out on the main timeline and also I converted the buttons to symbols and have each desired animation laid out in their respective sub stages. I'm not sure if I needed to do that but am lost. Please help.

Hello Mike,
each desired animation laid out in their respective sub stages. I'm not sure if I needed to do that but am lost. Please help.
You mean each animation in a proper symbol. Then you follow the same principle as for object2 here
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/1179271?tstart=0
except you choose a click event instead of mouseover.
Gil

Animation technique like Chowder: static pattern

This is a technique--when the character moves the pattern in the clothing remains static. It looks as though it's masked out and it's used on multiple characters. So, different patterns associated w/ different characters.
Can anyone tell me whether this is something set up in AE? I've googled around and don't see any easy solutions for it. I'm fairly new to After Effects but it seems like I should be able to use masks on different layers for something like this. Can anyone help or just give me some suggestions?
Thanks for any insight or ideas!

If you had a pattern layer underneath the main footage layer, then you would just have to make the clothing portions of the main footage layer transparent. You could do this with animated masks (which would be enormously tedious) or you could plan ahead and have the clothing be a distinctive color---essentially using a green screen as an article of clothing rather than as a backdrop.
With multiple characters, you'd just have to have a precomposition for each one, and you'd composite the chunks of the scene over one another. If the characters interact and overlap, you might end up having to do some rotoscoping.
Look into color keying, rotoscoping, and track mattes to get started. Here's a page that introduces all of these basic compositing concepts:
"Compositing and transparency overview and resources"
What you're describing is somewhat ambitious if you're new to After Effects. Don't neglect getting a good grounding in the basics first:
http://blogs.adobe.com/toddkopriva/2010/01/getting-started-with-after-eff.html

Open and edit animated .gif while preserving frame timing

CS4 Premium Design Edition, Win XP
I was disappointed with the removal of Image Ready from CS3 because although some of the functionality was placed into Photoshop 10, there was no way to open and edit an existing animated .gif while preserving the timing of each individual frame. I was told on the PS forum at the time that I really needed to use Fireworks. I resented that, because I was very happy with Image Ready and I didn't want to have to learn a new application just to gain functionality that had been included in previous versions of PS/IM.
I've now got CS4 Premium Design Edition which of course includs Fireworks... and here's what Help has to say on the subject of imported .gifs.
"Note: When you import an animated GIF, the state delay setting defaults to 0.07 seconds. If necessary, use the States panel to restore the original timing."
This is no use to me. What if I don't know the individual frame timings? What if there are 200 frames with varying timings?
Simple question: which current Adobe product is capable of importing a .gif while retaining the frame timings? If anyone knows, or if I've misunderstood the nature of the Fireworks Help quote above, I'd really appreciate some input here. Thanks :)
Not so simple question: why was an excellent gif-editing application thrown out to have its functionality partially replaced by a bunch of scripts and half-effective workarounds cooked up by desperate users ("import a gif by using the video import and typing *.* into the filename box..")? It's a fair question I think.
Mark

Hi Bob, that's not glib at all, it's a reasonable question.
I uninstalled it along with everything else when I installed CS3, in the reasonable expectation that whatever replaced IR would be at least equal in functionality.
Perhaps I should just dig out CS2 and install IM from there, but I have some serious reservations about doing so, because I don't know if/how a partial install of CS2 will impact upon my installation of CS4, and I'm not confident of getting support.
I am also curious to know if/why Adobe actually removed basic functionality without replicating or replacing it in their other software. I really want to know: which recent, currently supported Adobe product
should I be using in order to regain this functionality? Or do Adobe no longer produce a geniuinely comprehensive .gif-editing application?
Mark

Animated GIF ignoring frame timing

I am trying to create simple animated GIFs with a few layers
of text that simply fade in and fade out in sequence. My initial
attempt worked perfectly. Most frames use the default 7/100's of a
second delay as they fade. A few frames were manually set to much
longer delays so that the text pauses, before fading out to be
replaced by the next text.
When I reopened the file, to adjust the background color, and
then re-saved it, the GIF now plays straight through, ignoring the
timing of each frame. Nothing I do now can get it to pause on the
appropriate frames. I've tried cutting the symbols out and pasting
them into a new file, removing the animation from the symbols and
reapplying it, etc.
Any ideas, anyone?
Thanks in advance.

None, None.

Edit animated gif

Hi,
How can I edit an animated gif in Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac?
When I open the file there is just the first frame in one layer - no other layers available.
Thanks!

Thanks Barbara!
Barbara B. wrote:
... then bring it to PSE.
I can't drag the single frames from Preview to PSE, because PSE 6 doesn't run in window mode.
(Is this improved in the current version?)
I can only drag the single frames to the desktop (as TIFF files, I guess transparency info is lost then?).
Barbara B. wrote:
... there's a bug beginning in PSE 6 where you can't change the frame delay rate from the default when you save an animated gif.
What's the default frame delay rate? Maybe it's just what I need.
Barbara B. wrote:
You might want to look into a free program like giffun from stone.com instead.
Yes that's maybe a better idea. It doesn't have to be free software. Can you recommend something good?
Thanks again!

Can i open and edit animated GIF in Adobe Photoshop Touch?

Can i open and edit animated GIF in Adobe Photoshop Touch?

No, only regular static GIF images are supported. The desktop version of Photoshop does support this however.

Animated BackDrop (3D)

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for