Subtitles of the Movie

Unless we want to render an empty black animation, and who wants to do that, we need to have one or more objects in our scene. Animator, by itself, has a way to create simple objects or 3D text, but we will need to bring in models from other programs if we want to animate anything more complex. This is called Importing a Model, and there are a couple of ways to do that. Models can be created in many modeling applications and imported into Animator. The model could be from a CAD program, or from any modeling application. Once the model is made and saved to disk you can bring it into Animator. The first way to do this is very simple. Go up to the Menu Bar and select Object, Import Object, or press Command-Shift I. An open dialog will appear allowing you to navigate to where your model is, and then select the type of model format you'd like to import. Animator can read several model file types like DXF, or OBJ, but it will need to convert them to Electric Image's own format called FACT. From this Enable popup I tend to select All Files, select the model I want, and then click Open. Animator's built-in converter will read all the model data and convert it to a FACT format. Your original model remains untouched. The Import Dialog will remain open in case you want to import another model. To get out of this dialog just click Cancel. Now you see your object in your scene. Let's import another model. Notice the options on the lower left. Pay attention to the Smooth Angle. The Smooth Angle tells EI's Camera application how to render the fall-off from an edge. The higher the number the smoother or softer edge the model will appear when it's rendered. Look at these two examples. Would you believe that this is the exact same model? This model was imported twice with different smooth angles and rendered. On the left, the model has a smooth angle of 10 degrees. On the right, the model has a smooth angle of 80 degrees. Notice how much crisper the model appears with the 10 degree smooth angle. The default value is 40 degrees for the smooth angle. This will work well for you most of the time, but if the model renders with edges too crisp or too soft, you may want to adjust the Smooth Angle accordingly and re-import. Also on the lower left of the Import dialog, let's look at DXF Exchange Y-Z Option and Merge Groups. The DXF option lets you switch the orientation of your model because, as we've seen in a previous lesson, not every modeling program has the Y-axis as the up axis. Enabling the Exchange Y-Z Option can help prevent your model from coming in on its side. The Merge Groups Option simply tells Animator to import a multi-object file as one model. So, if you have a model of a machine with several parts, EI will treat it as one object Ð handy for texturing purposes, but it has its drawbacks. Let's import a model of a skeleton with Merge Groups turned On. As you can see we have one object listed in our Project Window, but because the skeleton came in as one body, we can't select the arm, for instance, and animate that separately. Let's re-import the skeleton. Off goes Merge Groups. Now Animator differentiates between the model's pieces and is asking if we want to set up a hierarchy of these pieces. We'll say Yes, and select the option at the top of the list. Now, the Project Window shows several objects, each of which can be animated on a piece-by-piece basis. The second way to import a model is to use the Separate Model Converter application called Transporter. Transporter ships with EI and can be found in the Electric Image Animation system's main folder, as we saw before. Converting a model to FACT format is similar to the first method but you have a few more controls. Also, if a model appears corrupt or missing pieces after you've brought it in to Animator through the Direct Import, then Transporter will be the preferred way to convert your models properly. Once you have converted a model with Transporter into the FACT file format, go back to Animator and import the FACT file as you would normally.