I was just thinking that what CP could really use is product demo videos. Like a very brief animated example of what your product can do. Maybe even just a place to put links to such clips (on YouTube, etc).
It wouldn't help new users, but even just some screen shots of vector and rigging construction would help get a better idea of what you're buying.
Great idea synthsin75. Even if it was a youtube link it would definately help sell products. Just what is needed right now. I have noticed a huge drop in sales in the last quarter and I have sold nothing at all for at least a month. There are several new AS products of mine that have been uploaded for months and still have not sold one copy.
Ah, good, I was hoping there would be a thread on this!
This is kinda a no-brainer, but I'll need to purchase Pro before I'll be capable of producing content people would actually use, right? I'm currently developing a great rigged character that can pose in some extreme ways. But without Actions, I can't think of a good way to include walk cycles, head-turns, and so forth.
I'm pretty sure I could make them without Pro, but they'd have to be distributed in separate files, and that would just make them unnecessarily hard to use.
Right? (I haven't used Pro before, so I don't know what I'm missing. I'm just assuming Actions make the world go 'round based on what I've seen of tutorials that call for 'em.)
Making products for both versions is really a must. More people probably have the standard version so your customer base is larger.
I'm still working on a workaround for actions in standard. A scripted import/export of bone animation from a layer. this means you would have external "action" files that can be imported to a character. Not as good as actions but the files can be loaded to any file with the same bones.
I really need to finish that dang thing. Got stuck on using it with different bone setups. Should stick with just the simple solution, saving animation for ONE character.
That save bone animation script is the best script you have done imho Vern. I use it ALL the time. You could really develop it into an amazing bone plugin for AS and it would sell like hotcakes on CP. I remember when Messiah was as a bones plugin for LightWave 3D. It sold for around $400.00 and now it's a stand alone app in t's own right.
EDIT: I only ever use it for one character's bone setup at a time. Much easier that way.
Huh. I didn't even know you could use scripts in the standard version. I figured since particles were pro-only, scripting must not exist in AS standard, because particles are a fairly easy thing to implement in most scripting languages. As long as you have access to a graphics library and basic data structures, I mean.
Scripting in standard is exactly the same as pro except for one small exception, menu scripts. That's an easy workaround just making menu scripts into buttons... hopefully they will just put that ability back into the standard... but... I don't even like menu scripts now that I know that they work as buttons.
Looks like the Cartoon Solutions rigs for sale don't include walks. But supposing I wanted to include one, how would I go about it? Should I just include a separate anme file for each animation I want to include in the bundle? Or is animation compartmentalization more of a pro-only feature? Some tutorials like to say "standard users can fake it with bone layers," but what does that actually mean?
I'm gonna learn switch layers next, because that seems to be the final piece of the puzzle, for setting up blinking and mouth phenomes.
I'm not going to mess with the clever DK rotation system yet because from what I can tell it's only applicable for characters built out of extremely geometric shapes, and that's not what I'm going for with my first character.
I would think most users would find a walk cycle very handy. I included many pre-animated cycles in my Wienertoonz product with all movements in groups filed under a master switch layer. This way a user can switch to whatever pre-animated move they wanted to select. Imagine my shock to find that not a lot of people understand how switch layers work!!! So I included tutorials to show people how to use the AS functions they way I set them up. AS is an amazing app and there are a mirad of ways you could create these products to sell. You just have to explain to people how to use them and they should sell.
Anna Animations (switch layer)
Anna Idle Side (bone layer)
Head
Eyes (switch layer)
Closed
Open
Mouth (switch Layer)
Rest
A,I
E
O
(etc.)
Neck
Torso
(etc.)
Anna Idle 3/4 (bone layer)
Head
Eyes (switch layer)
Closed
Open
Mouth (switch Layer)
Rest
A,I
E
O
(etc.)
Neck
Torso
(etc.)
Anna Walk Loop (bone layer)
Head
Eyes (switch layer)
Closed
Open
Mouth (switch Layer)
Rest
A,I
E
O
(etc.)
Neck
Torso
(etc.)
Is that how you do yours?
And if so, how do you smoothly transition into and out of the walk? for that matter, is it necessary to manually duplicate the walk cycle throughout the entire length of the animation? (Or at least on those frames where the bone layer is visible?) So far, I've only figured out how to delete animation data and even then I need to do it one layer at a time. The copy and paste buttons on the timeline don't seem to do anything.
Canny Valley wrote:The copy and paste buttons on the timeline don't seem to do anything.
You need to have keys selected (highlighted in red) before copying them will do anything. And you should already be positioned where you want to paste them (IOW, let's say you have keys at frame 30 you want to move to frame 60. Position the frame cursor at 60 but then scroll your timeline so you can see frame 30 and drag and select those keys, press copy, and then press paste. Presto! They will be copied to the current cursor position).