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rcf-jr

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Everything posted by rcf-jr

  1. Sorry I have not gotten back to you on this issue. Out of town on someone else's dime. Looks as tho you are doing all the right things. I set my software back to it's original state and I uploaded photos, in high resolution, with no issues that you are getting. The fact you are the first to have this happen tells me that your computer system is not up to snuff, hardware or OS, or you need to re-download the software. Download the software and re-install it. If the issue persists contact customer support. Make sure you come back and post your working solution so it can be shared.
  2. You will need to give us some more information. Type of picture file would be nice. And is your Preview Quality button set on Full Quality? What is the composition display scale set at? Do you have enough RAM set aside to Preview the composition the way you want? I don't understand where you are reading the resolution from or how you can add any resolution to the image. So have a little dialog with us so we can see where the issue is coming from. Thanks...
  3. Hello Fellow Animator, Yes you can repeat specific keys or a group of keys. It's not a built in function where you set the number of times you want the key(s) to repeat. But you can use the basic tools within Animate Express to perform the same task. As an example: You want to create a set of moves for an object that also include opacity changes, some rotation, and scale changes. And you want to repeat this 2 more times. You will be working exclusively in the Composition Panel's time line to do this. First set the time line to the point you want the object to start the first repeat. Now go and highlight all the actions you want repeated by holding down the left mouse button and dragging a box around the dots(key frames) on the timeline that represent the actions you want repeated. They should turn a yellow color, or a shade of yellow. Now go and click on the copy button in the home tab, you have just copied all the moves. Now when you click paste, it will start at the location on the time line that you have set and it will paste in the copied moves. To add another copy of the moves, just move the timeline to where you want to start repeating the moves again and just click on the paste button again. It would be a good idea to just make a test object to get the hang of it. You are just using the copy function, moving the timeline, and then the paste function. You know when you have copied all you wanted when the dots change color from black to a yellowish color. Just make sure you have set the duration of the composition to a length that will allow enough room for all the repeats. Happy Animating.
  4. I guess no one wanted to put out an answer for you on this one. As far as I know, Express Animate uses a specific memory location for CUTTING, COPYING, and PASTING. So when you do any of those actions it looks at that memory location and either puts a selected OBJECT in there or takes one out. There is only one of these storage locations within the Express Animate environment. And this is only a local environment and not global within the operating system's environment. So the answer you are looking for is a "NO"! On a lot of my projects there are many objects that I use on a regular basis. What I do instead of recreating them is to create them all once and have a master project that has all these OBJECTS. So all I do is load the master project in and delete the OBJECTS that I will not be using on the current project. This was the best solution for me in relation to your question. I hope this helps you out a little. Happy Animating.
  5. Alan, Actually you got the right software for what you want to do. It just takes a little setting up to get the job done. But once you do, you will have a great Flow Chart animating tool kit. First you have to create your shapes. You will have to do this outside of Express animate. If you are running windows 10, you have Paint 3D. You can create the images/symbols you need there, with or without backgrounds. But I think you should try to use NCH's Draw Pad for more accurate symbols and options on the lines and colors. You can download it for free and give it a try. There is no real steep learning curve. Once you got your dozen or so symbols all drawn up you can import them in to Express Animate using the Load Media icon. Ounce you have them loaded in you can resize them as needed. The new line tool will do a good job to connect the symbols together, that's if you didn't make your own set of lines in Draw Pad. You might want to make your own arrows too. You only have one choice in the Express Animate Clipart Library that could be used in a flow chart. As far as positioning the symbols are concerned, Just get it close to where you want them by dragging them with your mouse. Then you can easily fine tune their positions using the keyboard's arrow keys. Just select the image and go. You can adjust just the X, or just the Y of the image. Yes... the arrow keys are your tools to align the symbols and lines. Happy Animating.
  6. Express Animate does offer SNOW EFFECTS. Assuming you have loaded a video into Express Animate and you have it selected, on the Home Tool Bar click on the FX Effects icon, select Video, select Special Effects, select Snow or Snow Flakes. Happy Animating.
  7. It seems like the SOUND LIBRARY is not on your computer. If you are not connected to the internet the sound files will not download. So are the sound files downloaded from NCH directly? TRY: C:\Users\......\AppData\Roaming\NCH Software\Stock\Audio You can load your own audio using the LOAD MEDIA icon on the object tool bar.
  8. Hey Ray, A Dummy object is just an invisible object. You can control its Anchor Point, the Scale and it's Position, and even have Rotation about a point. But the dummy object is not seen during playback. What is it good for? It makes it easier, at times, to act as a Parent for Objects without being seen. A Parent Object is like playing follow the leader, but the leader is invisible on the screen during playback, but the Objects can see and follow it if they are made a Child of it. Say that you want to have an object, or group of objects, circle around a point on the screen. You would create the Dummy and have it rotate at that point on the screen. Then you would make all the Objects a Child of that Dummy object. That Dummy now becomes the Parent and the actions it takes the Child objects will follow. The Parent becomes the center of the Childs universe. A good example was when I made a bunch of fireflies swarm and circle above a frog. All I did was create three different Dummy objects and had several tiny circles of white follow each Dummy Object. Each Dummy was Rotating about a point. I changed the Anchor points over time of each dummy as to make it look like the Child Objects had their own will of movement. It turned out real well and with the Child objects Opacity change over time, it really looked like they were real. Another example was when I made the solar system. I could not use the sun as the parent for each planet had to rotate around the sun at different speeds and with different elliptical paths. I used a Dummy to direct each planet. This worked out real well. I do hope you find this info clear enough to answer the question. If not, just reply to this POST. Happy Animating.
  9. Jack and I have been friends for many years and I can assure you that he is not the issue here. There is no performance quirks in play as far as I can see it for this is a simple choir for Express Animate. You might be a newbie but we all make small errors and don't realize it. First I want to make sure you have made one of the layers/objects a parent object and have the other a child. Then as the parent object moves the child will follow to the letter. Next you want to make sure that you are not the problem. When you moved the objects did it take you a few moves with the mouse to place the objects? You may have inserted many small moves that you don't know you inserted. Look on the time line, and if you see more than four positions for your objects, this is the issue. Below I have the steps you should have taken: Create a text box with the content you want. Drag it left off screen to the starting point you want. Create/load the object you want to follow your text. Drag it off screen and place it where you want it in relation to the text. Use your mouse, right click on the object you want to follow the text. A window opens, select Assign Parent, select the text box that you created from the list. Now in the parent time line, using the position "New Key" diamond button, make sure a dot appears on the timeline setting the starting point of your parent object. Hit the play button to move to the time you want to see the parent in the middle of the screen. Hit pause when that time is reached. Now move your parent object to the center of the screen using the right arrow key (or use the mouse to drag it). Notice how the child object moves too. Now hit play again until the time you want the parent object to start leaving the screen and hit pause. Even though you do not move the parent object at this point, using the parent's position "New Key" diamond button, create a new position point (key) on the time line. Hit play again until the time you want the parent to be off screen then hit pause. Now move your parent object right till off screen using the right arrow key. (or drag it off using the mouse) You are all done. so go test it out. Hit rewind and play your video from the beginning. Good job! If you are having a hard time with my directions, and no one else has offered better guidance, reply to this post and I will make a video and post a link to it. Happy animating.
  10. Sualdam, This question seems to be similar to another one ask before, except there was no need to have more than one object represent the "car'. The view of the road layout was a birds-eye-view. If this is your situation, then go take a look at "Animating a 45 and a 90 deg turn of a rectangle" in this forum. There, the same object of a car is used throughout the layout. But if you are looking to work with an orthographic projection view, that is a different animal all together. After you look at the other forum post "Animating a 45 and a 90 deg turn of a rectangle" and that is not offering the answers you need, let us know more details and the perspective view you want to work in. If you have a YouTube account you can export what you have and upload it as a PRIVATE video to your YouTube account and share the link with us in your next post. Then we can see first hand what you are trying to do. Happy animating...
  11. Hi Mark, Maybe I can help a little. The ROTATION feature is just like all the others. You can use it to make changes manually to an object or you can use it to, create keyframes, animate an object over time. Lets look at the buttons and numbers for that animation first. < ◇ > Rotation 0x 0.0° < is used to move the time marker to the next left established animation, keyframe, point ◇ is used to turn on or off an animation point - turn a frame into a keyframe or turn a keyframe back to a frame > is used to move the time marker to the next right established animation, keyframe, point Rotation is used to select that feature and the corresponding object will light up in the Objects Panel and the Composition Panel * if you rotate an object in the canvas panel, the Rotation will turn Blue for that corresponding object. Makes things easy to associate and find. 0x is used to view what is set, or set the number of complete rotations of 360° - 2x will make the object rotate 360° 2 times, or 720° 0.0° is used to view what is set, or set the degrees of rotation from 0° thru 359° (if you enter 360° it will show 0.0° and 0x will change to 1x" To use the Rotation in the manual mode just mouse click on the value you want to change and drag the value positive(clockwise rotation) or negative(counter clockwise rotation), or you can mouse click on the value you want to change and use the keyboard to type in the value. If a negative value is to be entered using the keyboard, use the "-" sign first. The degrees of rotation can except a fractional degree. If you manually rotate an object in the canvas panel by using the "ctrl" + mouse click and drag, you will see the corresponding numbers change on the Rotation line. To animate a rotation over time you are using the diamond key "◇" to select where on the time line you want a "key"frame for the rotation. Simply move the time marker to the point you want the animation to start, click on the diamond key "◇" creating a keyframe, adjust or enter the rotation value you want the object to start at. Then move the time marker to the point you want to mark as the next point, keyframe, and adjust or enter the rotation value you want the object to rotate to. You can have the object rotate a full 360° several times between two keyframes by using the 0x.You can use positive numbers for clockwise rotation or negative numbers for counter clockwise rotation. Enter the number of turns using the mouse and click and drag, mouse click and use the keyboard, or ctrl + mouse to drag the object around until it counts up to the number of turns you require. If you are on a keyframe that you want to delete you can use the diamond key "◇" to deselect the key frame or select it using your mouse and hit the delete key on your keyboard. You can use your mouse to move these points (keyframes), by just clicking and dragging them along the time line. Once you have several keyframes made you can go from one keyframe to another keyframe by using the "<" and ">" buttons. You can use as many keyframes as there are frames. So the possibilities are mindboggling. I hope you find this information useful. If you have any more questions on this, please let me know, and I will try to help. Happy Animating. P.S. I am not responsible for any errors or typing mistakes. But if you find any issues please let me know and I will make the correction.
  12. You do know that Express Animate and real time animating are two different types of animation? But Express Animate can fake it, and do it well, functions it doesn't actually have. Real time animating is using external sensors, markers, on an object to reproduce it's movements in an app. Express Animate can simulate this by you first filming the object's moves. Then you can bring that video in to Express Animate where you can use it as a background image, like a stencil. Create the character, image, you want to follow the imported object in the video. And as you play through the video, animate the parts to mimic the video's object's moves. In other words, shadow the video with your character. Don't forget to turn on the animation for all the objects in your created character. You will find it is quite easy, in shadowing the video, if you adjust the opacity of your created character so you can see through to the video below. After duplicating the moves you can just remove the background video, turn the opacity back up, and continue with your project. Happy animating.
  13. When you create an image, regardless of the app and it's saved, there should be no issues. I have created images in almost every format, that Express Animate can recognize, and imported them without any issues. The only thing I can think of is the size of the image when it's created and saved vs the size of the image you are viewing. Try reducing the size of the image after you load it in to Express Animate using the size handles. If when making the image smaller sharpens the image, you know that the image creation app is not set to create an image that will display at the size you require in Express Animate. You will have to go back and create a larger image. If this doesn't help, post some additional info so we can think of some additional solutions. Happy animating.
  14. To avoid the hard rear slide of the object, and the slow down around sharp turns, animate the ANCHOR. Have it move rearward just before the turn, then have it recover to it's original position after the turn is completed. Then you will see a life like turn.
  15. Seems to me, if I got the question correct, you want a birds-eye view of simulating a car going down a street and make 45 degree turns and 90 degree turns. I would position the rotation key at the rear of the rectangle, not the front. In real cars the front tires direct the car about the rear wheels. And I would use the position directed from the rear as well, but only to make it easier to conceive the result. The rear wheels push a vehicle and the front is rotating about the rear. I just tried it out and it works real well.
  16. It's not all that difficult or complicated, really. I know I put up a quick and dirty video https://youtu.be/8VgsT1CddNc on this issue, but I had very little time that day. Slow down the video in YOUTUBE to half speed and pause it when you need to. Watch it a few times and you will get that AH HA moment... Keep in mind this is an animation software, not a drawing software. It's very powerful. but you can tame it to simulate lines and curve drawing, Maybe I can put together a new video next week that actually explains what is going on. Then you will understand how easy it is. Feel free to bug me if I forget.
  17. You can make lines and curves. This takes just a little extra time but once you do it a few times it gets kind'a easy. And you do have the COPY and PASTE at your finger tips. I will try and step you through it. Make sure you have a clean canvas to work on and turn on the grid and snap to grid. Also adjust your canvas to 400%. All this will make life easier, but not really necessary, till you understand what you are doing. Pick custom shape and make a line about 16 cells long across the screen. It should snap to the grid nicely if you get close enough to them. Make sure you hit the ESC key when done. Now you have two points marked on the screen. Ignore the anchor point in the middle. In the composition panel click on the Outline color box. Use the eye dropper to select the color in the Fill Solid color box. That makes the object and outline color exactly the same. Adjust the Thickness of the Outline color to ".1" To see the line you created turn off the canvas grid. Or you could adjust the Outline Thickness to ".2" or greater. I would stick to .1 for this exercise if I could. The object you just created starts where you first clicked the canvas and to the point you clicked the second position. You think you just made a line correct? No... When you hit the ESC key the software completes the object by using the last selected point and drawing a line to the starting point. Adjust the length using the know options available. You can cut and paste, rotate, change positions of the line. But to adjust the thickness please use the Outline Thickness for it works better for this.. This is a straight line only. If you want to make a curved line you must glue the two lines together. The one you made and the one the computer made. You will simulate this by making both sides of the object move at the same time. In this example you are going to make the front half bend up and the rear half bend down. This requires you to place 4 vertexes to the object. Two in the center of the front half and two in the center of the rear half. Click on the object till you see the objects vertexes. Now right click on the object between the first vertex and the center of the line. Add the vertex. Now add a vertex to the line between the middle of the line and the end. Remember that you can always slide any vertex along the line till you get it right where you need it. Now select both of the two added vertexes by holding down the Shift key while selecting each vertex. You are now going to move the object apart by moving one side down using the down arrow key on the keyboard. Both vertexes should move down at the same time. Tap the down arrow key 4 times, that should be enough. The object should look like a flat ellipse. Now is the time to add the second set of vertexes. You need to add the new vertexes right above the ones you have already made. Right across from them on the other side, so when you close up the ellipse they will be over top of each other. Add the vertexes the same way as before. Now close up the ellipse by using the up arrow key tapping it the same number of times you used on the down arrow key. You should now have the line you made all back together but with some added vertexes. Now the magic comes in to play. You are going to select the front pair of vertexes by using the mouse. Do this by holding down the left mouse button and dragging a box around the front pair of vertexes. You are using the box because the two vertexes are on top of each other. This box looks like a dashed line and will disappear after you let the mouse button go. Now you can use the up arrow key to adjust the front bend on the line. Using your mouse again, select the rear pair of vertexes the same way. Use the down arrow key to bend the back half of the line down. The handles on the vertexes might need to be adjusted to close up the line evenly if for some reason they spread. Or you can remove the control points by right mouse click on the vertexes and selecting Remove Control Points. Using Control points can take a while to get use to them. You can always ad the vertex back in to create that gentle bend. Now this line can be animated in any way you like using the tools in Express Animate. If you need more bends just add more pairs of vertexes, You can adjust the length easy enough, but keep using the Outline Thickness to make make changes to the width. I like doing it that way and I can animate the thickness easier. Here is a link to a quick video showing how it's done. It very crude but all the steps are demonstrated. https://youtu.be/8VgsT1CddNc I hope you find this easy to follow. If you don't get it the first time try starting over. It does work and works very well. Let me know if you got it worked out or If you need more help.
  18. Rulers vs Grids: When the finished project is set to a specified size in inches, such as a fixed canvas or sheet of paper, then laying out using a ruler is a good idea if actual distances and spaces are necessary. But when you are using a vector based animation software where everything is subjective and relationships are expressed in percent, rulers serve no purpose. When alignment is necessary a grid is used. Express Animate uses the grid, as it should, because a ruler serves no purpose beyond the grid. Express Animate even offers the ability to change the grids cell size to help in placing objects more exact and in adjusting relative size and animation limits. I know it can be frustrating when you are use to seeing rulers expressed in distance or expressed in pixels, and now you see a grid only. I can assure you that this will pass and the grid, along with it adjustment ability, will serve you well.
  19. I do not use VideoPad, I use another program. But if VideoPad has CHROMAKEY, there should be no problem. just set your background in Express Animate to a color not used in your project. Then you can get rid of the background using the chromakey in VideoPad.
  20. Seems to me that you could make another copy of your project that contains the puppets you want to save and delete all content except the puppets. Then save your edited project under a different name. You could start all your new projects with puppets by loading the edited project you created. You will now have all the puppets all ready to go in your new project. I really don't see any issues.
  21. Wow... You must want to work for a living. Express Animate can only adjust "key" frames to match to the audio, not audio to frames. You can change the speed and amplitude(db) of the audio. You can fade in and out the audio. You can make the audio play in reverse. There are many audio effects that can be applied as well. And you can slide the track anywhere along the compositions timeline. But you can not take the audio and stretch or squeeze it between video frames. Now if I miss read your question, please respond back and I will try again.
  22. Hi there... Turn your animation into a GIF. Then your background will be transparent as an overlay. If you know how to create a GIF in Express Animate , great! If not, let me know and I will be glad to list the steps.
  23. It's a .gif that you want to create so you have to treat it as such, and that happens when you render/ create it. Just follow my instructions below and I am sure you will do just fine: On the "Home" tool bar, click on the "Save Video" button. Find the "Portable Video" listing and select it. The "Export File Settings" will open. Select the "File Format" pull down menu and select ".gif". A new Dialog will appear just to the right of your selection, the "GIF Encoding Settings". Now, there is only one selection, the one you are looking for. Check the "Looping" box and click "OK" Now you can change any other setting if you desire, then you are FREE to hit "Create". Gears will turn and whistles will blow as it creates you GIF. After which it will ask you "Go to file". I suggest you say yes, open the GIF in a photo displaying software (windows photo will do just fine) so you can watch it as a GIF. Don't open it in any photo editing software for the software will tell you it's a gif but only show the first frame. I hope this helps you out of the issue. My info may be a little late but I have just joined the Forum and saw your question at the top of the list. Happy GIFFing.
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