What is the difference between Animate and Digital Pro?
From what I’ve seen in my few days of working with it, Animate is the little brother of Digital Pro. On the surface the things I noticed first are:
I’ve only been using Animate for a few days so feel free to correct me on any of these.
Can Animate open files created with DP and vice versa?
Hi,
Not yet, there will be an compatible release of Digital Pro in the future to get in sync with Animate. For sure this version will be able to open Animate material.
Regards,
Ugo
Actually you can bring an DP scene into Animate but effects are not all there so you will not see these in the output.
If you have textured lines they will not show in OpenGL views but will be in there in the final render.
At this point you can’t go back to DP. Like Ugo said there is a new “DP” that will be totally compatible.
By the way don’t save a scene in Animate if you want to go back to older version of DP.
The few times I’ve brought a DP scene into Animate that has unsupported features (such as variable blur), the render hangs indefinitely. I can cancel the render easily enough but it never completes.
-Adam
And if you have DP PLE and have installed, for example, the Animation Chart packs and such, you can load the template folder in the Digital Pro folder as a library and use them in Animate.
The “SpecialFX Packs” I’ve not had much luck, as noted eariler about the effects that Animate doesn’t have. However, the Puppet Package is pretty handy to have as it has templates with body parts all labeled and all you have to do is to put art on a draw layer and add the name of the character as a prefix to the peg names.
The Animation Charts Pack is pretty nifty to see how timing problems are solved and a good look at various run, walk, jump and other cycles.
These packs can be d/l from the Digital Pro section (e-learning, iirc).
later.