Hi,
I am new to TBA and so far I am truly jazzed about its potential but I have two questions / issues.
1. I have made a character in photo shop and saved its parts as .png
when i import them singly or all at once they resize to fit the animation space.
Thus the characters foot will be as big as the chest etc. Is there a way to insure they import as vectors at their actual size? Or must I import them as bitmaps?
2. I use Adobe photoshop 7.0, it does groups but calls them sets. If I make my character and cut it up and put the parts in layers and then make sets from the layers they import beautifully as a symbol, but the parts are in the time line in a horizontal row and switch when I move the slider left or right.
To use the parts to build my puppet, do i copy them and paste them into new drawing layers in a vertical row? I would assume that if i do I need to arrange them in a hierarchy to set pivots and such? I have done them as layers in PS7 because when I import the whole character into TBA it seems to set it as a background. Nothing shows up in the draw window and it gives me the circle with a slash through it when I attempt to start cutting it up in the camera window… this why i went the png route mentioned above.
many thanks and sorry if these are stupid questions
Lily,
Thanks so much for your prompt response.
Just a quick clarification on the second part of your answer:
you said:
"In your photoshop file, select each layer and do a Ctrl+G to make it into a group."
In PS7 cntrl+g is ‘group with previous layer’ is this the same function as the grouping that you refer to? doing this in series going down or up my layers list seems to group each layer to the layer before it rather than grouping them all to one layer. I used this function on each layer and it affect all but one layer, I imported the psd and I still have the same issue of the import resulting in a single layer named ‘my new fig’ with 16 frames side by side on one layer. As I scroll through the frames the parts of my puppet show in the Drawing Substitution window with each part being in its own frame (with the other parts being available in the same frame if I move the slider in the drawing substitution window).
If I double click on a frame it does open a vertical list of layers and allows me to draw / resize ect the parts of model, it is in this list that I set the hierarchy and add pivots correct?
I am using Animate version 7.6.0 Build 4830
Hi Again,
I have had success and wanted to share the facts so that anyone else wrestling this will have a fix.
In PS7 rather than groups we have ‘Sets’ and their default behavior must be accounted for.
1. Cut your figure up and place the parts on layers
2. Select the layer you want to group
3. click the circle and arrow Icon at the top right of the layers window.
4. This opens the layers dialog, select 'NEW LAYER SET’
5. this will create a folder directly above your selected layer in the layer pallet. Rename the folder with the same name as your layer
6. click and drag your layer directly over the folder to transfer it into the folder.
7. Do this with each layer that you have.
In the end you will have an EQUAL number of folder as the number of layers you started with.
When importing in to Animate use:
Create Layers
Create Layer(s) Based on Filenames
Vectorize Imported Items
Many thanks for your help
Will
Hi,
Thanks for the input.
My software is prehistoric (like me)
I hope my fix may help others with the issue
Will
- When you import and vectorise something, its original size is no longer applicable.
If you were to leave it as a bitmap, when you import you can choose “Project Resolution”, which will keep its original pixel size when it imports it into the resolution of the project.
2. In your photoshop file, select each layer and do a Ctrl+G to make it into a group. When you import this into Animate, it should import on separated layers instead of on different cells of the same layer.
Indeed, if you want to make a hierarchy each element will need to be on its own drawing layer.
~Lilly
To be honest with you I can’t test with your exact setup, because you have first quite an old version of Photoshop, and you also have an older version of Animate.
I tested with Photoshop CS4 and with Animate 2, and I was able to get it to work. I just selected each layer individually and did a Ctrl+G to put each layer into its own group. Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like in CS4:
http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy184/lillybirdsong/Screenshot2011-03-24at32014PM.png
Then I imported into Animate. When I imported it, I chose to create a new layer and not to vectorise it. It then popped a window asking me whether I’d like to create a Composite image or do All Layers, and I selected All Layers. Then it popped into Animate like this:
http://i790.photobucket.com/albums/yy184/lillybirdsong/Screenshot2011-03-24at31918PM.png
Sorry the screenshot is for Animate Pro but I tried it in both with the same results.
I hope this helps.
~Lilly
Ack sorry I pasted those URLs in backwards!
~Lilly