3D Invigorator Pro (for Adobe After Effects) 4.0 serial key or number

The 3D Invigorator PRO for After Effects plug-in has once again proven to be the must-have software of the year.

Highlights

3D That Feels Familiar

3D Invigorator PRO is the program that brings big-time 3D motion graphics to your After Effects work. 3D Invigorator PRO renders quickly and can create beautifully sculpted 3D models quickly and easily without extensive training.

At Zaxwerks we believe the key to workflow is familiarity. We feel that if we give our users tools they are familiar with, they learn the program faster and can be more productive. To that end we&#;ve made 3D Invigorator operate as a plug-in for After Effects so you never have to leave your main program.

FAMILIAR MODELING

• The tools in 3D Invigorator act like tools you are already familiar with. If you know how to draw Bezier curves, like the ones you find in Illustrator or Photoshop, you already know how to model in 3D.
• The modeling is done as you are drawing the curves so you can see exactly what you are getting as you draw. There is no guesswork and no multi-step process to learn.
• The models stay live so if you have to make changes, a quick adjustment to the curves will rebuild the model in 3D without you having to do anything.
• This type of immediate feedback and easy control makes the modeling very familiar and friendly. It helps you feel at home right away.

FAMILIAR ANIMATION

• The most familiar animation controls are the ones you already know. Every animation system has its own peculiarities, so do you want to learn a whole new animation system or would you like to use one that has the controls you already know? If you didn&#;t have to learn a new system wouldn&#;t it be easier to learn?
• 3D Invigorator PRO uses the After Effects timeline for all of its animation. There is no new animation system to learn, period.
• If you know how to set keyframes in After Effects you already know how to animate in 3D Invigorator PRO.

FAMILIAR LIGHTING AND LENS FLARES

Light comes from somewhere, right? It doesn&#;t just magically come from some invisible point in space. To help you create lighting that looks and acts real, 3D Invigorator PRO has lighting controls based on real world lights.

It&#;s pretty cool. With a mouse click you can arrange your lights in a ring or on a truss. Then create industry standard fixtures like ellipsoidals, fresnels or motion control rigs with another click. One more click lets you see the beams coming from the lights, and a final click turns on lens flares. 4 clicks for all of that? Think about it.

But what makes it truly familiar is that all of this can be done using After Effects lights too. This means you can position and animate your familiar AE 3D lights, and then get the trusses, light beams, fixtures and flares to go along with them.

If you know how to use After Effects lights, you already know how to use 3D Invigorator PRO&#;s lighting.

FAMILIAR SURFACING AND TEXT STYLES

What could be more familiar than drag and drop? 3D Invigorator PRO comes with over seamless materials that are applied by dragging a thumbnail picture and dropping them directly onto your object.

Adjusting the surface materials is done live with no need for rendering so the feedback is extremely fast and interactive.

3D Invigorator also introduces the idea of 3D Text Styles. These are thumbnail pictures which encapsulate everything needed to model and surface a text or logo design. This lets you set up the look of a design and save it as a preset, after which you can completely model and surface any number of other versions by simply dropping the thumbnail onto your text or Illustrator shapes.

If you know how to drag and drop, you already know how to texture and use 3D Styles inside 3D Invigorator PRO.

FAMILIAR BEVELING

3D Invigorator PRO&#;s bevel creator is the most advanced custom bevel creator in any 3D program. It will also feel the most familiar to you because it uses regular old Illustrator-style, Bezier curves.

The program comes with over professional bevels to get you started. You can always edit them or create your own. The ability to create your own bevels can&#;t be understated. This ensures your designs will always look fresh.

As with modeling, the bevel drawing is live, so you see the final 3D model as you draw the bevels. Bevels can be made of multiple pieces. They can also be divided so different materials can be applied to each part. In fact the term &#;bevel&#; doesn&#;t begin to describe what&#;s possible.

BEST OF ALL, NO ROUND-TRIPPING

Round-Tripping is what happens when you use After Effects with an external 3D program. You render a movie from the external program, import the movie into After Effects, maybe import the camera data too. But then the client makes a change. Uh-oh!

So now you have to go back to your external program, make the changes, re-import the movie, re-import the camera data, fix whatever problems this causes, etc., etc. Each change creates another round-trip. Every round-trip is a headache that just wastes time.

With 3D Invigorator PRO round-tripping doesn&#;t exist. As an After Effects plug-in there is no time lost re-rendering, moving files back and forth or fixing mistakes. It is literally the fastest 3D workflow possible because you stay inside of After Effects % of the time.

The Classic version will serve you well, but the PRO version greatly enhances what you can do.

More Power. The PRO version gives you the incredible ability to bring 3D models right into After Effects. This is truly a designer&#;s dream because you can mix 2D layers with live 3D elements in the same project.

More Speed. Set up variables in 3D Text objects and then drive the variables with a text file. This takes versioning to the next level by enabling you to create one animation and then render countless additional animations based on changes in the text file.

More Flexibility. The PRO version enables you to draw your own bevels. This enables you to create the fresh new looks you see in today&#;s spots and promos. In addition, Object Warping will let you create state of the art effects!

• Includes all the features of Invigorator Classic, plus&#;
• Ray-Trace Reflectivity & Shadows! (NEW)
• Ultra Realistic Shadows with Ambient Occlusion(NEW)
• Create Glass or Water with Refraction(NEW)
• Super Easy Grid Creator(NEW)
• Increased Number of Sets and Layer Maps(NEW)

Ray Trace Reflectivity and Shadows

The Ray Tracer Renderer renders gorgeous, highly realistic surfaces for all of your 3D objects. Customize settings such as the Reflectivity, Falloff and Blurriness to increase the amount of cromwellpsi.com the Position, Rotation, or Scale of the material. Enable Tiling to repeat or mirror in both X and Y direction. Being able to edit the position, rotation, or tiling means no more going back and forth into Photoshop to adjust the texture maps.

Ray Traced Shadows allow you to create extremely realistic shadows that fade out with distance.

With Ambient Occlusion, areas of an object that are close to another object are automatically darkened.

With Transparent Shadows, Lights will calculate shadows differently if the object is transparent.

Refraction (Glass, Ice, Water Materials)

With the Refraction setting, you customize the amount of Refraction for the Material and how fuzzy the transparency is. This allows you to create interesting surfaces for glass, ice, water or more.

By adding Bump Maps, this adds even more possiblilities such as creating Frosty or Fuzzy looking glass materials.

Grid Shader

Automatic Object Creation

This feature will auto-create 3D models out of an image. Usually you have to measure the image, create a plane that&#;s the proper proportions, create a material using the image and then apply the material to the plane. Whew, that&#;s a lot of work!

The new auto-image creation feature lets you import an image and it will automatically do everything else for you. It&#;s a one-click model creator and mapper function. In fact we super charged it so you can import an entire folder of images and turn every image in the folder into ready-to-animate 3D objects, again with one single click.

Customizable Workspaces

The 3D Invigorator PRO interface has been completely revamped. This lets you customize the workspaces in whatever ways you want, and allows you to jump from one workspace to another easily with the use of workspace buttons.

With the new workspace setup, you can open or close as many, or as few panels as you need. This enables you to create complex workspaces where you have access to all the controls at once, or set up simple workspaces where you only need a few controls at a time.

Resizable/Repositional panels lets you position every panel so that it&#;s the right size and position. You can also preserve workspace by placing panels into tabs. To maximize a panel, hit the the ~ tilde key. This lets you quickly fine tune all those little details.

By being to save and load your own workspaces, you have all your favorite workspaces at your fingertips.

Realtime Drawing Tools

Use familiar tools such as the Pen, Pencil, Shape, Text, Selection to build and edit professional logos. New vector drawing tools such as the Auto-curve, Corner Rounding, and Parametric Shapes lets you build objects faster than ever. The Auto-curve tool is a Pen-tool that automatically smoothes out the curves that you draw. The Cornering tools allow you to drag on any corner, and transforms it into a rounded corner or curve. Customizable Parametric shapes enables you to create simple shapes quickly, and edit them by changing the parameters.

You can now edit imported Adobe Illustrator files directly within 3D Invigorator PRO. This means, if there&#;s a little curve that needs tweaking, you can adjust the bezier curves right inside the drawing window. There&#;s no need to switch between programs.

Many keyboard shortcut commands have been implemented so you can switch effortlessly between the most commonly used tools such as the pen tool, convert anchor point tools, or the point selection tools. Creating cutout is also an easy process. Put shapes into the same layer, and by overlapping one shape with another, the program is smart enough to know which shape to cut out.

Draw bevels in the new Profile Editor window. Any shape or design you create in the profile editor instantly gets applied to your object. You can also save and load any custom bevels that you create, and edit the bevels with any of the vector tools in the drawing window.

Object List

The Object List allows you to quickly move objects from one Set to another by dragging.  This lets you organize your objects quickly, and also set up parenting and grouping easily. The Object List Preview window also lets you preview your objects so you know exactly what you are editing.

The Editor View Sets enable you to save up to eight separate View Sets. Each View Set lets you customize layer settings such as the Layer Visibility, Lock, Editor Visibility, and Object Solo. Switch between different view sets to avoid having to toggle all the settings on and off over and over.

New Object Creation buttons allows you to create objects with just a single click. This also enables you to convert vector shapes to Lathe Objects, and vice versa, group and ungroup objects, and delete layers with ease.

3D Text Handling

The 3D text engine can use Post Script Type 1, True Type, and Open Type fonts that reside on your computer system to directly create 3D models using any of the edge bevels included with the program.

The Font Preview list shows you what a font looks like, without having to first select the font. Using the up/down arrows, you can quickly preview your text with the selected font. To jump quickly to a font, type letters in the font list. Typing &#;t&#; will jump you to &#;Tahoma,&#;and adding an &#;r&#; will bring you to &#;Trebuchet&#;.

Each letter can have its own font, size, kerning, tracking, baseline shift, horizontal and vertical scale, color, bevel, position and depth. But the most astounding hallmark to this feature is the ability to change the text at any phase of the production process and retain the color, modeling and animation. Also, with the new feature to save a Font Favorite, you can save all the font information such as the Font Size, Kerning, and Spacing.

This means that after the first version of a promo is created, 50 other versions can be created by simply changing the text. The new 3D text will retain the same coloring, text attributes, 3D beveling, texture map placement and even the animation data. This makes for an unbelievably fast production process when many changes or extra versions are needed.

In addition, 3D Text objects can be edited directly within the drawing window. This means you can edit the bezier curves of each text character to make instant changes to the shapes of the 3D text objects. But guess what? The text objects are still live, so if you need to make text changes, like fix a spelling or add a word, you can still do it and all of your bezier edits will remain intact. What? That&#;s right, this is the first and only place you can find this level of editability and flexibility in handling text.

3D Text Substitution

If you are interested in making money, this is the feature for you. Text substitution lets you set up an animation once then create variations by simply changing the words in a text file. This means you can create a template animation and render, literally, hundreds of variations without having to rebuild every animation.

For instance if you have to build a title graphic for the head of every department, just set the animation up once, then create a text file including every department head&#;s name, department name, office location or anything else you wanted to include. During rendering the data is substituted, automatically turned into 3D text objects and animated just like the original. This is truly a high-productivity workhorse feature.

Lathe Objects

Import/Export Objects

3D Invigorator PRO enables you to set up 3D logos, titles and 3D text, color them, apply the materials, maps and object settings, and then save them into files which you can reuse over and over in all your other 3D Invigorator PRO projects, or even other 3D applications. This is a huge time saver for repetitive work. Not to mention, the import feature is a great resource for users who like to take advantage of all the free 3D models that are available for download.

Motion Blur

3D Invigorator PRO supports 3D Motion Blur. Anything that can be created or imported into the 3D Invigorator PRO can be motion blurred. This includes models made in other programs such as Maya, 3D Studio and LightWave.

Tracking AE&#;s 3D Objects

Another great new feature is the ability for Invigorator objects to track, or mimic, what an AE 3D plane is doing. On the surface this feature might not seem that significant, however for the advanced After Effects user this feature opens the doors to incredible new abilities.

By tracking AE&#;s 3D planes an AE user is now able to use the standard 3D manipulation tools within AE to create motion paths and keyframes for the Invigorator&#;s objects. This means that everything you can do to an AE 3D plane can now be done to Invigorator objects. You get visible 3D paths, function curve control, animation assistants and even expression-based control over your 3D animations! And all you have to do to make it work is to pick a simple menu option. Incredible.

Gradient & Noise Editor

With the abilities of Gradientwerks, included in the Material Editor, now you can make and customize a mind boggling variety of resolution independent gradients

The Noise Editor works wonders when creating Reflectivity Maps, Bump Maps, or even unique designs such as the army camoflauge. The Noise Editor comes with over 20 resolution independent graphic element noise generators. Apply them with our new Blend Modes feature for even greater customization.

You can also copy and paste shaders to easily expand and reuse your material swatch libraries.

Object Deformation & Warping

Updates

What&#;s New in version ?

Features

• Added: global reflections. You can now use a single map for all reflections in the scene.
• Added: global reflection rotation. By setting a rate of rotation the global reflection will keep moving so the reflections don&#;t go dead when objects stop moving.
• You can now parent Light Tracks to Objects so an object can carry a lighting track along with it. This is especially good for adding blinking lights to graphics.
• Added a new type of auto-rotation for lens flares that enables you to make flares trace the edges of 3D objects.
• Materials can now be dropped onto trusses and each truss can have its own material.
• Fragmented objects render much faster.
• Added foreground compositing, so you can overlay screen UI or pre-rendered scene elements.

Bug fixes

• Fixed memory leaks, especially when using motion blur or depth of field, that were causing crashes during long renders.
• Lots of stability fixes.
• On the Mac you can now load a project file by dragging the project file onto the application icon.
• The split arrows now stick to the end of your cursor better.
• AutoSave files are now cleaned up better.
• Shape tools can now be used to draw custom profiles without crashing.
• Reflections using multiple shaders now render properly.
• Fragmented objects new render better using the OpenGL renderer.
• Stretched glows are no longer clipped.
• Selecting and editing objects that are children of other objects works better.

Macintosh

• Host: Adobe After Effects CS6 &#; After Effects CC
• For users working with After Effects CS3 &#; CS5, please contact us for older versions of the plug-in.
• Intel Mac Only
• Mac OS X or higher.
• A video card that supports floating point calculations.

Windows

• Host: Adobe After Effects CS6 &#; CC
  • For users working with After Effects CS3 &#; CS5, please contact for older versions of the plug-in.
•  Windows 7, 8 or 10
• A video card that supports floating point calculations.

Note: Zaxwerks allows two installations (for instance, a Desktop and Laptop), provided only one is activated at a time.

Please Note: This page is intended for product reviews. If you are having trouble with a product and require customer support, please Contact Us

ADOBE® AFTER EFFECTS® README

May,

This file contains late-breaking product information, updates to the Adobe After Effects documentation, and troubleshooting tips. Please print this document for future reference.

Note that Keylight, 3D Assistants Lite, and 3D Invigorator Classic (included in the Professional edition), Cycore Effects, and Color Finesse, have their own installers and are not installed with After Effects automatically. 3D Invigorator Classic is on a separate CD included in the Professional edition. 3D Invigorator Classic and Color Finesse require their own serial numbers which are included in the product box.

The Help menu in After Effects provides access to the entire User Guide. The online version of the User Guide has additional technical information and examples not found in the printed documentation. For your convenience, printable PDF versions of the documentation are located on your CD in the “AE Documentation” folder.

For further troubleshooting and information, see the User Guide, online Help, or cromwellpsi.com

This ReadMe is divided into the following sections:

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Please complete your registration card and mail it today or register on-line (Help > Registration from within After Effects or cromwellpsi.com). You must register in order to receive technical support and important product update information.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows®

• Intel® Pentium® III or 4 processor (multiprocessor recommended)
• Microsoft® Windows® with Service Pack 4 or Windows XP® with Service Pack 1 Pro or Home Edition
• MB of RAM installed ( MB of RAM recommended)
• MB of available hard-disk space for installation (MB or larger hard disk or disk array recommended for ongoing work).
• CD-ROM drive
• bit display adapter
• QuickTime software recommended
• Microsoft DirectX b software recommended
• For Render Engine: System requirements are the same as applications system requirements.
• For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL card. For a current list please visit cromwellpsi.com

Macintosh

• PowerPC® processor (multiprocessor G5 recommended)
• Mac OS software
• MB of RAM installed ( MB of RAM recommended)
• MB of available hard-disk space for installation (MB or larger hard disk or disk array recommended for ongoing work).
• CD-ROM drive
• bit display adapter
• For Render Engine: System requirements are the same as applications system requirements.
• For OpenGL support: Adobe After Effects supported OpenGL card. For a current list please visit cromwellpsi.com

SERIAL NUMBER

After Effects uses new serial numbers, and numbers from previous versions will not work with After Effects You can find your serial number on the back of the Adobe After Effects CD case. Use this number to initialize the program. If your serial number does not work, please contact Adobe Customer Support: cromwellpsi.com

If you are installing an upgrade, you will need both the new digit serial number that was included with the upgrade and the serial number from your previous version.

INSTALLATION NOTES

On some systems with Windows XP, having System Restore enabled during installation causes the installation to take an extremely long time. The computer may appear to be locked up. To avoid this, turn off System Restore before installing (Start > Control Panel > System > System Restore). Disabling System Restore will cause all restore point to be lost.

Direct X is required for After Effects to support DV-compressed movies and MPEG import. While After Effects may run with earlier versions of Direct X, it is strongly recommended that you install Direct X b or later. For the latest version of Microsoft DirectX go to cromwellpsi.com

If you work with QuickTime movies (.mov files), be sure to install QuickTime for Windows version or later. For best results, select the Recommended install option. QuickTime is not included as part of the After Effects installation. You can download it at cromwellpsi.com

If you have problems running the After Effects installer from a network volume, copy the After Effects installer folder to a local drive then run the installer from there. For best results, install After Effects on your boot drive.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

The full install of After Effects is a superset of the Render Engine. There is no need to install both on any one system. You can install the Render Engine to as many additional computers as you wish.

Make sure that your computer meets the system requirements for After Effects The system requirements are listed on the After Effects box and in this ReadMe file.

The installer requires that you enter the serial number for After Effects If you purchased an upgrade, you must also provide the serial number for the product that qualified you for the upgrade. The serial number is located on the back of the application CD cover or, if you downloaded the software from the Web, on the receipt page that confirms your purchase (a copy of the receipt page is also e-mailed to you). For software downloads, you can also view the product’s serial number in your Order History section of the Adobe Web site if you purchased the software through Adobe.

To install After Effects

Quit all Adobe applications.

Do one of the following:

• If you are installing After Effects from a CD, insert the application CD into your CD drive. On Windows, if the installer dialog box does not appear automatically, double-click cromwellpsi.com in the Adobe After Effects folder on the CD. On Mac OS, open the folder for the desired language on the CD, and double-click Install After Effects
• If you downloaded After Effects from the Web, the installer dialog box should appear automatically, when the download completes. If it doesn’t, double-click cromwellpsi.com (Windows) or Install After Effects (Mac OS) in the Adobe After Effects folder you downloaded.

Note: The installer folder must be on the computer onto which you want to install the application.

Follow the on-screen instructions to install the application until the dialog box reaches one of the following screens:

• On Windows, when the dialog box reaches the Setup Type screen, select Complete or Custom, and follow the on-screen instructions to install the application. A Custom install allows you to choose whether or not to install additional language Help files.
• On Mac OS, when the dialog box displays the Install button, choose Easy Install or Custom Install. If you choose Custom Install, make sure that Adobe After Effects Minimum Install is selected. Follow the on-screen instructions to install the application. Easy Install will install the complete application. Custom Install will allow you to select to install the Render Engine alone.

Installing the Render Engine to additional computers
The Professional edition of After Effects provides the Watch Folder feature and the command- line renderer ‘aerender’, which speed up the rendering process on a network. If you have a full licensed copy of the Professional edition, you can set it up to work with render-only versions of After Effects to take advantage of these features. Your license entitles you to install as many copies of the render engine as you want on your network, as long as one licensed copy of the Professional edition is installed on that network. (See After Effects Help for more information on the Watch Folder feature. See the Scripting Guide PDF file on the application CD for more information on the command-line renderer.)

To install only the Render Engine:

Follow the procedure for installing the After Effects application, except do the following:

• On Windows, when the dialog box reaches the Setup Type screen, select Render Engine.
• On Mac OS, when the Install button appears in the dialog box, choose Custom Install, and select Render Engine.

Removing After Effects and the Render Engine

To remove the After Effects Render Engine from additional computers, use the same procedure for removing the After Effects application.

To remove After Effects (Windows):

1. Quit After Effects
2. In the Windows Control Panel, double-click Add or Remove Programs.
3. Select Adobe After Effects , and then click Change/Remove.
4. In the Adobe After Effects Setup dialog box, select Remove, and then click Next.
5. Follow the on-screen instructions to remove Adobe After Effects

To remove After Effects (Mac OS):

• Drag the Adobe After Effects application folder to the Trash.

GENERAL NOTES

Third-Party Compatibility
On Windows, plug-ins designed for After Effects and earlier should also work with After Effects

Media ’s Final Effects Complete (OS X only) plug-ins crash when used in After Effects The update is available from Media that addresses this issue.

Primatte versions before are incompatible with After Effects

BigFX FilmFX is incompatible with After Effects Contact the manufacturer for a new version.

For technical support on Zaxwerks 3D Invigorator Classic, contact Zaxwerks at support@cromwellpsi.com, or or talk to a pro on their user forum at: cromwellpsi.com

For technical support on Keylight, please read the Keylight User Guide or check out the support page at cromwellpsi.com If you still require assistance please email The Foundry at support@cromwellpsi.com

For technical support on 3D Assistants Lite or to upgrade to the 3D Assistants Pro, please contact Digital Anarchy at support@cromwellpsi.com or call

Technical support for Color Finesse is provided through the Adobe User to User Forum.

For Cycore Effects technical support, send e-mail to support@cromwellpsi.com Go to the cromwellpsi.com web site for updates and tutorials.

For GridIron X-Factor technical support, the X-Factor web site at cromwellpsi.com provides you with access to a detailed support section, which includes further information about using and troubleshooting X-Factor. You can submit questions to GridIron Support by e-mail, and responses will be posted to the X-Factor Support Forum in the support area of the X-Factor web site. Direct support can be purchased at the cromwellpsi.com web site for $39 per incident or $ for unlimited annual support.

Language
Unless you do a custom install, all four language versions (English, French, German, & Japanese) are automatically installed. The appropriate language is chosen at launch time based on your system settings.

On Mac OS X your preferred language order is set in System Preferences > International > Language. You may also choose to exclude specific languages for After Effects by selecting the application icon in the Finder, and choosing File > Get Info > Languages.

On Windows XP you can choose your language version in Settings > Control Panel > Regional and Language Options > Advanced. You can also choose to run any language by opening its shortcut in Program Files > > After Effects > Languages.

Text-Preferences
Some of the sections below refer to a “text-preference” setting with a name in quotes. To modify the named setting you must first quit After Effects, find the preferences file (see the Mac & Windows information section below), open it in a text editor, and then search for the named setting. Save the changes and close the file before re-launching After Effects.

Customizing Keyboard Shortcuts
There is a keyboard shortcuts file next to the preferences file that can be used to customize keyboard shortcuts. This is not officially supported, however it may be useful for users of non-English/French/German/Japanese keyboards, more information and examples may be found at: cromwellpsi.com

OpenGL
By default OpenGL is enabled if you have an apparently compatible OpenGL card installed. In the Previews preferences dialog, click the OpenGL Info button for information on your card. For up to date information on compatible cards, see the After Effects support site: cromwellpsi.com

When dragging in the comp window or scrubbing values in the timeline or effect controls windows, the Fast Previews button turns green if OpenGL is operational. The OpenGL-rendered image will not match the software-rendered image exactly, so you may see differences on mouse-up. If you see rendering flaws (e.g. noisy pixels) or very slow performance with using OpenGL you may need to lower the maximum texture size. Change "Auto Downsample Textures Larger Than (pixels)" text-preference from to (or smaller).

Video Preview does not operate while interacting with OpenGL enabled. Video Preview updates after releasing the mouse button in this case.

For full color fidelity, some ATI OpenGL cards need to be set to high quality in the control panel.

Using both an AGP and PCI OpenGL card to drive two monitors is not recommended, and may cause intermittent crashes when using OpenGL.

Some OpenGL cards have drastically reduced performance when dragging the current time indicator in large compositions. If you have this problem, try reducing the Preferences "Max Cached Frame Dim" text-preference to or lower.

If you experience white flashing while using OpenGL, reduce your image cache preferences to their defaults.

Scripting
Use cromwellpsi.com(<file_object>.name) to display file name that contains non-ASCII characters.

Cache Indicators
If After Effects becomes sluggish, try turning off cache indicators by unchecking Show Cache Indicators in the Timeline window menu. This setting will be remembered across application sessions.

Illustrator 10/CS
Illustrator 10/CS files will display blank or with a warning message unless they are saved with the Create PDF Compatible File option selected in the AI 10/CS save dialog.

Illustrator Clipboard Support
In order to use the Adobe Illustrator Clip Board (AICB) function for copying paths between Illustrator 10/CS and After Effects, you need to turn this preference on in Illustrator, with the option for Preserve Paths selected.

Illustrator 8.x & 9.x files
Layers in EPS files saved in Illustrator 9.x may rasterize incorrectly or incompletely. Import the file as Illustrator AI format instead. AI 8 files saved with layer visibility turned off will display with blank layers in After Effects. The workaround is to save the files with the visibility turned on.

Maya Camera Import
In addition to the features described in the documentation, the Maya Camera Import feature will also import "locator" nodes. These are useful for tracking objects from your Maya scene as it is translated into After Effects. After Effects creates a Null layer with the relevant transformations applied if a Maya locator node's name contains the word "Null", "NULL", or "null". Avoid parenting locator nodes to each other in Maya -- parent the locator nodes to geometry instead. Note that "World" or "Underworld" coordinates in the LocatorShape are not observed. Instead, use a transform node to place them.

Sometimes Maya (.ma) camera import may take a while if the project is complex (for example, if there are many keyframes to import). To speed up Maya camera import, include just camera data in the Maya (.ma) file. Note that After Effects does not read 3-node cameras.

When applying FilmFit use either horizontal or vertical FilmFit, not fill.

Multiple Views
To show and hide tab area of a window, double-click the slider bar that appears above the tabs.

Advanced 3D
Non-intersecting planes sometimes render as intersecting when the layers almost touch. When that happens, you will see the rear layer visible through the front before it actually intersects. To avoid this, move the layers slightly apart.

When a shadow-casting layer intersects another layer, sometimes there is a small gap behind the intersection that is supposed to be shadowed. To decrease the size of the gap, increase the shadow map resolution by going to Composition>Composition Settings>Advanced Options.

RAM Preview
In order to use the Save RAM Preview feature, the active Composition Window view must be set to Active Camera (even if there are no 3D layers in the composition).

Rendering
Avoid using high-ASCII or other extended characters in filenames to be used cross-platform, especially with Watch Folder rendering.

Photoshop filters
After Effects no longer supports Photoshop plug-in filters.

Tip of the Day
To step to the previous Tip of the Day, Shift-click the "Next Tip" button.

MP3 Audio Files
MP3 audio files produce audible clicks or pops in rendered output. Later versions of QuickTime or Direct X may fix these problems. To work around the problem for Make Movie, set the Audio Block Duration in the Output Preferences to longer than the length of your output movie. This will increase your memory requirements. Scrubbing MP3 files does not work, but RAM Preview with Audio does.

Adobe Premiere® Projects
When importing Adobe Premiere (v) projects into After Effects, Adobe Premiere transitions and titles will appear only as solids, and will not render the original content. Importing Adobe Premiere Pro projects (Windows only) will properly convert motion, After Effects effects, and some transitions. Titles and unsupported transitions will still appear as solids.

3D Compositing
Setting a light to be the parent of the camera will cause the camera to jump if it has Auto-orient enabled.

3D co-planar layers' rendering order is determined by layer order in the Timeline window, even when looking at the layers from behind.

Auto Levels, Auto Color, Auto Contrast and Shadow/Highlight
Auto Levels, Auto Color, Auto Contrast, and Shadow/Highlight may fail when used in a composition that is time-remapped in another composition. The work-around is to turn off temporal smoothing in the effect or apply the effect to the time-remapped layer itself.

Grain Effects
The Add Grain, Match Grain, and Remove Grain effects have been updated since their Grain Surgery versions. The film stock presets have changed and the Noise Softness controls are improved.

Motion Tracker/Stabilizer (Professional edition only)
The Motion Tracker/Stabilizer's start/end controls in the layer window start out matching the layer's in/out points, but are independent.

Watch Folder (Professional edition only)
When you are rendering sequence output with a Watch Folder to a Windows or XP Server, some of the rendered frames might not be visible from a Mac OS client. When you import these sequence files, you'll get a missing file alert on the Mac. This is apparently a bug in Windows and XP Services for Macintosh.

When you are running After Effects on a Japanese, Chinese, or Korean system, if you want to use a Web server to see your HTML progress files, make sure that the project name, the output folder name, and the watch folder name don’t contain any double-byte characters. This is necessary to avoid double-byte URLs, which most Web servers do not support.

AAF/OMF (Professional edition only)
AAF import has only been tested with AAF files exported from Adobe Premiere Pro. Importing AAF files from other applications may work. However, importing AAF files from other applications is not tested and not supported.

There are many types of OMF files that AE can not read. For example, project-type OMF files are not supported; media-type OMF files are supported.

AAF import does not support double-byte file paths.

For additional information and troubleshooting AAF/OMF, see the After Effects Support page at cromwellpsi.com and the AAF/OMF forum on the Adobe User to User Forum on the Web at cromwellpsi.com

Miscellaneous
The interpret footage option for anti-aliasing Illustrator footage (Faster vs. More Accurate) and Cineon interpretation options are not retained when using Remember Interpretation and Apply Interpretation.

Launching the English version of After Effects may fail if the path to the application contains double-byte characters.

USING AFTER EFFECTS WITH MAC OS X

Many Mac 3rd party plug-in installers incorrectly identify After Effects Some may install their plug-ins into the Mac OS X Package for the After Effects application. To reveal these plug-ins, control-click on the After Effects application icon in the Finder and select “Show Package Contents.” You can then move the plug-ins into the plug-ins folder.

After Effects Preferences File
On Mac OS X the “Adobe After Effects Prefs” file is located in /Users/<username>/Library/Preferences.

USING AFTER EFFECTS WITH WINDOWS

Playing a 16bpc QuickTime movie may hang After Effects on multiprocessor machines. This is a QuickTime issue and may be fixed in a future version of QuickTime for Windows.

Installing Bluefish software on a machine without the accompanying hardware may cause After Effects to crash when creating a composition. Contact Bluefish for an update. cromwellpsi.comshcom

After Effects does not support audio in Type1 DV AVI files. Attempting to scrub audio in these files may cause a long delay.

Third-party video mirroring plug-ins, such as those from Canopus or Matrox, may require an update to work in After Effects or later. See cromwellpsi.com or cromwellpsi.com for updated information. You may be able to get older versions to run by editing cromwellpsi.com (found next to the preferences file): change UseLegacyMainWindowClassName=0 to UseLegacyMainWindowClassName=1

Systems with an ATI FireGL video card and that have greater than 2GB of RAM may crash. Contact ATI for updated video card drivers.

AE may have problems using protected AAC files such as those from the iTunes music store. Use an unprotected format instead.

When writing MPEG2 format video, After Effects creates an additional file with extension .xmpses. This file contains meta-data about the render that can be used by other applications, such as Adobe Encore.

Video preview over FireWire may be garbled on systems that use the n-Force2 chipset. This may be fixed in future versions of DirectX.

If you experience out-of-memory or other errors using .WAV files, disable or uninstall any third-party DirectShow components such as DivX.

When attempting to use a FireWire preview device which is unavailable, such as when it is being used by Adobe Premiere Pro or any other application, After Effects will erroneously state that the device type doesn’t match.

Not all effects present in After Effects and Adobe Premiere Pro, such as the Transform effect, will translate pasted from After Effects to Adobe Premiere Pro.

Layers whose source footage format is not supported by Premiere Pro (e.g. bpc Photoshop CS files) will paste as off-line clips.

After Effects Preferences File
You can neither search for nor reveal the After Effects preferences file within Windows Explorer if the Do Not Show Hidden Files folder option within Explorer is checked. This is the default option for Windows and Windows XP.

To find the file, search for “Adobe After Effects cromwellpsi.com” or look in \Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Adobe\After Effects\Prefs.

Movies exported from Macromedia Flash
QuickTime movies exported from Macromedia Flash 4 and 5 can cause other applications (including After Effects) to crash on Windows.

Footage Window
Normally, opening the footage window for Video for Windows (AVI) files opens the AVI footage window. Certain AVI files are not supported by this window, and automatically open in the After Effects footage window (for example, AVI files created using Microsoft's DirectX DV Codec and AVI files over 2GB). If the AVI footage window appears blank, use Alt-double-click to open an After Effects footage window instead.

OTHER RESOURCES

Visit the After Effects page on the Adobe Systems Inc. Web site: cromwellpsi.com

You will find links to tutorials, user forums, third-party plug-in developers, Adobe Customer Support, and more.

Also, sign up for our free Support Announcements -- timely e-mails that will keep you up-to-date with technical how-tos, patches, and plug-ins for After Effects: cromwellpsi.com

Please send feature requests to aftereffects@cromwellpsi.com, ranked in order of importance.

May

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Adobe, Illustrator, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, and After Effects are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft Windows and Windows XP are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in The United States and/or other countries. Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.