I just downloaded MultiMorph and I can see how easy (once you figure it out) it is to use for Vertex morphs, but I can't find how to attach non-vertex objects to the vertex mesh... for example, a fish with a vertex body, morphs attached, can't have fins made from Spline model, or vertex model attached, the morph leaves it behind. I'll just have to figure it out. I've only had it for twenty min. Must have patience. R.

Change your models to vertex ones, then you should have no problems. But watch out for your poly count/vertex count. Create the original in whatever mode you want, change to a vertex model, then make your morphs from copies of the vertex. Otherwaise the morphs won't work right.

Like everything I do, I just had to play with it a bit to get it to work. Well, not everything. Anyway, here is a test using an old trout model I linked together some time ago. The framed model is the base. Wow, no bones! I will render a swim test movie, but I then want to put it into Flash... with an alpha channel so it comes across w/no background, any ideas? R.

Looks good - like a rainbow trout. They hold against the current with an s-shaped sinusoidal fluctuation of their entire body, keeping the head as motionless as possible to spot prey. They breath about 1 per second (open mouth, then close mouth and open gills). They stabilize by flicking the pectoral fins in a figure-8 pattern.

depending on how you want to animate it...one way would be to make a swim cycle against a flat background...render you movie as frames and take each frame into photoshop, or whatever, select the background to get rid of it and save as a png-24..thatll let you keep the alpha channel and import them all into Flash...at 12 - 15 fps it shouldnt be that much more work...but then i do things the long way usually...

the pain is i dont think Flash will import a seq number of png files...thats the one format i usually have problems with...

you could render an avi and chroma out the background using premiere or a movie editor too...then save it from there as quicktime or avi then import into flash...

mateo..your knowledge of trout physiology is frightening..;)..

Message edited on: 07/15/2004 15:21

You could create a script in Photoshop so you would need to do the changes only once. Then you could automate the process for the rest of the files. I've found the Photoshop's script and automate-process quite handy for postworking and compositing animations. Actually Flash imports numbered image sequences. You just select the first one of them and Flash asks if you want to import the whole sequence. Getting them to the right place is occasionally the tricky part if you have tens of images. In many cases the images place right where they should but when they don't, activate onion-skinning and make sure every frame is within the skin. Then marquee over the images and align them to the scene or place where you want. PNG is a great format for exporting the images to Flash cause it is lossless and it can contain alpha channel. I have always cut the image with the inverse selection of the alpha mask so I don't know if just the alpha channel is enough. I will send a link to the site i'm working on when it's ready. All the 3D on it is made with Carrara and I've used methods I descibed above to get the images into Flash. -Hannu kulju

youve been able to import seq pngs?..ill export them from C, but when it comes to getting them into Flash it seems png is the png is the one format that wont im seq for me. I end up having to do it frame by frame...arrgh...jpg, and gif go i with no prob tho...png is great, but sometimes since its lossless its a larger file size...but png-24 is the only one to support alphas...i dont think Flash supports alpha channels in .tif...at least not the 1st MX version, which is still what im using...

You almost got me todd. I realized I hadn't used png-format for importing image sequences to Flash. I had imported sequences of other formats and single pngs but not png-seqs - until now. I just tested the png-seq import with 24 frames and there were no problems. I'm using Flash MX and it is version 6.0 so I presume it is the first version of the MX series just like you have. The thing might be that I use it on Mac. Do you get pngs straight from Carrara? I didn't know you could do that. I've resaved the files into pngs in Photoshop. -Hannu Kulju

Thank you everyone, HK, todd71,mateo for all your help. I'll give these suggestions a try. The Photoshop script is intersting to me. I've always wanted to learn more about automating Photoshop. HK, can you direct me to a site on scripting tips for Photoshop? Mateo, thanks for the rainbow tidbits. I'm working on a 3d library of Alaskan fish, maybe animals, if I can take enough time out from the rest of my busy life to model them all. Would an animated gif work in Flash? I'm also on a Mac and I can create animated gifs with GifBuilder, they come out ok for web work, but I want to create TV quality movies in Flash, for short video clips of maps with trout, salmon, etc. moving on maps... Anyway, thanks for the help. On a personal note, I just heard I might get a side job driving a pick-up truck from Anchorage, AK (where I live - just outside of Anchorage in a town called Eagle River) to the North Slope. All along the beautiful drive are fishing rivers and streams full of rainbow trout and grayling. Also bears, moose, caribou, all almost every wild Alaskan animal you can imagine dot the tundra. I'll be taking my video camera for home movies and reference images.

Unfortunately I don't know any such sites. But I'll explain what I can. I might have been misleading when I mentioned Photoshop's script. I meant what in Photoshop are called actions and they aren't that hard to create and use. Open one of the images you wish to manipulate.

1. Open Actions-panel from Window-menu.
2. Create a new set of actions for your own scripts by pressing the black arrow in the right corner of the Actions-panel and choosing New set....
3. Name your set of actions (e.g. 'my actions') and press OK.
4. Create a new action by pressing the black arrow in the upper right corner of the Actions-panel again and this time choosing New action....
5. Name your action with any name you wish(e.g. 'alpha cut') and press OK
6. Now you can notice that the button(Record-button) in the lower margin of the actions-panel with a red circle in it is pressed down and activated.
7. You can now do the picture the modifications you wish Photoshop to perform for all the images in the sequence. I cannot remember if drawing tool apply but filters and image adjustments and such will certainly be recorded to the script.
8. For example if you wanted to cut the alpha channel from the background you would do the following: 1. double click the background so it becomes a layer instead of being a background.(This enables the cut with the alpha channel)
9. Create a selection of the Alpha channel (Carrara creates a Mask-channel) by Command-clicking the channel or by choosing Load selection... from Select-menu.
10. Inverse the selection to cut the background instead of the objects
11. Make a cut with the selection by pressing Command+X or choosing Cut from the Edit-menu.
12. Save the file into a different format by selecting Save as... from the File-menu.
13. Press stop from the Actions-panel.
14. Your action is now ready.I recommend you to save your action from the black arrow in the upper right corner of the Actions-panel.

You can now apply it to all the images in your sequence. 1. Go to File, Automate and batch....

1. In the Batch...-window select your set to the Set and your action to the Action.
2. Choose the folder your sequence is in by pressing Choose... in the Source-section of the window.
3. The Destination-section you unfortunately have to test because I haven't quite figured it out yet. I have gotten it to work but somehow but I still don't know what I have done. Probably the best option is to choose Folder to the Destination so the files are saved in to another forlder. Then press Choose... to select the folder.
4. I think that if the Override Action Save AsCommands is activated Photoshop saves only with the Save as...-command set in to the Action and not automatically after completing the Action. So you should probably activate it.
5. In the file naming-section you can alter the file name of the new created file.

Last time I tested creating a sequence of pngs with batch , Photoshop insisted on putting copy to the end of each file's name. I don't know if Flash recognizes sequence numbers if they are in the middle of the filename but I think think this might be a problem. That time I had only 24 frames so I manually changed the names but if there are more files it would be frustrating to change all their names. It might be possible to create a new batch that opens the pngs and saves them with a different name. After all there are the sequencial numbers in the filenames that Photoshop will recognize and do the batching it that order.
I hope this helps you atleast a bit. -Hannu Kulju

Wow! Thank You for putting in the time to explain this - to everyone. I'll copy it and hold on to it if any questions like this come up in the future. You explain yourself very well. Thanks again. R.

I realized that the file naming-section won't work in the Batch...-window if Override Action Save As Commands is activated because the file naming is used particularly for the automatic saving that the Override disables.

Therefore, I think it might be best if you first created the pngs and then created another Batch that does nothing else but saves the files again using file naming to get rid of the copy at the end of the files' names. First you might want to check if Flash knows how to import sequences even while the file's name ends with the copy. I once saw a tutorial of how to use Photoshop actions to create DOF into 3D images.I think it was at http:www.computerarts.co.uk. Unfortunately they've started to collect payments for downloading the tutorials. On the other hand I couldn't find it there and they were giving it for free before so I might as well reveal it.

1. Open a file that has depth rendered into it
2. Start to record an action.
3. Create a duplicate layer of the original image and make sure the new layer is selected. This way you always have the original stored beneath the one that is going to be altered.
4. Load the depth channel as a selection.
5. Apply Gaussian blur from the Filters and Blur-menu
6. Use only small values (below 1) to avoid ghosty outlining.
7. Re-apply the Gaussian blur for twenty or thirty times to strengthen the blur
8. Press stop from the Actions-panel to stop recording the action.

It is possible to create breaks to the action so you can decide how much you want to blur your image and you only need to run the action once. Select a single event in the Action's description and select **Insert Stop...**from the menu under the button with the black arrow in the upper right corner of the Actions-panel. Into the opening window you can write a message that is displayed when the stop is occurs during the action. By checking the Allow continue you can make the action to ask if you want to continue running.

-Hannu Kulju

If you create a new folder for your batches to be saved into, then there should be no problem with the saving of images. I do it all the time and NEVER get a 'copy' added to the end of my filenames. Great tut though! I've found I can AMAZE clients without ever having to REALLY do anything, by just running some of the actions I've created and saved for myself. I'll have to try that DOF trick... sounds good! Thanx!