Hi all, Usually i come here with modeling or lighting questions, butnow I'm (finally) moving on to animation. I've never really tried it much before, but I have a little design contract pending that might benefit from a little 3D animation sequence. Basically i have to make a short animation, maybe about 30 seconds long, demonstrating how to clean a fiber optic connector. Now I could do this in Flash, but I figured that this could be feasible in Carrara (even with my limited experience at this kind of thing). My question though is how to put in the explanatory info blurbs (has to be written blurbs, no voiceover possible). Is there an easy way to do this within Carrara, or is this someting that needs to be added post-animating, in some other video editing software? Hmmm, maybe I should forego the fancy 3D pictures and illustrate this using flash after all.... As always, I welcome and appreciate all input. Cheers, H&B

Personally I would do the text post-animating in your video editing software of choice. It will save you some rendering time and allow you to change the text easily if the client decides to change the script.

Chuck

I would not recommend doing it in Carrara, unless you want the text to be part of the 3D space. Imagine having to re-render the whole thing because of a typo. Or a client changing his or her mind about the right way to say 'do not, under any circumstance wipe the connector with something that is not made out of sheep'. I think any video editing software is better for that. Or, just use C4Pro (or just buy Vectorstyle), to have 3D and Flash material in one end result. The recent Flash version is easier with (pixel) video material too, so mixing is easier than ever. Without using 'video editing software' you have to learn from scratch. Good luck! Hoof

Thanks for the information guys. So let's see if I got this straight. vectorstyle is a plugin that will allow me to render my animation in a format that I can then put into a flash document (in which I'll be able to add text). Once the animation is rendered and put into flash, am I limited to having it run from start to finish inside the flash movie, or can I, using flah, include the necessary controls so that the user can rewind, pause etc.? I had a look at the description and examples on the Eovia site. The illustrations are all a little cartoony in style. Is that typically the end result when using vector style? This job isnt for publication on the web, so it doesnt need to be particularly light. Thanks again, H&B

Typically what i do is render them into frames, like jpegs, then pull them all into Flash... Once in Flash add your text... but then i usually do things the long way..lol..

Todd71's recommendation is an easy way to handle it - plus the benefits of protecting the file if it's online...

Thanks guys, You know Todd71's idea does sound good to me. It might be just the thing. I also tend to do things the long way. :o) Cheers all, H&B

May have aready finished this, but another option might be to use something like camstudio, demostudio,wink or camstasia. I would say whatever 2d edit sw you like...since carrara isn't good for that.Altho I find tif better to work with than jpeg. Depends on filesize issues tho.Fireworks for example will pull a series of tifs in automatically as an animation, but don't remember flash doing this.