Hey mon, Here is a website that has a few tutorials for Toon Boom - might give you an idea of what it's about. http://www.steveryan.net/Tutorials/Toonboom.htm later jdc

Hmmmmm, Looks like the update is only suppose to replace the "msi.dll" to fix issues with the MS auto-updater. A bit of a "head-scratcher". If jehllm's suggestion of uninstall/re-install still does work, maybe try a system restore. good luck. jdc

Hey mon, Yes, Silo v1.4 does not do the OBJ thing in a way that Poser likes. The lastest "Silo 2 Beta" handles OBJ a bit better. I find, however, that importing a Poser OBJ into "Silo 2 beta" isn't always clean - export seems to work. The most success I've had is with a freeware program called Wings3D - found here: http://www.wings3d.com/. Also, Wings3D produces a fairly clean and straight forward looking OBJ text file compared to Silo. take care jdc

"Topology looks awful". Hee hee, yeah, you ain't gonna get super accurate results with a home made scanner project. Of course the thing to do these days is import the scanned mesh into a 3d sculpting program like Silo or Zbrush, refine it and then do some re-topolgy. Blender 2.44 can do it all, if you're willing to learn the interface. later

If you're looking for a low cost, effective 3d scanner you might want to check out this guys software http://www.brucerayne.com/scanz.html you'll need $20-40 laser Digital camera old turn-table (or similar) take care Joe

Hey Wolf359 Thanks for the MAC specific information (I wasn't sure how to explain configuring a codec on that platform). Also, a setting of "none" will give you uncompressed and I believe the other lossless options are "Animation"(for cartoons) and "PNG"(for live action). * There you go Skeetshooter, you should have enough info to get started compositing multiple elements and layers and effects and crud. :) take care Joe

I've had great results with a freeware lossless codec called Lagarith. Here's a page with some info on it plus a download link http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=Lagarith_Lossless_Video_Codec Take care joe

Hey Skeetshooter To start with, try this test. load a figure into Poser and then select "render settings" under the Render menu. On the right side you'll see the option "render over" - set this option to "Black" Now do a render. Export the image in .png format and load it into your main art program (ie: Photoshop). You should see right away that the figure appears on a transparent background. You can render out a sequence of images this way and then load them into Final Cut Pro for video editing (check your manual for loading in a sequence of images with pre-multiplied Alpha) You can do the same with video but you'll need to select uncompressed video or a lossless codec with RGA+Alpha. I prefer using a lossless codec over uncompressed so as to keep the file sizes manageable. later joe

Hey Ricky_Java Check a little program called VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/index It does a whole-heck-of-a-lot, including loading number sequenced images so that you can render them to a video file. later joe

Hey Skeetshooter A good way to composite video layers is to render each seperate element with the background set as ALPHA then load them into your editor as "pre-multiplied alpha". I find it to be more effective then trying to "key-out" blue or green. When you configure your codec (quicktime I'm guessing) be sure to set it to RGB + Alpha. If everything is set correctly, the background will automatically be transparent when the clip is load in. later Joe

Hello, You can save your movies in a lossless AVI format if you use a lossless codec such as Lagarith, found here... http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html If your movies are in a lossless format you can edit them, add effects and transitions without any loss in image quality. When your opus is completed, you then convert it to a smaller, more portable format such as DivX, Xvid, wmv, etc. Of course, all this video stuff is a whole new world of learning. Yikes! Later Joe

Just a reminder, folks... That thing on you desk is just a tool. The most important computer is the one between your ears. Later joe