Animation Software Review: Zaxwerks ProAnimator 3

Hal Robertson
March 2006

» Next Image Previous Image « Click to Enlarge Click to Enlarge

Traditionally, animation software has been the purview of those dedicated souls who choose to live their lives in front of a computer monitor. Half artist and half geek, the animator must master not only the look and feel of the piece, but also the nuts and bolts of keyframes, shadows and virtual camera moves. I don't know about you, but my animation needs are a bit more pedestrian - usually limited to 3D text and a logo or two flying around on the screen. If this sounds like your needs, keep reading because Zaxwerks has released ProAnimator 3 -- animation software for the rest of us. Breaking with tradition, ProAnimator doesn't require a big bank account, complicated host software or even a pocket protector.

When I first started editing digital video, I had a nifty animation program called 3D/FX. It was simple, functional and excelled at creating 3D objects from text and clip art. Although far from perfect, it did the job quickly and I've often wished for a similar product to use on current projects. Enter Zaxwerks ProAnimator 3, the standalone version of their Invigorator plug-in for After Effects. The standalone feature is important because, with ProAnimator, you can concentrate on learning the animation software without a host application to slow you down.

ProAnimator is available for Windows and Mac and has fairly mild system requirements. We tested the Windows version on a 3GHz P4 with 1GB RAM, but it should load nicely on any machine that can edit video comfortably. Once running, ProAnimator owns your machine and all its resources. We tried to run Photoshop at the same time and waited an eternity for the program to load and respond to commands. Don't try this at home. However, ProAnimator was very responsive with real-time moves and frame renders.

ProAnimator 3 starts by asking if you'd like to create some 3D text, open an Illustrator file, create a new scene or open an existing one. To demonstrate how simply you can start animating, let's create some 3D text. When presented with the text edit window, select a font and type some text. You have full control of font size, width and alignment. When you're happy with the text, click OK and you'll see a 3D wire frame in the Scene Preview window. This is where the fun starts. On the right side of the screen, there is a library of pre-made object styles. When you find one you like, just click and drag it onto your text -- you'll see the change immediately. By shift-clicking on individual letters -- or dragging a box around words -- you can choose different object styles for every letter or word. By clicking the Materials tab on the right, you can also choose alternate faces for the text -- everything from marble to mirror, swirls to solid colors. The Materials section offers more customization by allowing you to alter color, transparency, reflections and texture of the surface. Again, just click and drag your choice onto the text.

Wire frames are fine for basic setup, but it's easy to take a peek at the finished look by clicking the Render Frame button. In seconds, you'll have a full resolution still of your 3D text. Resolution presets offer virtually every standard video size, from 640x480 up to full film resolution -- even custom settings -- and your animations can be output in NTSC or PAL formats too. Speaking of animation, let's apply some motion to the text. Under the Scene Preview window, you'll see the Animation timeline.

Zaxwerks has kindly included several pre-built object and camera animations as a starting point. Start with the Object Animations button and select a style. Your text will immediately start flying on and off the screen. Camera Animations work the same way, but change the perspective and viewing angle of your text. Some of these stock animations are pretty wild, but they're a great place to start. By clicking the Advanced button on the Animation timeline, you can adjust virtually every aspect of each animation, or just fine-tune what's on the screen. When you're finished, click the Render button, and ProAnimator will output a QuickTime file of the finished video, complete with an alpha channel, if you like, for easy compositing in your system. In three simple steps, you've created animated 3D text from scratch.

• Digg This!
• del.icio.us
• Technorati
• StumbleUpon
• Reddit