July 23, 2007.
Innoventive Software, LLC continues the evolution of FrameForge 3D Studio 2.5.2 for both Macintosh and Windows platforms.
This FREE update is designed to
support the growing usage of FrameForge 3D Studio 2 not only as a
program to prepare for shoots, but also one to create presentations.
A huge percentage of users have been
quite successfully using their FrameForge 3D Studio
Previsualizations to raise money for projects, sell their skills as
directors, and so on, and in order to support this usage, this free
update focuses mainly on adding preliminary animation capabilities
to help users make even slicker presentations.
While more of these functions will
be addressed more completely in the next full version (which will be
a paid upgrade) we wanted to get the core, key functionality into
your hands now.
Version 2.5 New Concepts &
Features
Tweening with Key Framing—Tweening
is the automatic creation of averaged in-between frames from
only two or more still frames, thus creating camera and actor
movement. The
following sequence was automatically created from only three
snapped frames. Note not only the camera movement but
all the character movement: turning heads, dealing cards, one
woman crosses her arms, the man in the white jacket takes a
drink, etc.
Printing/Exporting—Both
printing and exporting dialogs now have “Do NOT print TWEENED
SHOTS” checkbox which will allow you to optionally only print
(or export) just the shots you actually snapped rather than all
of the intermediary motion frames. This allows you to use
the same previsualization project both for full presentations
with motion sequences while for printing out just the useful
production key frames for your shoot
QuickTime Exporting—now,
in addition to Flash Animation, FrameForge 3D Studio 2.5 offers
direct exporting to QuickTime Movies along with automatic
"chapter generation"
Pose Intensity Functions—In
a similar vein as tweening, FrameForge 3D Studio 2.5 offers the
new ability to set Pose Intensities. What this means is that
rather than simply applying a pose as shown in the image below,
you can choose to apply it as an “intensity” between the
current pose and the pose you want to apply.
Praying
Pose (available on community site) shown in varying intensities
“Step Back”
Function—In FrameForge 3D Studio 2, when you are not in
Blueprint View, you are always considered to be looking through
the camera. There are, however, certain cases where you might
want to “step back” from the camera and see more than it is
currently showing you through the lens. To simulate that, we
have introduced a function called, well “step back,” which
pretty much does just that. When you are in Step Back
mode, the field of view is roughly tripled and you can
pan/tilt/zoom or do anything to see what you want on the set
then simply unclick the Step-Back button and you'll instantly be
returned to your original camera framing.
Cutting/ Copying and Pasting
of Objects And Cameras—FrameForge 3D Studio Version 2.5
now allows you to select Objects and/or Cameras and Cut, Copy
and Paste them between shots and sets. This
actually pastes in the same instance of the object so that you
can tween or percolate changes between the pasted object and the
source object.
Updated Green Room—the
Green Room has been reorganized to make things more logical and
easy to use. The first thing you’ll see has changed are the
tabs across the top, which are now labeled Actor’s (or
Object’s) “Look”, Poses and Colors, Textures & State.
Everything relating to the
“Look” (except colors & textures) is on the first
panel, and instead of having the part choices start with a
drop-down list from which you selected the part on the
second drop-down list, it now shows all the part choices,
each with their own drop-down list.
For simplicity at finding
things, all the expressions, phonemes & modifiers have
been moved off the drop-down list. What remains relates
solely to shape and size of the actor’s body and face.
All expressions, phonemes
& modifiers are now selectable solely through the
Expression Editor.
The Posing Tab now contains
all posing related options, from bone selection through to
storing, applying and deleting poses.
Under the Apply and Delete
Pose buttons, there is now a new Pose Percentage Slider that
allows you apply a pose as a percentage between the current
position and the final posed position as described earlier.
The Colors, Textures &
State tab now has a new drop-down option above the
“Apply” and “Cancel” buttons with two settings:
Simple View and Expert Views.
New Option When Storing a Shot—When
you store a shot, there’s a new option on the Store Shot
Dialog: Associate with Script. This Associate Script
option will ONLY be enabled on the previous Store Shot Dialog
when you have already imported a script, and when it is is
enabled and checked and you click the [Apply] button, then the
Script Display Dialog will automatically appear, allowing you to
associated script text with the stored shot in one step.
This FREE Version 2.5 Update along
with an update addendum document is currently available for licensed
FrameForge 3D Studio Version 2 users simply by running WebGrab (or
going to the HELP -> CHECK FOR PROGRAM UPDATES )
