Creating 3D titles and graphics for your videos doesn't have to be hard. For years, Zax Dow and his team at Zaxwerks have been making 3D text and object animation easy for editors. With the release of the new 3D ProAnimator 7 app things are only getting better. The upgrades introduced in version 7 of ProAnimator inject oomph into PA7’s lighting effects, adding the ability to create, save and recall your own Lighting Rigs, and making late-phase animation alterations even easier than prior versions.
Like earlier releases, 3D ProAnimator 7 includes a healthy collection of preset animations and templates and employs drag and drop colors, bevels, and textures to get you going right out of the gate, so you can create cool 3D animations without having to spend a lot of time mastering another app. 3D ProAnimator 7 boasts a bevy of improved tools to let you customize your comps, including adjustments to light beams, tracks, poses and transitions, so you can alter any of the included Zaxwerks preset animations, or create your own originals. Customizable plug and play templates are not the big story of v7, however.
3D ProAnimator 7 is about improved lighting tools and controls. It adds some very cool new automatic 3D modeling features to your
lighting setups. In the real world lighting comes from bulbs that are housed in lighting fixtures which are hung from trusses. 3D ProAnimator 7 adds all of these elements to the mix, letting you choose from a collection of pre-built truss mounts and 3D lighting fixtures that are modeled after industry standard tools such as Altmans, Vari-Lites and Martin Macs, then it automatically creates the fixtures for your scene, and animates the movement of the fixtures to follow your light beam animation paths. Once your lighting rig designs are done, you can save them for fast and easy recall. A rig contains everything it takes to recreate an entire lighting animation: including instruments, lamps, trusswork, color, and the animations.
Another improvement is ProAnimator 7’s ability to create flares when lights are pointed at the camera. ProAnimator 7’s new and improved flares automatically become smaller as the light goes into the distance, soften when objects move in front of them, and bloom as they go out of frame.
3D ProAnimator 7 is available as a standalone application for video editors and as an Adobe After Effects plug-in for both Mac or Windows operating systems.
Chuck Peters is a 3-time Emmy Award winning writer, producer and host. He is an independent producer and media consultant in Nashville, TN.
