Director Module
The three main windows in the Director module – the exposure sheet, scene graph and drawing window – are fully integrated so that changes made in one window are automatically updated in the others. The exposure sheet and scene graph can be printed out for reference.
Key features of the Director module include:
- Drawing window provides multiple modes for viewing the scene at selected frames, including storyboard, onion-skin, camera view and peg-bar view.
- Drawing window interaction is automatically linked to key frames.
- Exposure sheet window provides comprehensive timing tools for setting key frames, in-betweening blanks, holding and repeating drawings, camera moves, transformations, filters and more.
- Timing is represented by a bézier curve that can be adjusted visually or by typing numeric values directly into the exposure sheet. It includes the facility for automatic doping from a soundtrack generated by SoundBreakdown, an optional Animo module.
- Scene graph provides a visual representation of the scene. Nodes represent elements and effects and are linked to show the construction of a scene – much like a flowchart. This makes it easy for multiple users to understand the history and effects of a scene.
- A replayer allows immediate viewing and checking of a composited scene.
- Users can output directly from the compositing model to multiple formats and resolutions for film, video, AVI, TIFF, QuickTime and more. Anamorphic output and 14:9 and 4:3 cropping for 16:9 scenes is also available.
- Scenes can be output as Macromedia Flash (.swf) files, with independent control of ink lines and painted regions, as well as control over the color, width and generation of ink lines.
- Existing scenes can be converted instantly for Flash use. Special controls such as disabling filter nodes and disabling animation of any bitmap image reduces the size of Flash files for the low bandwidth of the Internet.
- Flash files can be optimized so that playback can begin as soon as possible. Other Flash programs make users wait until the entire file is downloaded before playback.
- Rendering can be to a local machine or, using Animo’s batch system, over a network of computers.