mettelus

Back in the hands of the people who care most is never a bad thing... This is all new to me, so I have no knowledge of history but been having a lot of fun with things. Odd turn of events for me... are you familiar with Reallusion? Corel (of all people) had "Crazy Talk" (LEGACY product - you do NOT want this, since Cartoon Animator 4 has everything it does) in their store, but that made me go take a look at Reallusion. The 3D stuff (iClone and Character Creator) piqued my interest, but found out quick that I needed to learn Blender to make props. Not necessarily terrible, but certainly not a quick path to anything. After a couple weeks of this I went back to look at their 2D Cartoon Animator 4 in more detail, and looks like they stole the bones (literally, they added the same bone layouts) from MOHO for their last upgrade. I did not get the LEAP (hand control) package (yet, but their 50% off sale goes through 4 JAN), but did get the bundle with the Face3D tracker, and that little gem is awesome (tracks your face on a webcam to record animations). They are constantly making it easier and easier to just create on a computer... just made me respect the Disney animators of old manually flipping through frames, when today you can do what took them months in "real time" and lip sync audio to boot. Unreal what you can do these days...

I am glad I decided to steer clear of Waves way back when. Just reading these threads gives me a headache trying to understand them at times.

Back when the MPB/MPS all started it was around $400 to upgrade from a standard product. $335 is a great deal if you don't own anything. The yearly upgrade cost is often $150ish for those that own the most recent version.

You do get more discount for more, but the rate of the discount drops off dramatically for doing so. I posted this last year (to the day), showing how the discount works. It also does not take into account the member discount if you already own AS products, so be sure to add things to your cart while logged in.

I tried to purchase Realivox Blue through APD a year ago and got the out-of-stock after checkout. I wrote them and they said they did not carry the product (at that time) and refunded the purchase. It is possible they never picked Realivox back up. I ended up getting that directly from Realitone. Only option would be to write APD and see what they say.

I still cannot get into using Blender seriously, so cannot do justice speaking to it (again, this is just something I do for fun). From a 2D animation perspective, the way flash was structured (vector-based) made a lot of sense using key frames and letting the engine move objects between key frames. Moho seems to simply be an embellished version of flash, where the bone structure limits the motion to the joints defined, which streamlines the process a great deal. For me, a lot of the appeal comes down to ease of use. Investing hundreds of hours to properly use software that has a fairly rudimentary output is not high on my appeal list. Everyone's goals and opinions of things are different, so running the trial would be the best recommendation. The tutorial manual is almost as big as the user guide, and the stock projects they load (can shut them off) when you open the software run through most of the program nicely.

I picked this up a couple months back and was initially confused why SmithMicro was emailing me, but they also own EscapeMotions (Rebelle 3, Flame Painter 4, etc. ) from the Humble Bundle a while back. Moho 13 comes in two flavors (Pro and Debut) which are currently $239.99 and $35.99 (40% off), with the primary differences being animation resolution and duration. You can also trial Pro for 30 days if you just want to play with it. The software defaults to new stock animations being loaded, which is actually nice to see what the software is capable of. As I am new to using animation software, I did a bit of research beforehand, and Moho gets a lot of kudos for its bone structure modeling. Below is a one of the better comparisons where she walks through tiers of software used in the animation industry (she doesn't use Moho, but mentioned it). The high tier is professional with a hefty price tag, Moho falls in mid-tier, and Blender (free) is probably the best in the lower tier. Moho Pro will import Blender objects, but I have found this hit-or-miss, especially if the object is too complex. I was hesitant to mention the first pass because I had not really used it, but there is a good chance this will go on sale again for Christmas in case anyone is interested. For ease-of-use, this has been fun to play with and animates between key frames pretty much identical to the way flash does (for those familiar). The tutorials are nicely laid out with their own manual, and there are a lot of videos online discussing Moho specifically if interested.

Hmmm, this is sorta reminiscent of the SONAR Platinum Lifetime offer... I hope it doesn't end the same way.

Another point with this is that the MB (multi-band) aspect is the primary difference between some of the free FX and the paid-for FX. I many situations, a MB version isn't required for the desired result, so one can get a lot of mileage out of the MFreeFXBundle.

Presonus and Celemony have been developing hand-in-hand, and the Chord Track there is built upon ARA2. IIRC, I tested their Chord Track prior to updating Melodyne and the Chord Track was fully functional in Studio One Pro even without the Melodyne counterpart in place. Although that functionality leverages ARA2, what is necessary to make it functional seemed baked into SOP. Someone might be able to clarify if this is an accurate assessment or not. Working with groove clips is not quite the same IMO, since a piece (including all MIDI and audio) relinquishes "chord control" to the chord track. There can be a lot of editing going on in the piece without needing to worry about the clip structure for the chord track to function. It is not the initial setup of a chord track that is the hurdle, it is inserting key changes into a nearly completed piece that is.

You know it is getting bad when portions of sound tracks between different films sound identical ?... then suddenly realize "same composer."

There are quite a few articles about shucking these drives. I was reading an article the other day and *think* it said they are a generic WD Blue (white label) inside, roughly 1/3 the price of an NAS drive. Note: I cannot find that specific article offhand, BUT there is an image of a pin that needs to be covered with tape (or similar) to disable the feature that disables power to the disk. Some older power supplies will not recognize this and the drive will not power up. Just beware of that if wanting to shuck one of these. This link keeps coming up trying to find what I read, but it does not show the pin in question above. This link has more detail of the process, but still doesn't show that pin. Quick Edit: It is at the 2 minute mark in this video.

Interesting that some new items won the entire year.

If you can, the first step I would recommend is a destructive noise reduction pass with Adobe Audition or iZotope RX (can trial either one). Once signal-to-noise has been expanded you can mix it like anything else. EQs are not surgical enough to do what those other two will.

More a bystander's perspective, but also to show appreciation for the folks who take the time to post in this forum (especially details with issues they are having). Years ago, the posts that stuck out the most for me regarding issues and complaints were Waves. This led me to steer clear of them and nothing since has changed that perspective. The disparity between good and bad posts has been significant from an outsider simply reading posts.

PreSonus pulls old stock like many other companies, so this sounds like an error. Once a new version is released, most companies that officially sell it are not permitted to sell the older version.

MDrummerPacks are not installed via any installer, they are imported into the appropriate plugin libraries. This file is an ".MDrummerPack" file but there is a somewhat simpler route to assign the download folder by running a plugin that can use it ... open that plugin, then from the Menu(upper right)->Download and Install Products. The first field under settings allows you to set the download to folder (good to put it where you backup files to). Leave the rest alone, since they are how you have the program setup already. If downloaded separately, it is installed similarly. The second item in the Menu list with the plugin open is "Install MDrummer Pack"... choose that, navigate to the file location, then let it import and restart the DAW. It is still one file 60GB to download, and took 7 minutes to uncompress onto my sample drive. The samples themselves are 57GB on disk; some of the ancillary files are settings, layouts, etc. Quick Edit: It appears that the vast majority of the drums are acoustic.... Dry, Dry not sticks, Experimental, Metal, and Rock big. No new percussion samples.

Damn, I saw this email and thought 60GB?? This is ONE FILE... so for those of you who have a small C drive, be sure you have the free space to put it there or you may need to redirect your download folder elsewhere. In the immortal words of Hook... "Bad form."

Was wondering why my unread deals posts were suddenly bleeding over into page 2! Welcome back!

With Corel I have only used it with Painter, and left Painter on the default settings (Wacon-compatible device). I haven't needed to adjust anything, and it even shows pen-tilt which is hit or miss with other programs. I am also using the newest (3.0.4 Beta drivers) with the tablet. Even in programs where the tilt wasn't working best, the pen presser didn't seem to have issues. There is a fair amount of tweaking you can do in the Pentablet software, but I have not needed to change anything for Painter to work. I need to go back and check the Escape Emotions (Flame Painter 4, etc.) stuff using the new drivers, since I just installed those when this Humble Bundle hit. Edit: I went back and checked apps quick and check the following apps with the Deco Pro: Painter 2020 - no issues noted. Pen tilt is displayed in the cursor itself, so is the best program for response that I own. Paint Shop Pro 2020 - brush tilt/rotation are not automatic, so can notice this with flat brushes. Photo Mirage - no issues, but is also only a glorified mouse there. Flame Painter 4 - no issues, but again a glorified mouse. Rebelle 3 - was an update (3.2.5) to Rebelle 3, that went belly up on me twice so I backed out to 3.2.1. Rotation/tilt does best as a "Microsoft ink device," but you need to exaggerate tilt to get that rotation (seems you need to tilt roughly 30 degrees to change rotation accurately, then it will stay in that orientation until you tilt the pen 30 degrees in another direction). Again, would only see this on a flat brush.

+1, oops... just to be clear there are a LOT of options out there. My apologies for neglecting to mention that the wheel is an "optional feature," but after I searched enough that feature went into the "must have" bucket (that and no pens with batteries!). The reason for me was fairly simple - changing brush size is my most used task (possibly for most people). Anyone who has ever suffered the pain of keypressing [ and ] in Photo Shop to change a brush size can relate to that not being anywhere close to the tactile control/precision of a wheel for the same task. It is a smoother transition and no fumbling in the GUI, just watch the brush cursor to gauge size, twiddle the knob and continue. Only two XP-Pen tablets have the wheel, Deco Pro and the Deco 02. There are cheaper versions without the wheel to be had... you can use the pen to operate the GUI same as a mouse (tablets can be set to cover the entire GUI, just the drawing area, or an area of your choice). Since my monitor is ultrawide, hitting the tiny GUI buttons with the pen is also painful, so I set my tablet to the drawing area with the bush and color windows exposed on it. All that said... there are a lot of tasks you can perform with just Painter and a mouse (anything not requiring pixel-precision or smooth curves basically). When you get into things like using tracing paper and trying to follow lines, drawing smooth long curves, using brushes that have flat tips that you want to rotate easily, or wanting to take advantage of brushes that "quish" fatter as you press harder, the mouse is going to show its limitations.

@Mesh, also to save you a bit of research time since I just went through this regarding drawing tablets. There are two variants of drawing tools, drawing tablet and drawing displays/monitor. The difference is the tablet is a glorified mouse (you use the computer display), the other is essentially a computer tablet where you draw on the display. Wacom and Huion dominate this market, so I spent a lot of time researching. Initially I was frustrated since few videos show that a drawing tablet HAS a cursor... so I was wondering "how do you know where the freakin pen tip is?" but they are identical to a mouse, but they can also sense pressure, tilt, and have extra buttons (on the tablet part). In my searching I ran across XP-Pen who is the "low end" variant of Wacom. Reviews of the Deco Pro had numerous comments such as "closing the gap," "90% of Wacom's features for less than half the price," and such, so I shifted my searching into the Deco Pro specifically since it has a wheel and touch pad inside that wheel in addition to the other 8 buttons. Because of this, your non-drawing hand can have access to almost anything you would be using your mouse for. Brush size is default for the wheel, and the touch pad makes scrolling about simple, but you can customize all of the controls to suit your needs. After I had finally determined I certainly did not need the "display," the size was the last factor. After checking how I really draw on paper, the Deco Pro small is the same size I draw in anyway (I anchor the heel of my hand, and you cannot got outside of the drawing boundary anchored). After using it, I confirmed that is the case, and even labeled as "small" it is actually pretty large (the drawing area is 9"x5"). Lastly, batteries are a definite no-go for me, and most tablet pens seem to not have batteries (yay) and come with extra nibs. The Deco Pro has a textured surface, so you get the resistance of drawing on paper, and the nibs are designed to wear so that tablet remains unscathed. It comes with 8 extra nibs, and after 3 months I do not even notice any wear on the first (but I tend to paint with minimal pressure). Well damn... XP-Pen also only sells direct, and I just hopped on their site. They have a 15% off sale that started, so the Deco Pro small is $84.99. One of the more complete reviews and showing you the nuances of how the tablets work in is the video below.

+1 to the above. This deal is definitely capable as is and a great value. The tablet is something to seriously consider at a later date, since drawing requires precision and motion/pressure detail that a mouse cannot provide. The tactile "pencil on paper" feel will make a smoother transition (for freehand drawing of details), but there are also numerous things you can do with just a mouse.

To add insult to injury, there is another copy of brushes at C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Corel\Painter 2020\Default\Brushes That is also where the 2021 is at (C:\Users\[user name]\AppData\Roaming\Corel\Painter 2021), which is why it makes me think the brush packs themselves are loading each version they can be used in. It also seems the cache drive has nothing to do with this, and incredibly odd that those brush packs seem to randomly install in the main directory on "some" drive. I am still surprised that Google didn't return any hits about brushes installing in odd locations.

It is actually called "Scratch Drive" and is listed under Edit->Preferences->Performance. Near the bottom is a drop down that only lists drives. Mine was default to C:\ initially. Is it pointed to your audio sample drive there?