I'm on the fence on buying either TM or CM. Can I achieve the same thing with CM as TM? I want the one that is more advanced with more possibilities for kinetic type. or do you need TM to make CM work?
I'm on the fence on buying either TM or CM. Can I achieve the same thing with CM as TM? I want the one that is more advanced with more possibilities for kinetic type. or do you need TM to make CM work?
That’s really a tough call. Typemonkey is the easier of the two (and our best seller), but you can do more with CircusMonkey. You don’t need TM to make CM work- they’re both stand alones.
Neither can do what the other can.
Why don’t you download a free trial of each and play with them...I think the sale is going on all week.
You can also buy 3 - which has a nice discount in addition to the sale. Take a look at EditMonkey too- it also does animated text, it’s a real workhorse and I find myself using a lot of.
Hey Jonathan- for some reason I missed your first message...my apologies.
CM and TM are very different animals...each better or worse than the other at doing specific tasks...can you open a support ticket and tell me about what you’re trying to achieve? I might be able to help you out better there.
Thx
Oz
I ended up buying the whole suite because I think it's going to be useful going forward. I've spent the last five days playing with TypeMonkey to start with, and watching all the tutorials I can get my hands on. Here's a brief description of my experiences so far.
1. TypeMonkey is powerful, flexible, intuitive, and extremely easy to use.
2. TypeMonkey plays beautifully with TextSyncr. Creating animated typography which is synced to a voice over, is just sensationally simple.
3. TypeMonkey is a lot slower than I thought it would be, though I don't think it's a problem with TypeMonkey itself. Here are my rig specs.
* Core i7-3770K
* 32GB RAM
* GTX 1070
* 1TB PCIE SSD (>1GB/s throughput), as cache and scratch disc
A 523 character (86 word), animated typography comp takes over a minute to create, with this Cinema4D error several times along the way (I've tried running AE as administrator, tried changing the port number, and tried allowing Cinema4D Lite.exe through the Windows firewall, with no success). Previewing that comp is impossibly slow, taking well over ten minutes to cache. Pre-rendering, you say? Sure. AE tells me pre-rendering that comp will take at least 40 minutes, and result in a file over 1.5GB in size. I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to work like this.
Hey Jonathan- for some reason I missed your first message...my apologies.
CM and TM are very different animals...each better or worse than the other at doing specific tasks...can you open a support ticket and tell me about what you’re trying to achieve? I might be able to help you out better there.
Thx
Oz
I ended up buying the whole suite because I think it's going to be useful going forward. I've spent the last five days playing with TypeMonkey to start with, and watching all the tutorials I can get my hands on. Here's a brief description of my experiences so far.
1. TypeMonkey is powerful, flexible, intuitive, and extremely easy to use.
2. TypeMonkey plays beautifully with TextSyncr. Creating animated typography which is synced to a voice over, is just sensationally simple.
3. TypeMonkey is a lot slower than I thought it would be, though I don't think it's a problem with TypeMonkey itself. Here are my rig specs.
Hey Jonathan- yeah, using the C4D renderer will take forever...try the Classic 3D renderer....it should go pretty quick. Thats true of most everything, not just the monkey scripts.
To switch it, get into the comp settings (command k) and click renderer.
Well I'm getting there. This is what I've spent the last five hours doing.
1. Switched the renderer to Classic 3D and saw a performance improvement.
2. Plugged 570 words into TypeMonkey, and after an hour it choked; AE stopped working.
3. Plugged the same words into CircusMonkey, and it choked immediately; AE stopped working.
4. Tried breaking up the words into fifteen small paragraphs, and experimented with TypeMonkey; it liked that a lot better.
5. Finally found a style I liked and saved it. Less camera movement, so hopefully less complexity.
6. Plugged 700 words into TypeMonkey and it managed to finish in about 12 minutes. Fantastic!
7. Tried previewing; AE choked and went into a total sulk before crashing hard.
So, back to the drawing board. After five days and about eighteen hours spent on this, I've managed to create one 30 second clip which works well. Not a great result so far.
Well I'm getting there. This is what I've spent the last five hours doing.
1. Switched the renderer to Classic 3D and saw a performance improvement.
2. Plugged 570 words into TypeMonkey, and after an hour it choked; AE stopped working.
3. Plugged the same words into CircusMonkey, and it choked immediately; AE stopped working.
4. Tried breaking up the words into fifteen small paragraphs, and experimented with TypeMonkey; it liked that a lot better.
5. Finally found a style I liked and saved it. Less camera movement, so hopefully less complexity.
6. Plugged 700 words into TypeMonkey and it managed to finish in about 12 minutes. Fantastic!
7. Tried previewing; AE choked and went into a total sulk before crashing hard.
So, back to the drawing board. After five days and about eighteen hours spent on this, I've managed to create one 30 second clip which works well. Not a great result so far.
Right- keep in mind however many words you have, double it for layers since theres controls applied...so that many words will probably choke an average machine.
But esthetically, you might want to edit it down- either use keywords, or combine into phrases. Also look into breaking it up into different comps so you can cut in and out...or combine monkeys
Any way to break it up will be appreciated by your audience.
Ok breaking up the narration into 30 second blocks is working much, much better. However, I'm having a few issues now. Remembering that I'm new to AE, I'm guessing these are AE related rather than Monkey related.
1. When I try to turn the TypeMonkey layers into a precomp, AE throws a fit and logs tens of errors (60+). When I play the precomp I get audio but no type.
2. Pre-rendering the compositions produces massive files; 2-6GB for 30 second comps. I'm not sure this is right, and I'm not sure if pre-rendering is supposed to help me in this situation.
I'm thinking that I should go back and watch one of your videos on MonkeyTools, in particular the scene maker, to improve my overall workflow and figure out more of what I should be doing.
Ok this is where I think Scene Maker might help. I have a 5 minute audio recording which I want to use for this video. I want to mark it all up in TextSyncr, then create animated typography for it in TextMonkey. I want to break up the audio and accompanying text into 15 sections so it's manageable.
Ok this is where I think Scene Maker might help. I have a 5 minute audio recording which I want to use for this video. I want to mark it all up in TextSyncr, then create animated typography for it in TextMonkey. I want to break up the audio and accompanying text into 15 sections so it's manageable.
Hey Jonathan- best open a support ticket...it’s a better way to answer your questions...message boards are for more general stuff.
Ok breaking up the narration into 30 second blocks is working much, much better. However, I'm having a few issues now. Remembering that I'm new to AE, I'm guessing these are AE related rather than Monkey related.
1. When I try to turn the TypeMonkey layers into a precomp, AE throws a fit and logs tens of errors (60+). When I play the precomp I get audio but no type.
2. Pre-rendering the compositions produces massive files; 2-6GB for 30 second comps. I'm not sure this is right, and I'm not sure if pre-rendering is supposed to help me in this situation.
I'm thinking that I should go back and watch one of your videos on MonkeyTools, in particular the scene maker, to improve my overall workflow and figure out more of what I should be doing.
There’s a bunch of locked and shy’d layers in most of the monkeys, so it might be a bit tricky.... the easiest way of pre-comping is just to drag the comp in the project window onto the little comp icon at the bottom and you should be all set.
As far as the size goes, I imagine it’s due to your compression settings...best to open a support ticket, we’ll figure it out.
Yeah I realized I am cluttering up your comment board, so I'll submit a ticket if I can't resolve this. Do you have a user discussion forum anywhere? That would be super helpful.
Yeah I realized I am cluttering up your comment board, so I'll submit a ticket if I can't resolve this. Do you have a user discussion forum anywhere? That would be super helpful.
I'm not sure what I did, but after learning more about what's under the hood of AE and making all the tweaks I could find, I can now crank out a huge 415 word (yes word, not character), kinetic typography in less than nine minutes using TypeMonkey. Additionally, processing it for preview takes only four minutes. I am loving TextMonkey right now, and aim to start exploring the other tools in the coming weeks.
On your features chart, it looks like TypeMonkey and CircusMonkey's only difference is 3D. I'm assuming, since they are the same price, that TM has more "2D features" than CM?
On your features chart, it looks like TypeMonkey and CircusMonkey's only difference is 3D. I'm assuming, since they are the same price, that TM has more "2D features" than CM?
Thanks!
Hey Kevin. This is one of those trick questions.
Actually, both of them are technically 3D, and TM can be manually adjusted to changes in Z Space, or rotated in any direction...but the algorithm lays it out along the x/y axis and rotated it on z...so we call it 2D.
CircusMonkey was really made for Z Space, allowing you to stretch different text rigs and rotate them along any axis.
I hope that helps a little bit...I’d recommend downloading a free trial and trying it out.
Is it possible to edit the type animation transitions? Or load a custom one? Ya'lls are so loud & I'm looking for subtly. If I need to edit an expression that's fine. Lemme know!
Also, is there a way to keep the text on the same line (as it does with "|") but animate them separately?
Is it possible to edit the type animation transitions? Or load a custom one? Ya'lls are so loud & I'm looking for subtly. If I need to edit an expression that's fine. Lemme know!
Also, is there a way to keep the text on the same line (as it does with "|") but animate them separately?
Hey Samuel-
You can’t really go in and edit expressions...one of the pros (or cons, depending on your point of view I guess) is that there’s a lot of automation built it- if we had made it editable it would have messed things up a ton.
As far as loud goes- I guess it depends on what you want to do...and it’s even possible that another monkey might be better suited for your needs...if you want to open a support ticket and let me know what your thinking I’ll be happy to try to help.
Oz
I'm trying to set up a Circus Monkey Y circle rig of about 40 names. The rig works fine, but circle rotation controls do not seem to have any effect. For example if I want to elevate the circle on the x axis (x position) ,the rig does not move. Is this a limitation of this script?
I'm trying to set up a Circus Monkey Y circle rig of about 40 names. The rig works fine, but circle rotation controls do not seem to have any effect. For example if I want to elevate the circle on the x axis (x position) ,the rig does not move. Is this a limitation of this script?
Hey Matt - my first thought is that if you’re looking at it thru the camera, and tits against black, then it’ll look like it’s not adjusting since the camera is moving with it - but if there’s something in the backs ground that’s not partial of the rig, you’ll see that itt is actually moving relative to that.
Try throwing a background in there and see if that’s it.
If not, open up a support ticket and we’ll check it out.
Oz
Neither can do what the other can.
Why don’t you download a free trial of each and play with them...I think the sale is going on all week.
You can also buy 3 - which has a nice discount in addition to the sale. Take a look at EditMonkey too- it also does animated text, it’s a real workhorse and I find myself using a lot of.
As far as the size goes, I imagine it’s due to your compression settings...best to open a support ticket, we’ll figure it out.
Actually, both of them are technically 3D, and TM can be manually adjusted to changes in Z Space, or rotated in any direction...but the algorithm lays it out along the x/y axis and rotated it on z...so we call it 2D.
CircusMonkey was really made for Z Space, allowing you to stretch different text rigs and rotate them along any axis.
I hope that helps a little bit...I’d recommend downloading a free trial and trying it out.
Oz
Hey Samuel- You can’t really go in and edit expressions...one of the pros (or cons, depending on your point of view I guess) is that there’s a lot of automation built it- if we had made it editable it would have messed things up a ton. As far as loud goes- I guess it depends on what you want to do...and it’s even possible that another monkey might be better suited for your needs...if you want to open a support ticket and let me know what your thinking I’ll be happy to try to help. Oz
Hey Matt - my first thought is that if you’re looking at it thru the camera, and tits against black, then it’ll look like it’s not adjusting since the camera is moving with it - but if there’s something in the backs ground that’s not partial of the rig, you’ll see that itt is actually moving relative to that. Try throwing a background in there and see if that’s it. If not, open up a support ticket and we’ll check it out. Oz