Moho Forum

When drawing backgrounds do most of you use AS or do you use a different program and import? I was practicing with Adobe Ills. but could not import my background. AS would only recognize a bit map, but when I imported it I only got an icon that looked like a torn piece of paper. I'm learning and would love some advice. Thanks.

So far I've only gotten the torn paper icon when I've moved or deleted the source file after I specified it's location in AS. But it sounds like you're having a different problem if you get the torn paper icon right off the bat.

Here is a thread with some tips on importing illustrator vectors: viewtopic.php?t=8862&start=30

I'm curious to hear what people have to say about importing backgrounds vs. AS backgrounds. I thought I was going to use a lot of effects in my backgrounds and planned to use photoshop to create them. But now that I've started designing them, I'm really considering making them in AS.

This decision is always up to you. My personal preference is to create something with as much texture as possible, so I create most stuff outside AS. Doing the whole imagery in AS IMO bears the risk that the result looks too slick, too cold, or even boring to the eye.

Learning the hard way. Backgrounds that are very detailed in vector are better off as raster. At some point vector graphics load down the program with just too much information, taking longer to render, and harder to work with because AS slows down.

Dale

Thanks for getting back to me. I think I've gotten the hang of doing the backgrounds in AS for now. It takes a bit getting used to but it seems like less trouble in the end.
Strange thing is that I work on 2 different computers and email AS files back and forth from home to work. I recently started a background with a scanned sketch as a base layer to trace but when I brought it into the other computer, that particular layer was a giant torn paper icon. Wierd. Any thoughts?

two dogs,
The image layer directs Anime Studio to the file location you originally specified. So on your second computer, you may need to copy that file into the equivalent location/file structure or re-import the image from the location of the file on the second machine.