Scene Tools is the new version of Space Tools. It's been rewritten to give you a much better experience. You will notice it's a lot speedier and has a lot more features. To read more about the features, follow the Video Creators section of the Academy.
Name Changes
To celebrate this major change and to make things easier to understand, we changed the names of not just the suite, but each tool. Here's a list of the name changes:
Space Tools > Scene Tools
Launch Pad > Scene Builder
Space Viewer > Scene Viewer
Backwards Compatability
As much as we would have liked to do it differently, IDM scene files made with Launch Pad are not compatible with IDM scene files made with Scene Builder. This means that all IDMs in one video should be made in one or the other.
Because of this reason you might want to keep both versions installed on your system for the time being. However, you can't hold both versions installed in a single version of After Effects. Each one needs to be installed on a different version. Luckily Adobe allow for that. To install another, previous, version of AE please follow the isntructions in this Adobe blog post.
Uninstalling Space Tools
Having both Space Tools and Scene Tools on the same version of After Effects is not possible, and when you try to install Scene Tools on a version of After Effects that has Space Tools installed in it, the installer will show you an error.
To uninstall Space Tools follow these instructions:
- Quit After Effects.
- On the Desktop, navigate to the install location. By default this is C:\Program Files\Idomoo\ Or /Applications/Idomoo/
- Double click uninstall.exe or uninstall.app and follow the instructions.
- This removes all trace of Space Tools. If you want to re-install Space Tools, including Space viewer, download the Space Tools installer and install again.
Note that uninstalling an application requires an administrator password, so be sure you are logged on as an administrator.
Re-Installing the Output Modules
With the release of Scene Tools Idomoo updated the video output plugin and with it the idomoo video output module. In order to load this new output module just follow the output module loading instructions below. However, in order to keep your system clean, let's first delete the old output module. Follow these steps:
- Click Edit > Templates > Output Module.
- In the Settings Name drop-down menu click Idomoo Video.
- Click the Delete button below the Settings Name drop-down menu to delete the Idomoo Video output module.
- Click OK to close the Output Modules panel.
Now that you have removed the old output module, it's time to load the new one. Follow these steps:
- Click Edit > Templates > Output Module.
- In the bottom left corner, click Load.
- In the file browser that opens, navigate to the extras folder in the install location. By default this is C:\Program Files\Idomoo Scene Tools\Extras
- Double click Idomoo Video.aom.
- If an error message appears, ignore it by clicking OK.
- Click OK to close the Output Modules panel.
List of Major Changes
If you have used Space Tools in the past and just want to see what's new, here is a quick list describing some of the new features:
- You can use the effects under Effects > Idomoo Effects. This currently includes Gaussian Blur and Corner Pin.
- Solid layers can now be placeholders.
- Blending modes are now supported for both placeholder layers and static comps.
- Track mattes are supported for placeholder in placeholder combinations.
- You can now parent to any layer, not just nulls.
- All composition motion blur settings are now supported.
- Tracking and leading are supported for text layers. Kerning is not.
- Scene Builder allows to package multiple scene with a single click. Just select your scenes in the project panel and click Package.
- Scene Builder allows for any resolution output up to 1920 x 1920. For rendering you can use any resolution via API, or if you are a client with access to Professional Services. Rendering through Storybuilding Suite batch is limited to 1920 x 1080, 1280 x 720, 1080 x 1080, 720, 1280.
- Scene Builder is faster when packaging and also creates better quality static renders.
- You can rename IDM2 files. The name of the scene is actually the name of the comp rather than the name of the file.