If you think help is bad now you should have seen Autodesk manuals from 10 years or so ago, virtually no images just walls of text that was for the most part dull as bat shit.

The best manual ever written was the CMX 340x manual from Orrox back in 1981, it started with the words ‘We figure by now you’ve heard a lot of nice things about CMX’ and carried on with that tone for the rest of the book. Bob Zelin once told me it was written by a woman called Candy Chestnut. I seriously learnt to edit video reading that book.

The best online help was the original Shake documentation from Nothing Real which was funny and entertaining whilst explaining concepts alongside how to do things.

The best tool yet for learning Smoke is grants work here and the FXPHD fast forward video for $99. Personally I’m not spending too much time on 2013 until it gets feature locked as it has a long way to go yet.

Hello mikeparsons,

Before I could afford Smoke I use to read the manuals like the ones from like 6-7 years ago. I couldn’t get my head around what they where explaining. It read as though you had to have learned some of this stuff in another application and that this was the refresher. So yes, I know what you mean.

Thank you Robert. I mentioned this so that it doesn’t get mixed into each other. Because Smoke 2010, 2011 & 2012 use be separate until premium came to the scene. I’m to sure at about 2012, but the rest was.

It is quite inconvenniet to have the two mixed. The wiki is as is not working properly with searches and then to be giving results from other applications is a nightmare.

Where can I find help on mimic in the wiki. The Mimic link that is used in action.

Hi,

It looks like the Smoke 2013 is still incomplete. 

The same function is available in Flame Premium which is called duplicate
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Fla..._th2053/2057-Duplicat2057

This will show you how to use MIMIC.

I will notify the docs team to add it into the wiki.

Regards
Grant

Thank you Grant.

Grant the help file is asking me to login. This should just be an open document.

Hi,

You shouldn’t need to log in.  It is open to the public. 

I didn’t log in and I went here http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Smoke/enu/2013/Help/User_Guide

This should be fine.

Regards
Grant

Hello Grant,

I meant the link where you told me to look at the mimic tool, is asking me to login. It says I don’t have the permission.
http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Fla..._th2053/2057-Duplicat2057

Looks like the area posting shortened the link…

Try this - http://wikihelp.autodesk.com/Fla..._th2053/2057-Duplicat2057

Ok thanks for the re-post, this one worked.