CompuServe Messages

George, Imagine you're doing an animation that takes place in about 40 feet of water. You want to use an image of a reef as a backdrop. The animation starts with a view of the reef and a computer generated fish swims into view. The camera them pans to the left to show a minisub cruising over the bottom. Since you're using a background that's fixed to the camera when the camera moves the reef stays in the same spot in the view and it appears that the sub slides sideways into the view rather than the camera panning to the side. The problem can be avoided by using a sequence of backgrounds but it's VERY hard to syncronize the movement of the computers camera with the sequence of background images. Most of the 3D animators that want to do underwater stuff want to do deep water scenes. Since there's very little light or plant life below 100 feet it's much easier just to use a dark fog and a smooth landscape for the bottom of the ocean. I tend to use backgrounds only for very complex scenes with a lot of detail. (A flying saucer takes off from the center of a city and flys past the camera) With a scene like that you don't HAVE to move the camera to get an interesting shot.