CompuServe Messages

Two ways come to mind. One involves animated maps, the other involves animated lights. For the map, if you're handy in Animator Pro you could make a short flic going from your first color to your second, and then back, over a series of frames. The resolution of that .flc could be quite small. Save it to the Maps directory in 3DS, open the .prj file, and in the materials editor create a material called "flash" or something that uses the .flc as a 100% texture map. Then apply sherical mapping to the ball in the Editor, and assign your "flash" material to the ball. If you'd rather do it with a light (which might be easier), create a spot or omni that shines on the ball, go to "Lights–Adjust" and pick the light, hit the "exclude" button, hit "all", and then deselect the sphere, and hit OK. Now you have a light that only affects the ball, and in the keyframer you can start it at one brightness and color at frame 1, go to maybe frame 30 and change to another brightness/color, go to frame 60 and change it back. In the track info dialogue box there are several commands for copying, mirroring, etc the three keys you've just made, so that the flashing effect will occur over the entire animation. Also check out "Lights–Spot–Place Hilight" to create a specular highlight on a particular point on the sphere. Have fun. Dan