#Selfish!
I want to second (or third, or fourth) the motion to encourage you to
build a set of animated maps. These things are very hard to build
for us lowly 3D graphics types. From what I've seen of your stuff,
you are in the running for all-time 2D master. (IMHO, to get good
results with 2D animation is MUCH harder than with 3D animation). If
you produced a CD with bunches of maps, I'd certainly buy one.
There are limitless possiblities – perhaps everyone could send you
some ideas. What immediately comes to mind is a set of maps to
animate gasses and liquids moving down pipes for industrial animation
use. These could be relatively small animated cels to be applied to
pipes lofted with mapping coordinates.
You mentioned you didn't know what texture and opacity maps are.
Where do you live? Perhaps you could visit some 3DS maniac or
"dealer" and get a show & tell. If you're anywhere near Oak Ridge,
TN, my door is open – come on in!
Animated maps are simply flics that are applied to an object in 3DS –
when the next frame of a 3D animation is rendered, the renderer will
get the next frame of the flic and map it onto the object. A simple
example might be a model of a TV set – the face of the TV could have
a flic applied so it plays during the 3D animation, regardless of the
angle and position of the TV in the scene.
There are a few things about animated maps that make them more useful,
but you already seem to me a master at them, things like making them
tilable and loopable. As far as tileable goes, you don't even need a
screen full – just one small tilable animated cel – 3DS will do the
tiling.
There would be a use for multiple versions of the same map, especially
for people who don't have AniPro, or don't have the time or ability
to modify palettes and colors – for example a shimmering map in gold,
blue, red, etc. There is LOTS of room on a CD!
An example of an animated opacity map might be a flic that starts out
as a white screen, then is gradually filled with random grey, then
black dots, until the screen is all black. When applied to an object
in 3DS, the object would appear to dissolve then disappear (white is
opaque, black is fully transparent).
Video transitions are another possiblity and would be valuable to 3DS
users in the Video Post module. If you can find someone with an
Amiga Video Toaster, they can show you a whole pile of creative
transitions for ideas.
If you could work with some card carrying 3DS maniacs to get an idea
what would be useful and make a pile of these maps, I think you could
easily pay for your monitor (and a new Pentium, a new color scanner,
a… <g>). PS: in case you missed it, read JE's message to JT
(#80251) for a quick list of possibilities.