Selfish!
Ed,
Been following this thread a bit, and have seen some of your work here on
CSERVE. Great stuff! Sell the car man and get 3D Studio, you will find that
your withdrawal symptoms will kick in at around 10 min as opposed to 30.
Yes, I think a CD of animated maps would be quite useful and timesaving. I
myself do not have Animator Pro and taking the time to make my maps is always a
hassle. I think you should add some video capture or digitized video (whatever)
to your animated map collection. I have used some animated maps from the 3DS
World Creating Toolkit for various purposes, and of course, when I just want
one frame then I simply render one frame of the animated map and save as a
still. Someone mentioned WATER. Yes, need water!
Screen transitions were mentioned too. I always have to stop a production and
create a few screen transitions. I have made some like venetian blinds, and
three bars sliding in opposite directions, etc. I will upload these if you care
to see them for an idea or use. Make them WHITE (255, 255, 255) on BLACK (0, 0,
0,) at maybe 512×486 with 1.266 aspect ratio then they can be used in video
post very easily. I always have needs for animated maps. I made a few for
lights such as led's or light flashing pushbuttons. I currently have a need for
a sign that uses several bulbs to pruduce different words. I have made a few
for laser beams that shoot and glow then dissapear.
I do not know if ANI PRO has transparent capability or not as I have never seen
it, but SMOKE of various kinds is another animated map that would be useful.
I have a need for something thatis probably more in the realm of IPAS
programming. Dunno if you are a programmer or not but I would like to be able
to create a filmstrip, like a filmstrip, and run a flick on it, such as the
filmstrip rolling and the flick playing on it. I know I am not articulating
that very well and I somehow don't think it can be done with ANI PRO unless the
POCO language allows for something like that.
I recently had a need to make a CD disc but could not get the bloody mapping
right. I thought I saw one one here once but have not been able to find it.
As I said, if you can incorporate video I would do a directory of video
animated maps, I for instance have set my camcorder up to my ocilloscope and
digitized a few frames of a modulated signal. Did the same with a spectrum
analyzer, those maps can be applied to a scene where one would want those
signals showing on a CRT or something. (I have a scene with a wall to wall
computer of some sort and there are many lights and modulated signals etc and a
panel of colored lights) but it took DAYS just to prepare.(Still is not
finished)
Well, I am not out of ideas by no means, just out of time, good luck with the
project and if you care to see a couple of animated maps created with 3DS
lemmeknow.
Merlin G. Farmer
Crystal Cave Animagix