#Globe Animation Help!
8 messages in this thread
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I have been told to send this message to Gary Yost. If this is reading it
please feel free to answer in addition to making sure that Gary sees it.
I have been asked to do an animation of a rotating globe with
"communication lines coming out of the US and wrapping around the globe to
many other countries at once (at the same time the globe is rotatin). I
see a number of possible ways to do this, in addition to a number of
problems with each one.
The first thing I thought to do was to make a small cylinder with many
segments. Create a number of copies of the cylinders (scaling and bending)
to wrap around the globe. Then Morphing.
However, The bend feature does not respond with enough accuracy. (i.e. the
cylinder could not "hover" close to the globe. When it is small ( the
second or third step) it comes out to far before it bends, and the angle i
severe to appear to be a small part of a long line.
The second Idea was "Dup Links" – But I soon found out that I could not cre
new links in the middle of the animation.
Finally, I created a circle in Shaper and lofted on a semi-circle path. I
positioned the shape in the middle of the globe, linked it to the spinning
globe and rotated it so that it appeared to be "growing" out of the globe.
I have several problems with this method: First, as it rotates the point
the "line" intersects with the globe changes. I was able to fix this by
more accurately placing my pivot point. But this is extremely difficult
with many lines going in many different directions. My second problem is
that it is virtually impossible to get the "line" to land (end) at the
appropriate place (country).
And so I am asking what you think of the different problems I am having.
What solutions, if any, do you have? Is there any methods I am
overlooking?
A prompt response would help me immensly.
Thanks for your time.
Sincerely,
Keiht Tromer
^th
70711,3217
Oh yeh, One more thought! — What about a flic for a surface material?
There is a dead-easy way to do this with 3DSr2 (and lots of more complex
ways to do it in r1).
It's a modification of your third method, based on lofter paths with
circles being extruded along them. Instead of moving the objects, create
the lofted "communication lines" with the new Mapping Coordinates button
ON. When asked for repeats, select 1 repeat along the length. This will
make the "U" mapping value along the length go from 0 to 1.
Then, use an animated opacity map (made in AA or AA Pro) that is simple a
black background with a white line growing from left to right, with one
pixel per frame of final animation. This flic only has to be one pixel
high, and as many pixels wide as you've got total frames of animation.
When the animated opacity map is applied to the "communication lines," the
lines will appear to grow from one end to the other. This is the same
technique that I recently described on the forum for someone who wanted to
make text "draw itself".
– G
..nnd the same solution we used for growing comm lines for the movie
"Sneakers". But Brett thought it up all by his lonesome, even after all the
Yost bugging I did… (grin)
Brett is a genius, that's why! <g>
Seriously, I noticed that the picture of his in the Computer Graphics World
announcement about 3D Studio didn't credit him. I was seriously bummed
about that, and you ought to bother whomever is responsible for the lack of
byline.
– G
To all that replied:
I thank everyone for their help. I am in the process of doing this
animation. I think the way to go is to create my "lines" and apply a "FLI"
Opacity map. the flic is a wipe from a white screen to a black screen.
This seems like the best (fastest) way to do this. However, I am very
unhappy because I cannot have my "lines" cast shadows. Or can I? As far as
I can tell an Opacity mapped object casts a shadow for the entire object,
rather than just the opaque section.
I am still having great difficulty placing the lines. It seems to be a
trial and error process that is very slow on my 386/25. if anyone knows of
a shortcut, please reply.
thanks again everyone, Keith
Keith,
Here's a few thoughts: Could you create your connecting "cylinder"
and link to a dummy that moves with the globe? Just get the shape right to
go from origin point to destination. Then apply an opacity map (from fully
transparent across to fully opaque) to make the connecting line "grow".
Kevin Krell – Computer Support Associates
I like the animated texture map idea. If you are already using a texture
map for the globe, you could draw all your lines on frame 1 in ani pro over
the globe map, then insert a frame and remove a bit of the lines, insert a
frame remove a bit more etc. until on your last frame all the lines have
gone. You could get fancy and create a "drop-shadow's" for your
communication lines to add some realism.
If you want your lines away from the surface of the globe (3d effect) you
could make another version of the flic with white lines on a black
background and map this to a sphere a little bigger than your original
globe and use this as an animated opacity map and the original with full
colour version as the texture map. The maps would probably need to be
2-sided also.
Sounds like you have a few ideas to try out. Let us know which you settle
on.
The animated map is probably the best solution, but this reminds me of an
obscure technique that could also be used whenever you need line geometry.
If you wanted to animate circular lines, you can create a cylinder and
apply a wireframe material (possibly self-illuminating). The trick is that
you can determine which edges of a wireframe object will render by turning
them on and off with Modify/Edge/Visible and Modify/Edge/Invisible. This
might not work for your current animation, but keep it in mind whenever you
want animated lines. You can create interesting wireframe objects by simply
selecting the edges you want rendered.
– Jack