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Autodesk Multimedia Forum · Autodesk 3D Studio

#Animated Dissolve

13 messages in this thread

#104278From: James FranssenMay 27, 1994 2:31 AM

Is there a way to animate a dissolve of an object without using Morph or Composer? I have a solid object that I want to make transparent about 95% within one second of animation. I searched through the tutorial and the reference manual, but it does not seem there is a quick method. My model has quite a few objects and it would take a while to morph each one. Is there another way? Thanks

#104290From: Sylvain SimoneauMay 27, 1994 6:30 AM

Have you tried to set VARY.SXP in the opacity part of the material assigned to the concerned object ?

#104386From: James FranssenMay 27, 1994 1:16 PM

No, Sylvain, I have not tried the VARY.SXP, I will look at it. Thanks.

#104430From: James FranssenMay 27, 1994 6:39 PM

How do I manipulate VARY.SXP? I looked in the manual for VARY, nothing. I looked for SXP, said "see solid pattern external process." I looked there, it said, "2-12", I went to page 2-12, it said "Materials Editor.. also uses solid-pattern, external process files (.sxp)" Okay, nice to know :). How do I manipulate VARY.SXP, exactly. Could you step me through? Thanks for your help.

#104439From: david W. mennenohMay 27, 1994 7:13 PM

PMJI, James but once you assing the material in MatEd you just click on the S button next to the Vary entry and a dialog box will pop up where you can adjust Varys parameters. Like start frame stop frame etc. Dave Mennenoh

#104494From: James FranssenMay 28, 1994 1:46 AM

Thanks David, sounds like exactly what I was looking for. James Franssen

#104557From: Yost GroupMay 28, 1994 11:32 AM

The IPAS routines are described in the "Advanced User Guide." (We ran out of room in the Reference Manual. It was getting too big.) General use of SXP's is described on page 79, and Vary is described on page 82. – Jack

#104294From: Ted BoardmanMay 27, 1994 7:27 AM

James Make a copy of the object and create a 95 percent transparent material to assign to it. In the keyframer use Object/Morph and use the morph materials option and viola`. it's done.

#104389From: James FranssenMay 27, 1994 1:20 PM

Ted Hi I know about the morph function.. but there are over 20 objects that I want morphed all at once. What I was looking for is a quicker way to do this. I would make a single object out of the group, but parts of that group are animated, I want all of the group, AND the animated parts to fade, with the animated parts still moving. If copied all the parts to a single object, won't the animated part freeze? It seems there should be an easy way to assign specified objects to fade at a specific point in the animation. I got a suggestion to try VARY.PXP, I will go check that out. Thanks for your suggestion. James Franssen

#104419From: John EllisMay 27, 1994 6:13 PM

James, I've been sort of following your thread, and wondered if you'd just considered doing a dissolve in Video Post. Seems like the easiest solution.

#104424From: James FranssenMay 27, 1994 6:22 PM

John Hi I will check out the dissolve in Video Post, seems like as good a time as any to coplete the tutorial on this. Thanks for the suggestion.

#104429From: John EllisMay 27, 1994 6:36 PM

James, I think all you'd need to do is render the parts that you want to dissolve seperately and then just composite them with a dissolve where you wanted them to fade out. Pretty straightforward and no morphing mess.

#104510From: Ted BoardmanMay 28, 1994 6:13 AM

James Vary.pxp will work as well. If you used materials morphing you could copy each object individually then copy tracks with the relative option which may give you more flexibility in the long run if you need it. Remember the rule: Whatever Works, it's all fake anyway!