#Making pages turn
3 messages in this thread
I have a question for all of you LW users:
I want to make pages in a book flip and turn over – naturally. The only way I
think it can be done with some realism is to creat high polygon pages and use
bones to deform them into a shape that resembles a bending page. Then use that
as a morph target and morph a straight page into the bent page while this whole
time the page is changing pitch through about 160 degrees of motion. And then
at the end, morph back to a straight page.
Is this the only way or is their a better way. I really don't care if it takes
more time to get it right, because thats what I am after.
Any comments or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
thanks in advance.
Adib
Adib,
Must be nice to have a Raptor to do projects like your flip book. :^) In
this case I don't think brute force is going to do the job. I doubt if
LightWave's Z buffer is accurate enough to stack that many image mapped
polygons without getting confused. Here's what I'd suggest:
Suppose the spine of the book runs along the 'Z' axis. Make the front of
the book with the bent pages. You'll want to map an image sequence onto
the bent pages. Now make the back of the book with the flat pages where
you'll map another image sequence. To do the flipping page effect add a
cylinder with it's center of rotation lined up with the spine of the book
and size it so the outer wall of the cylinder is where the edges of the
pages would be. Now add a transparency map to the cylinder. You should use
planer mapping along the 'Z' axis. (along the lenth of the cylinder) You
should set the transparency map to use world coordinates so that it
doesn't rotate. Now you rotate the cylinder and with a bit of fine tuning
of the transparency map the cylinder should look like the edges of pages
blurring past. You may want to use an image sequence for the trans map to
make the pages appear to flicker.
Of course this illusion only works when the pages are flipping at full
speed. I'm not sure how you could have the pages slow and stop flipping.
If you don't understand what I mean let me know and I'll send you a couple
of images to help explain.
Jeff H…
Jeff,
First of all, thanks for replying to my message. Also, not to digress, but I
think Compuserve should provide an option box were people can draw – and attach
the drawing to the message. But since that option is not available at this
time, I am a little confused.
1st, the pages will have to turn nice and slow so the image maped on them can
be read and the camera will get pretty close to the book. 2nd, I think I
understand the concept behind your solution which I believe is to parent the
pages to the transparent cylinder which acts as a wheel to turn the pages. I
add a transparency map, probably the color of the inside binding to cylinder
and activate world cordinates so that when the cylinder turns, the binding
image map does not – thus making the cylinder nonexistant to the casual viewer.
But, one side of the book along with its pages will have to be bent using your
technique correct? and it will have to be moving pretty fast to make a
believable job.
I haven't run into Z buffer problems yet, but I have gotten the "not enough
memory to allocate RGB buffers" error – but this was with 80 or so objects
loaded in one scene with a lot of motion going on. Newtek's solution was to
get more RAM – gee really?
If you can clarify what you wrote I will appreciate it since I really don't
feel like I got the jist of what you have suggested.
Thanks.
Adib