#OPACME.3DS
12 messages in this thread
I have received the mesh and the .FLC. I rendered the cylinder to a .FLI
and reviewed the results. What I see is a couple of things happening.
One, the .FLC is pretty short and, so, the changes are extremely rapid.
But I think you said it was an abbreviated form of the animation just for
test. The next thing I see is that, while the opacity, as such, seems to
be working just fine, that there is some off-color banding going on. I
take this to be because I am rendering down to a .FLI with only 256 colors
available. I then re-rendered using the HIGH palette option. This
produced quite a different result: less banding, though still blue.
I'm assuming here that you are rendering this down a .FLI animation. If
not, then let me know and I'll go over it again. So, what I suspect you
must do in order to get this object and map to work as you would expect is
to create a customer palette all in shades of whatever basic color you
want. For example, from what I see here, I would create a palette of 256
shades of grey and then tell studio to use a customer palette. Do you have
Animator or Animator Pro?
PhilD,
I am rendering to a .FLC file at 640×480 from 3DS2 and use AniPro. I
suspected I would need to use a custom palette but was putting off creating
it until the entire sequence was finished. The complete scene is of the
cuvette, which you saw, several magnets at each side, a pipette which moves
into the cuvette and dispenses liquid causing liquid in the cuvette to
rise. The will also be particles in the liquid which will be separated by
the magnets in fluid. How's that for complicated. I need to use an anim
opac for the pipette dispensing as well as the cuvette liquid rising so
this effect is crucial in the scene.
I've read the manual on creating a custom palette but have never done it.
Do you have any tips? Also, I am going to be using a number of other scenes
that are close-ups of reactions ocurring in the cuvette, and will be using
a wider variety of colors for those. Do I need a single custom palette for
the _entire_ animation for things to look right? or just for each continous
scene? Should I render representative scenes that have the maximum number
of colors in order to figure this out? And, only one more question, does
the rendering mode affect the colors (i.e. to figure our the colors to use
should I render the scene in exactly the way I want the finished project-
phong, high AA, shadows, etc)?
Thanks, Chris Barnes (though I feel like I could use Mike's help, he seems
to know what he's doing <g>)
Creating a custom color palette is something of an art. If your final
target for this animation is .FLC, then you will be limited to one single
color palette for the entire affair. If you are going down to tape with
the final creation, then the problem is much reduced, if not totally done
away with.
To have a decent looking .FLC animation involving a lot of different pieces
it is often necessary to limit the actual colors involved to just a few, so
that various shades of each color can also be included. The cuvette is
quite interesting; as the opacity map moves up it, a number of grey shades
are needed for it to look realistic (I experimented with a color pallete a
bit). But not all 256 by any means. Probably 25 or so shades of grey
would be enough to be convincing. But there will be some banding, all the
same.
If you are wanting to use a lot of colors for the different actors in your
film, then I would recommend that you try to get this down to tape for the
finished piece. That could be as simple as using Video Post to compostite
several .FLC's out to tape. This way, each actor could have his own 256
color map without interfering with any of the others. Or, you could render
the entire thing out to TARGA files and then put them out to tape: that
would result in the best overall imaging.
I'm not sure what you mean by using Video Post to composite several FLC's
out to tape. If I render them to FLC's and _then_ composite them using
Video Post, aren't I still limited by the 256? The only reason I wouldn't
use VP is because I need to get this thing on tape by the end of next week.
Just rented several 486 50MHz machines to do command line rendering and I
can only use VP with the dongle, right? How would you envision pasting the
various pieces together?
Thanks for you swift reply!
Chris Barnes
No, if you use video post to composite the .FLC's you are not limited to
256 colors total, just 256 colors per .FLC. The individual .FLC's aren't
being combined into one~ file; they are going out to tape as a video image.
Tape doesn't care how many colors you have; it's just an image.
It actually sounds like I'm being too helpful, confusing the issue. You've
got several machines to render this on; ~you're already going in the right
direction.
Too helpful? Impossible <g>. I am _slightly_ confused about something
though. In order to use Video Post to go directly to tape I need to do it
frame by frame (I thought), and I don't have the appropriate deck for that.
If I use Video Post to render to a file, presumably FLC, i would be limited
to the 256 because it would all be in one file. At least, that's my limited
reasoning.
I am already dividing the animation into a number of files memory and
management of the images is easier, so I'll probably do as Jack suggested
and create custom palettes for each section and combine them all on tape.
If I misunderstood about Video Post please straighten me out.
Thanks again, Chris.
<<create custom palettes for each section and combine them all on tape>>
That is exactly what I meant to be saying. But if you do not have, or have
access to, a frame accurate deck, how are you going to that?
Regardless, this is certainly a good option, as it allows you to assign a
full 256 colors to each actor in your final piece.~ It's still more
limited than rendering to targa, but it's close.
I'm hoping that we can ajust the timing as necessary in AniPro and manually
with edits, along with strategically placed stills to produce a somewhat
coherent and flowing whole. We're going to tpe via a VideoLogic Mediator.
This project is being done haphazardly in a number of ways (the script
isn't done yet so the timing of the animation is anyone's guess, plus I'm
not going to be involved in the piecing in of "live" video. etc.) What can
I say? I just go graphics…<g>.
Thanks again for all your help.
Chris
You should take the time to go through "VGA Palette Control for Flics" on
page 8-139. It probably looks a little involved, but the basic idea is to
create a draft rendering of a sampling of frames so you get enough of a
sampling of your colors, and then use that palette as your custom palette
for all frames. If you're sending your various flic animation sequences to
videotape, you should probably use a different custom palette for each
animation sequence (a palette that best suits the given sequence).
– Jack
Actually, I've read the section on VGA palette control for Flics several
times. I figured I'd need to use custom palettes somewhere along the way,
I'm just nervous about having to do it _now_, and am learning so much all
at once about the various things to do and not to doo.
Thanks for your help, and I hear the tape was quite impressive! Hope to see
it through my vendor sometime soon.
Chris BArnes
Philled,
Somehow your message to the person that uploaded the OPACME.3DS got
routed to me. Or at least it had my name attached to it (no CIS ID).
Anyway, I didn't upload the OPACME.3DS file.
-MM
Whoops! Sorry Mike. Wrong addressee.