CompuServe Thread

#Texture map no rendering

9 messages in this thread
#185920From: Anil GupteAug 18, 1995 6:59 PM
Help! I am trying to render a scene using a flic (FLC) as a texture map, and it is not rendering. Please respond soon as I am trying to meet a deadline this weekend. Here's what is happening: I created a flic using Animator Pro – I used the POCO program STARFIELD to generate an 80 frame flic of stars at 640×480 resolution. I am now trying to use a material called STARFIELD using the flic as Texture Map #1 at 100%. However, it refuses to render. I added a moving logo to this anmation and in this version of the material the logo renders but the stars do not. Is this happening because the stars are too small? They appear to be one pixel in dimension. I tried changing the texture map settings to use Summed Area instead of Pyramidal filtering but that does not seem to work either. Please Help! Anil Gupte
#185947From: Robert C. RitgerAug 18, 1995 11:11 PM
Anil: I only have the R3 docs in front of me at the moment but there was a tutorial called "Creating a Starfield – The IXP Process" on page N7-14. In general you want to use Video Post and place the starfield animation as the first entry and your logo as a subsequent entry. The tutorial describes the IXP which would generate the starfield but you could substitute your anipro starfield flic in the first slot and the results should be the same. – Bob Ritger
#186033From: Anil GupteAug 19, 1995 4:20 PM
I don't know a whole lot about Video Post but I don't think I can use it – you see I am applying this map to a surface as a texture and other things are visible. Tell me I am wrong, and I'll thank you muchos. Adios, Anil
#186177From: Robert C. RitgerAug 20, 1995 8:10 PM
Anil: The Video Post solution would let you use the Stars.ixp to generate your starfield rather than create a flic in anipro. However, if you want to map the flic to a mesh this can be done also. Create a material with the texture map = to the flic name. Make it 100% self-illuminating and make sure you size the planar mapping icon to the right size when you apply the material and mapping coordinates. – Bob Ritger
#185975From: Michele BousquetAug 19, 1995 8:58 AM
Anil, Why don't you use the starfield as a background instead? This will eliminate any mapping problems. I also recommend that you try creating the starfield at 320×200. This will give you bigger stars (4 pixels in size) in the final 640×480 animation. It will also tell you if the starfield is mapping at all, or if the stars are just too tiny. Michele
#186032From: Anil GupteAug 19, 1995 4:18 PM
Michele, as Daniel suggested, I am mapping it to a planar surface which is one of many in the view. I am going to try your suggestion of using a lower res flic, but now I have to go back to where I can beg to use Animator Pro since the new and improved (!) Animator Studio can not do POCO. It's all LOCO as far as I am concerned. Cheerio! Hey, are you still down under? Hope it's going well for you! Anil Gupte
#185985From: Daniel B. DouglasAug 19, 1995 10:22 AM
Not only will Michele's suggestion of rendering the flc at 320 x 200 make the stars bigger (but a little coarser), it'll also keep the memory situation managable. It sounds like using it as a background is the best solution. If that won't work, and the flc has to be mapped onto a planar surface for some reason, you might experience some frustration. If the stars are against a black field, and the map is way out of scale when you first map it, you would see nothing but blackness when you rendered it. You're rendering "between stars". I'd try scaling the mapping icon way down, and rendering until you see something, and then you can adjust the map with the icon and the mapping parameters.
#186031From: Anil GupteAug 19, 1995 4:15 PM
Thanx for the suggestion – I will try Michele's suggestion. I just did not want to go back to the guy who has Anipro (I now have Animator Studio (unfortunately)). I am mapping it onto a planar surface and I used region fit (perhaps I should have tried Bitmap fit now that I think about it). BTW I also tried scaling the map using the U and V scales in the mapping settings. Well, it's off to meet my deadline (and I used to meet people b4 I got into 3DS). Thanx again. Anil
#186087From: dave aguilarAug 20, 1995 1:09 AM
>> I created a flic using Animator Pro – I used the POCO program STARFIELD to generate an 80 frame flic of stars at 640×480 resolution. I am now trying to use a material called STARFIELD using the flic as Texture Map #1 at 100%. However, it refuses to render. I added a moving logo to this anmation and in this version of the material the logo renders but the stars do not. Is this happening because the stars are too small? They appear to be one pixel in dimension. I tried changing the texture map settings to use Summed Area instead of Pyramidal filtering but that does not seem to work either. << hi Anil. let's start simple… go into AniPro and set the resolution to 320×200. set ink color to white, use SPRAY tool with OPAQUE inks and spray some stars on the screen. use the BOX tool and make a box in the center of the screen which is has length and height of half the screen dimensions… so it is easily visible. save the single frame as a GIF file, and use it to create your initial STARFIELD materials in 3DS. make sure your material settings are correct, some diffuse and spectral and ambient lighting, maybe some shininess, make sure a light source shines on the planar object so that regardles sof texture map, light does some reflecting… etc. if this works… on to next step… use the POCO routine to create (at 320×200) about 50 frames. the larger pixels will hopefully be seen when this fli is used for the texture material. if you see the stars at this resolution, chances are that the pixels were too small to be seen at 640×480 in your original. i've used STARFIEL doezens of times to do this… works great. we'll get this right. let us know what happens at lower resolutions first. -dave