#Handwritting tail end
35 messages in this thread
Wow! The tip on lofting a horizontal wipe through a "handwritting" path was
great! I have had lots of fun with this. It came up at a particularly good
time for me, because I had an effect required and wasn't certain how I was
going to go about it. It turns out that this is a great way to do animated
line graphs!
I am having a little problem, however. It is true that the selected material
for this item must have shinniness turned all the way down to 0? Otherwise I
can see edges too early. Also, it is true that only ray traced shadows will
generate a shadow that goes along with the object? These I can live with.
What I can't is the very end of the object that is exposed the entire time. I
tried the suggestion of making the material a decal, but then I get nothing at
all.
I admit that I've went right to playing with this and missed a bunch of
additional messages on this topic. If these were addressed and I missed them I
apologize. If so could someone head me in the right direction to find the old
thread? Otherwise, are there suggested solutions to handling the very end of
the object?
Chris,
I haven't seen a solution for the end faces showing on an animated opacity map.
I tried deleting the end cap faces with some success. Other than that you could
do a video post trick, where you render a still image without the offending
object (or a sequence of images, if there is camera motion). Then render your
full scene with the writing. Composite them in video post with the scene with
writing first, then the scene without second using an rgb mask to just cover
the offending portion of the image. The rgb mask would be created in animator
pro and would simply be a black screen with a portion of it white where the
second image is to mask the first. The timeline for the second would go from
the first frame until the point where the writing is almost completely drawn.
That's a good idea. I will give it a try.
I guess I could also render a background border that includes the end, then
render over that, used as a background, and create a matte object to cover the
end. But, it just seems like there ought to be an easier way.
Any hope in increasing the values in the mapping section of the loft?
Hello Martin the Foster!
I sent the other Martin (Christopher) a message concerning the problem of end
faces showing on an animated opacity map. Basically, just use DECAL rather
than TILE, and use a vertically moving map (bottom to top) rather than a
horizontal one.
JKJ
JKJ,
I'll give your suggestion a try and see if it works for me.
Cristopher,
>> animated opacity map: >> the very end of the object is exposed the entire
time… >> get nothing at all with DECAL…
I am curious about this since I have been using DECAL with this method to get
rid of the "end" visiblilty and it works fine. What does your "wipe" flic look
like? What mapping parameters do you use when lofting? I use a vertically
moving flic (white, moving bottom to top), with the white the full width of the
flic.
AhHa!, this is your problem (I just tried it on my other machine): The upper
left pixel (as per the DECAL specs) will always be the transparent color. If
you use a horizontally moving flic applied as DECAL, on the first frame (all
black), the pixel will be black – all transpanent. On all other frames, the
upper left pixel will be white – white will be transparent, black is already
transparent, so all is transpanent! Apparently, the ROTATION ANGLE in the
Mapping Parameters dialog does not rotate the magic upper-left pixel.
The moral of the story: use a vertically moving map, which B.T.W. won't require
rotation. (Aside: I make most of my animated maps in 3DS by rendering a flic
of some geometry moving in an ortho view.)
One side effect of using DECAL instead of TILE: with TILE, a 30 frame animated
opacity map (black, increasing to white) will work as expected, increasing
opacity until the object is completely visible on frame 29. With DECAL,
however, on frame 28, the object is nearly fully opaque, then it suddenly
disappears on frame 29! This again is due to the way DECALs work, having their
upper-most left bit defining the transparent color. When the flic finally hits
the last frame and is totally white, the upper-left pixel is suddenly white and
the whole thing gets transparent! If this is important, it may be easy to fix
by editing the animated opacity flic in AniPro and coloring the guilty pixel in
the last frame.
Hope this helps.
JKJ
PS: Jonas, keeper of wishlist: desire (1) a fix of the dreaded "end of object
visible with tiled opacity map" problem, and (2) user-selected opacity color
option in addition to the current automatic "upper left pixel" method.
If you wanted to get really sophisticated, you could render your "wipe"
animation as a series of .tga's with alpha, use an .ifl in the material, and
you wouldn't have to worry about the "upper-left-pixel" rule because you'd be
using alpha instead.
– Jack
Jack,
you're my hero and a genius to boot. What a simple solution! It may even work
too.
>>…hero…genius… It may even work too.
Wow, right- and left-handed compliments all in the same message. <g>
>> Wow, right- and left-handed compliments all in the same message.
<g><<
ROFL! You're so perceptive. Half way through that sentence and in the
middle of my excitement, I realised that I hadn't tested the
technique you suggested, so I'd better qualify my excitement. BTW, I
still need to test the theory, but my wife is hogging my only 3ds
machine with the hardware lock (still doing your tutorials <g>).
Wow! Two great ideas. Now I just have to go in tonight!!!!
Thanks!
>>alpha TGAs for animated opacity map….
Great idea, Jack the Idea Man! As per page 9-49 in the Big Book, I
see that alpha is used if present, otherwise the upper-left pixel is
used for transparency. One could make a set relatively tiny TGAs for
this type of animated map. Thanks, I'll try this.
J K J
PS: Now all we need is that 32-bit FLIC format (with alpha, of course)
to keep such a map in one pretty little package.
>> series of .tga's with alpha…
Good idea. You should write a tutorial or something! <g> There are so many
ways to tackle a problem, it's hard to always choose the best method.
David,
<< it's hard to always choose the best method.>>
but once you do, I'd like to see you post a .prj
showing off the work and a .txt file explaining
the route you took.
Looking forward to your uploads.
jonas[adesk]
David – I second Jonas' comments regarding a .prj and a small text file.
I agree there's more than one way to spline a cat. <g>
-JE
I'm working on an example now in my spare time at home <g>. I suspect
the mesh will be fairly large because of a look I'm trying to
acheive. More details coming as I progress…
I'll be interested to see what you come up with. I've been working on
a side project that while not handwriting per se requires a similar
technique.
Your suggestion sounds like the ticket. I was using a horizontal wipe
which I rotated 90 degrees in the "S" slot. My wipe was created in
AniPro and I took extra precaution to make certain that I had nice
full black and white ends. All for not. This dog of a machine I
have at home just makes me crazy to run 3DS at home so I will have to
wait until tomorrow, but I am so excited to try this out that I'm
sure my fingers will beat me in by half-an-hour.
Christopher,
<< almost done.. >>
Please post your prj when this is all over along with
a short description of which of the many techniques
you used. I'm looking forward to seeing it in section#9.
jonas[adesk]
I will post the animated line graph.
Today was a frustrating day, but here's what worked the best:
A horizontal wipe moving from bottom to top (created in AniPro), with
the upper-left most pixel modified in the last frame. Also, the FLC
was rotated 180 degrees in the material editor. Using the same FLC
in the shininess slot, with the same rotation, allowed me to use a
shinny material. I lofted a triangle along the "handwritting" path
and the top edge still cases a strange shadow in advance of the
"handwritting", but for the most part is looks nice!
Upon completion, Iwill upload the file. Thanks for all your help.
P.S. Just about everyday, I get the strange "is there, or isn't it" object.
It happens mostly when I have created a snapsjot item in the keyframer. The
original object goes belly up!
Christopher,
<< bellyup…>>
I'm looking forward to your successful upload.
jonas[adesk]
I was going to place it on the board today, but do you ever have one
of those days where it's obvious that nothing is obvious? Well, what
worked nicely yesterday, has a completely unexpected anomoly
plastered across it today. Don't ask me why, but none of the
animated line graph worked today. I edited the pixel in the upper
left hand corner of the last frame of the animated wipe, and WHAM!
Maybe tomorrow!
Ah Ha! <insert hard slap to the forehead>
I have got to quit playing around with my 3ds.set file! Right before
I was to run my animation, I was in the 3ds.set file adding a path
and looking for a way to set the default continuity slider for the
keyframer to zero, … when I found this cool looking setting for a
new subtractive-transparency setting for R3. Of course I has to
change it to ON. Bad move without consdering the consequences. After
messing with the file for several hours here at home, changing wipe
animations and every setting possible in the material editor, it
finally came to me!
To maintain the "handwriting" effect there are two options: 1. (with
new sub-tran) change transparency to ADD; or 2. leave the default for
sub-tran to off (like R2).
Wow, dosen't it feel great when you finally figure something like that
out? <g>
By the way, can the default for the continuity value for the keyframer
be set to 0 in the 3ds.set? I couldn't find it?
Christopher,
<< modifying the default TCB values..>>
I don't see it in the 3ds.set.
jonas[adesk]
I think the parameters are:'
DEFAULT-TENSION = DEFAULT-CONTINUITY = DEFAULT-BIAS =
They were in there at some point. Someone let me know if they still work.
– G
Will look again, probably scanned too fast and looked only for CON…, and not
DEFAULT-CON…
Gary,
<< default-continuity,bias,tension = 0 in my 3ds.set >>
Keyframer, create dummy, goto frame 10, move dummy,
keyinfo dialog box, tcb set at 25.
jonas[adesk]
Then, I'd recommend what Chris said… to set the defaults in the Options box
and save a 3DS.PRJ. That'll do it.
– G
<< two ways to get the effect..>>
I'm hoping to see two project files uploaded with a short txt file
explaining their contents… Thanks for hanging in there.
Hi Chris,
I don't know if this will help or not, but you can change the default
continutity from the pulldowns with Info/System Option/Continuity default, and
then save the project as 3ds.prj and it will be the default in the future.
Mark
Thanks Mark, but I'm going to change to default value in the 3ds.set beccause I
always forget to make the change until I am partially into keyframing and at
that point it's kind of a little late. With the type of motion that I animate,
I would rather set continuity to 25 when I need it.
>> It is true that the selected material for this item must have
>> shinniness turned all the way down to 0?
No. If you use the same map for your shininess mapping, the highlights on the
edges won't show up.
That I didn't try, or to be honest even consider. Now I guess I better warm up
the car!
Hopefully somebody will be looking for something that I might be able to help
with. I feel like I just keep taking and taking from you guys. Anybody need
some home-made beer receipes?
>> I feel like I just keep taking and taking from you guys.
Don't worry. Most everyone here enjoys answering questions. It's
really the best way for US to learn too. We look back at old
projects, re-read the manuals, experiment and then try to describe
techniques in writing. It's almost always a welcome challenge!
Thanks! <g>