|
|
Animation and materials
About Truespace Archives
These pages are a copy of the official truespace forums prior to their removal somewhere around 2011.
They are retained here for archive purposes only.
Animation and materials // Archive: Tech Forum
Post by W!ZARD // Apr 2, 2008, 4:47am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
I have a little animation task I want to perform with a material - I'm sure it's probably far easier than I imagine but I'm hoping someone can save me some time and give me some pointers.
Here's the scenario - The animation will be rendered in LightWorks, to take advantage of it's raytracing abilities. All the physical action - camera moves, character animation, skeleton driven animation, physics simulation converted to keyframes and so on is keyframed in the workspace Anim editor and is working beautifully.
The action all takes place in front of a textured background plane which has a high degree of reflectivity set in the reflectance shader. It's a 20 second anim and at around 12 or 15 seconds I want the reflectance value to fade down to zero. At the start everything is reflected in the background but by the end the background ceases to be reflective.
Where I'm getting stuck is in understanding how to (or even if its possible to) - keyframe the LightWorks material reflectance value from 1 to 0 over a period of time using the new animation panel.
An alternative approach would be to keyframe the surface opacity of a second backdrop plane with no reflectance so that it fades into view and blocks the reflective backdrop.
I know from one of Dele's proximity sensor videos that one can export the surface opacity attribute from the Object render attributes and drive the visibility using procedural animation - but procedural animation gives me a head ache just thinking about it.
The manual shows me how to do lots of cool things but not how to slowly animate a change in the reflectance or visibility of an object so it can be rendered in model side LightWorks.
Any of you animation gurus out there got any advice? |
Post by frootee // Apr 2, 2008, 5:10am
|
frootee
Total Posts: 2667
|
Well I am not sure if this is precisely correct; I asked Dele about a related question, so here goes:
Note: This is a Long Shot, since I am doing this just off the top of my head
You may need to export the reflectance connector of the shader up the the Space 3D level using the Link Editor.
Then you can enter the keyframe attribute panel, and select (enable) the reflectance.
It may not even be that complicated; I will try to take a look.
EDIT:
to get to the Keying panel, right click the animation record button.
Then, as you traverse the LE, and select different nodes, the keying panel will update to show the various items which you can keyframe for that particular sub-node.
When you find what you want, you enable the parameter for keyframing by selecting it in the Keying panel.
When you do this, the little button on the left becomes filled in.
Also note that when you do this, an AnimClip node will be added in the LE.
I hope this gets you started in the right direction W!zard. I have not tried animating textures yet; but this may be One way to do it. I am sure there are other, simpler ways as well; like I said, I am 'winging it' at this point. :-) |
Post by TomG // Apr 2, 2008, 5:28am
|
TomG
Total Posts: 3397
|
You could just keyframe it in the Model side Animation Editor. The process should still be in the manual where it references the Model side.
Record KF at 0 with shininiess in the Model side Material Editor set to high. Scroll to final frame in the Model animation bar. Adjust reflectance setting to 0, and use Paint Over Existing Material (very important that). Record keyframe.
There you go. Works for Lighworks, and the old Lightworks shaders. Applies to color, transparency, bump, what have you.
HTH!
Tom |
Post by frootee // Apr 2, 2008, 5:59am
|
frootee
Total Posts: 2667
|
Well you know... um... Yeah.... that's a lot easier!
I guess I missed the keyword: LIGHTWORKS
which is supported on the Model side only.
hehe
Froo |
Post by W!ZARD // Apr 2, 2008, 6:05am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Thanks Frootee - that sounds like it might do the trick - I keep forgetting about that Keying panel. I'll try it tomorrow as I'm off to bed now.
Thanks for the suggestion Tom - I'm a little unclear about how the two different animation panels work together for this sort of thing. When going to the "Render to File' button in model side in the resulting dialogue box is the animation section with a dropdown menu where you can select either model side or workspace side as the source of the animation data. Because all the existing anim data comes from the new Animation Editor I assume keyframes from the old KFE would be ignored.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestions gentlemen - I'll let you know how I get on tomorrow. |
Post by trueBlue // Apr 2, 2008, 6:13am
|
trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
|
In Workspace I could not get the Objects Render Attributes to show in the Keying panel. I had to Export the Surface Opacity out to the parent panel. Then I was able to animate Keyframe1 = Surface Opacity@ 0.000 and Keyframe120 = Surface Opacity@1.000 (Opacity@1.000). You could also export the Invisible attribute out for a quick On/Off as well. Be sure to Enable Obj Mode which equalls Ignore layer attributes. |
Post by frootee // Apr 2, 2008, 6:15am
|
frootee
Total Posts: 2667
|
Ah cool! Thanks trueblue! |
Post by TomG // Apr 2, 2008, 7:10am
|
TomG
Total Posts: 3397
|
Ah, I was thinking you were "burning" the workspace animations into the Model side KFE and then rendering. Yes the keyframes from the Model side wouldnt show via the route I suggested in that case :)
HTH!
Tom |
Post by SteveBe // Apr 2, 2008, 3:48pm
|
SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
|
Hi W!ZARD,
If I understand what you want to do, then the Material Animation in Modeler
side may do what you want.
Video attached to demonstrate: |
Post by Emmanuel // Apr 2, 2008, 8:05pm
|
Emmanuel
Total Posts: 439
|
Note that you can also record the keyframes in the Material Editor's Material Animation panel.
Using this panel you can save your animated material in the Material Library to reuse it in an other scene.
A very handy Modeler feature... |
Post by W!ZARD // Apr 3, 2008, 1:30am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Howdy folks - thanks so much for your input.
trueBlue - your technique works like a charm for fading in and out objects in the workspace and keyframing the fade in the new Workspace real-time view. In effect though the keyframes in the AE only effect the dx9 shaders - when rendering this in Lightworks the lightworks shader is unaffected
SteveBe and Emmanuel - both of these approaches which I have used elsewhere can (I think) only be keyframed in the old model side KFE which I'm not using.
I need the magic third option - yeah I know, I want it all and I want it now!:D
OK so I went to the LE and drilled down into my object/material/material chunk,1/LW/ to access the lightworks reflectance shader in the Link Editor. I then exported the 'mirror factor' attribute up through the levels to the object level. I was then able to keyframe the slow fade of the Lightworks reflectance value by selecting 'mirror value in the keying panel.
Running the animation in the AE I can see the Lightworks reflectance value change as expected - which looked really promising - but when I rendered out the animation in the model side using lightworks and drawing the keyframe information from the workspace AE there is no change to the reflectance values as calculated in the model side render.
So did I miss something or am I attempting the impossible?
Meantime, I'm going to try something else but if anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears |
Post by W!ZARD // Apr 3, 2008, 1:48am
|
W!ZARD
Total Posts: 2603
|
Ah, I was thinking you were "burning" the workspace animations into the Model side KFE and then rendering. HTH!
Tom
Is this possible? I have 4 skeletons animation 3 birds (yes they are seagulls) and an arm that reaches down into the scene to drop some 3d letters.
If there is a way to transfer ALL animation keyframes from workspace AE to model side KFE that should allow me to achieve what I'm after.
TIA |
Post by SteveBe // Apr 3, 2008, 9:03am
|
SteveBe
Total Posts: 282
|
One approach to this may be to use the Render to Texture items for reflection and do all your
animation on Workspace side. |
|
