Subject: Re: vanishing act
From: Dennis R. Harp <[email-masked]>
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 24 Aug 95 10:02:59 -0500

Thomas Desmond wrote:
_____________

I am rendering LW framestores directly to PAR on my A4000.  In my  
current 

animation I set up a series of single polygons to morph into a  
series 

of single polygon letters for a logo.  The morph works OK for all  
the 

letters except one, which suddenly disappears when the morph amount 

reaches 94%.  (I was using an envelope to effect the morph at  
first, but 

when I saw the problem I switched to manual and that's how I  
figured out 

that the vanishing act starts at 94%).  

   Even this problem letter looks like it's morphing normally  
before it
hits 94%.  The morphing polygon and its target are planar and  
pointed 

in the right way.  The Morph Surfaces option is not activated.   
There IS 

a dissolve envelope active for the morphing polygon, but the  
dissolve
doesn't start until about 20 frames after the morph ends; and  
anyway, 

this polygon disappears totally from one rendered frame to the  
next, not 

like a dissolve at all!
________________

	My experience is only peripherally related to this one, and  
therefore likely has no bearing on the situation--but then it  
might.
	On multiple occasions, I have been rendering scenes on an  
original Raptor from a 2500.  In each case, there were morphs &  
object dissolves involved.  In my situation, test renders on the  
2500 indicated that everything would render properly.  When the job  
was sent to the Raptor, some objects simply would never appear, and  
others would appear well before they were supposed to.  The most  
definitive assessment I received was for various techs to take  
pot-shots at Screamer Net (clearly not the problem Thomas  
describes).  The only fix I ever came up with, was to import the  
offending objects into modeler, & re-save them under a different  
name.  Once back in layout, I replaced those objects having  
miraculous transparency attributes with their recently saved  
copies.  At that point, the Raptor thought everything was fine, and  
rendered appropriately.  (Well, most of the time, anyway.)
	The only other parameter of possible consequence I can  
think of was that this always occurred when my polygon count was in  
the ballpark of 50k or greater.
	I doubt this relates to your situation, and merely renaming  
an object shouldn't affect its transparency, but if it works, it's  
a pretty simple fix.

					Dennis Harp
					National Physics Outreach
					Purdue University
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