Aminet 25/Aminet 25 (1998)(GTI - Schatztruhe)[!][Jun 1998].iso/Aminet/gfx/3d/IIB10.lha/IIB/Threads/Animated_carve

Internet Message Format | 1998-02-17 | 8.5 KB

Date:         Mon, 13 Oct 1997 23:41:58 -0500
From: Bruce Van Horn <[e-mail]>
Subject:      [IML] Quest: Animated carve

I've seen animations of a laser carving a logo into a peice of metal.  How
is that effect accomplished?  I keep thinking of overly complex solutions
and its done so often and would be such a useful effect that I must be
overlooking something simple.

So how do I do it?

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Date:         Tue, 14 Oct 1997 02:29:04 -0400
From: MSWOPE <[e-mail]>

-pop- shhhrrrrr look at Conny's page -pop- look at Conny's page -pop-

:)

specifically May 1996.

And your question about morphing between objects with different face
counts?

November 1995.

Conny's page: www.is.kiruna.se/~cjo/

Look for the digestive IML.

Download the archive, save it so you can read through it while working on
something (your computer can multitask, yes?). I think it's the next best
thing to a manual. There is an enormous amount of information, but just
about every question asked has been answered there. Except how the states
work in the stage editor. ;)

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Date:         Wed, 15 Oct 1997 01:02:29 +0400
From: Charles Blaquière <[e-mail]>

Hopefully, my solution won't be labelled as complex. It's long, but
that's because I included every small detail. The technique itself is
simple.

Note: I'm thinking of obtaining the final, carved logo by using an
altitude map. If you absolutely need the depressed areas to be modelled,
you'll need to turn elsewhere, but most animated carves I've seen had
the camera stay safely away from the carved area.

My example carves a single "S" onto a metal plaque. I've ZIPped sample
files together and placed them at
http://www.interlog.com/~blaq/temp/Carve.zip . You'll want to create
this directory: "D:\IMAGINE\PROJECTS\TOTO.IMP\OBJECTS\AnimCarve\" and
unzip the files in there.

In a paint program, draw your final logo as an altitude brushmap.
Because it's carved out of the surface, it needs to be 0 black on 127
grey. Always remember to give Imagine a fuzzy border at least a couple
of pixels wide; sharp logos make Imagine violently ill. This means you
may have to create your logo at high resolution, if you need sharp,
90-degree like edges on the final render.

Now back to Imagine. Create the object that will be carved, like a
plaque with a brushed metal texture. Apply the altitude map, sizing and
positioning accordingly. Then, move the brush a few units in local -Y,
and scale Y  up to compensate. You want the brush to take effect
starting a few units off the plaque's surface. To give more definition
to the sunken area, duplicate the brush and change the duplicate's mode
to Color, and its Mix/Morph to 0.2. In Attributes, change the object
name to "Plaque". We'll save this object later.

Activate Perspective Edit mode. Do a Quickrender, save the image, and
load it into the Perspective window as a backdrop. It'll probably appear
at the wrong size; just scale the plaque to match the backdrop. (I'd
appreciate it if others replied with a way to ensure the backdrop is the
right size so that I don't have to mess with my objects' sizes)

The next step is to create one or more paths, that will define the
animated carve effect. This is where that backdrop sure comes in handy!
If the logo is continuous, like attached, cursive letters, you can
create a single path that follows the imaginary pen (or laser) strokes.
If the logo is formed of separate letters, you'll need a path for each
letter or segment, i.e. an uppercase "A" might need one path for the
inverted "V" shape, and one for the horizontal bar. In our example, the
"S" can be traced with one path. (You can find this path as "Path0.iob"
in my ZIP archive) Create the path, then rename the path "Reveal" in
Attributes. When done, make sure the path axis has the same alignment as
the plaque.

Create a new object, a 1x1-section plane 100 units wide by 1 unit tall.
Move the plane on top of the first point in the path, with the plane's
surface floating mere fractions of a unit over the plaque. Rotate the
plane so that its Y axis lies parallel to the initial path direction,
and its X axis is parallel to the plaque surface. Scale in local X so
that the plane is wide enough to cover the widest part of the sunken
area.

As a test, after scaling, extrude the object, using "Along path", "Align
Y to path", and a number of extrusions similar to the number of frames
you intend to use in your animation. In my example, I'll want the laser
to carve the "S" in one second (30 frames), so I specified 30 extrusion
sections. Examine the extruded object to ensure it covers all areas of
the brushmap. If not, undo and move or resize the object. When you're
satisfied, undo to return the object to a simple plane.

Group the plane object to the path, with the path as the parent.

We now want to duplicate the plaque's surface appearance onto the plane,
but leave brushes/textures locked to the parent axis; this will allow us
to move the plane axis at will, while leaving the brushed metal and
carved logo immobile in space. You'll see why this is important later.

In Pick Groups mode, pick the plaque, then the "Reveal" group, and Apply
Attributes. Remove brushes and textures from the plane object, leaving
the plaque's base attributes (color, etc.). Important: turn off the
plane's Phong Shading, or we won't get a "flat label" effect later on.
Activate the "Apply to children" checkbox for all brushes/textures in
the Reveal path. Brush/texture placement is now independent of the
plane. Save the path/plane group as "Reveal0-grp.iob".

(If you had more paths to cover, you'd repeat the procedure, creating a
skinny plane, editing it to match the start of another path, parenting
the path to the plane, applying plaque attributes, and saving the group
as "RevealN-grp.iob", with N=1,2,...)

When you've created all the path/plane groups needed to trace the logo,
remove the two copies of the logo brushmap from the plaque. Save it as
"Plaque.iob".

Create an empty axis, name it "Track" in Attributes, and save it as
"Track.iob".

Finally, to make a laser beam, follow my recipe, or search the IML
archives at http://MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU/CGI/wa.exe?S1=imagine . I just
created a quick & dirty laser the following way: add a primitive tube,
12 units radius, 300 units long, 1 vertical section, with closed ends.
It comes in with its axes wrong for our purposes, so we rotate the axis
only 90 degrees around X, then rotate the entire object -90 degrees
around X. Swap the Y and Z sizes (Transform axis only).

In Attributes, change its name to "Laser", make it red, with 255
Brightness. In the Fog panel, set length to 30, Falloff Distance to
11.9, Type to Axial, Hot Center, and Hotness to 5. Save as "Laser.iob".



You're ready to put everything into place. Enter the Stage editor,
create a default, 100-frame project, and load plaque.iob,
reveal0-grp.iob, Track.iob, and Laser.iob. In the Action dialog, add a
Grow.ifx F/X to the Reveal group, from frames 1 to 60. Activate "Align Y
to Path", deactivate   "Keep X in Path". This will create a dynamic
extrusion of the skinny plane which is the path's child. As it grows, it
will display the brushmapped logo on its surface. If you're familiar
with TV terms, think of it as an animated wipe.

In the Action dialog, delete the Track actor's Position bar and add a
new one, from frames 1 to 60. Click on "Follow Path" and select the
Reveal actor. Then delete the Laser's Alignment bar and add a new one,
from frames 1 to 60. Select "Track to Object" and enter "Track" as the
object. As the Track travels along the path (cleverly, the parent of the
Reveal group), the Laser will aim at it. Cut off the Actor bar at frame
60, when the logo's been fully carved.

Finally, add some lights. One of these should be a low-power, red light
floating a small distance above the plaque's surface, to which you'll
add an Associate bar to make it follow the Track object. This will
create a moving glow on the plaque, to heighten the realism of the
laser. Make sure to cut off the light's Actor bar at frame 60, to match
the laser's disappearance. In my sample project, I added three such
lights, lined up inside the end of the laser beam.



And that's it. You should add some particle bursts to add to the burning
laser effect, but that's out of my league. Also recommended is varying
the laser's fog parameters over time to make it flicker as it carves
your logo. This tutorial shows off some of the ways you can use paths in
Imagine: as routes for moving objects to follow, as dynamic extrusions,
and as animated alignment targets.