Simon Edmondson

Not sure about your grid pattern. I see evidence of it in both of your movies (in the floor boards), before the floor gets wet, and more pronounced in the 2nd movie, because of camera angle. Are your floor board patterns a decal? My first suspicion would be the image that you're using. Nancy Thank you once again for your help. It is a decal for the floor boards but there should not be a grid on it? The uneven quality of the lines is deliberate because I was trying to get a hand drawn look to it rather than a solid black cg type line. I looked at using the Hickory floor boards but the it came up as a dsts file and I don't know what that is or how to apply it? Hope you enjoy your weekend. regards simon

Apologies if my last message appeared rude at all ? The Olympics are driving some to distraction around here. If I was a less equable bloke this could drive me crackers.. I realised that my working process needed to be simplified and, following your very welcome assistance, I think I've got the water about right. I tested it and this was the result.Water_Test.mov Then, I tried it in a slightly different setting ( added walls and ceiling ) and this happened. Mopping_2.mov Some very strange grid reflections appeared which I have never seen before this evening? I should add here that I am working on a 3.3ghz Imac with OSX 10.68, in V15J., if that has any relevance ? and these are three of the maps used. for the bump map for the reflective equivalent For the transparent I had reworked the mopping sequence and here are the settings for the maps on the mesh. Apologies at this point as the grab option is not playing fair so the settings are reflectivity 100 % Transparency 50% Bump 50% Thank you once again for your help. regards simon

I would need to see your settings (in your decal container, group surface, render settings) before commenting as to how to tweak. Btw, it is much much better (easier for viewers) if you post jpgs or pngs to the forum, not tiffs. Nancy Apologies for the non jpg, I was unaware of that limit. I will try to get the screen grabs this evening ( anything to get away from the Olympics ...) simon

A strange effect takes place while rendering the test. When rendered as a QT file or single frames with multi pas enabled you get this, when doing a quick render with no multi pass, to check the visibility you get this, Screen_grab.tiff What would cause the decal of the floor boards not to render in one but be there in the other ? regards simon

John Thank you for those. Your speed and expertise is way in excess of mine. regards simon

Not sure what you are going for. Are you trying to demonstrate waves? Your still image in your previous post (mopped0.tga) looks right. Nancy. Thank you once again for your comments. You are correct in your observation regarding the grey scale gradient. I'd spent several hours on animated maps using the same method as the still image, but the maps proved too clumsy in their execution. So to make sure I knew what I was doing, I did the one with the gradient. I'm going to try the mop sequence again. On a side note: Is it possible to animate a change in the refractive index using maps ? One of the things I did notice with the ripples on the floor boards was that the lines stayed straight when the swell passed over it. Its less important now, as I need to get the sequence right, but something for later perhaps. regards simon

Been a couple of false starts today as the neurones tried to untangle themselves but, here is the latest attempt. It cycles through rather quickly because its only 8 frames. Any suggestions ? Thank you once again to Nancy and Rob for their help. simon Actually mopping later...Splash.mov

Hope I'm not intruding, and hope this helps. Nancy thank you very much indeed for your help, no intrusion whatsoever. I followed your suggestions and excellent examples and this was the result.Mopped0.tga I hope I've understood the process better. I will try to implement it on the animated maps later to make sure. Thank you once again. regards simon

Rodney Thank you for your input. I've made a couple more tests. Following Nancy's suggestion, I dropped the bump map down, to 10% and that seemed to go through OK,Mopping.mov So, emboldened, I tried it on the original modelMopping_2.mov with this result. The wet look seems to work (?) but a number of rendering anomalies have crept in, even though the map sequence is the same and I don't think I have altered any of the material properties as yet. Its a bit of a puzzle. The exact placement and timing of the animated sequences are yet to be finalised but thats the next task. regards simon My expertise doesn't yet extend to the 30 mins solution offered elsewhere. Maybe next year !

Nancy Thank you very much indeed for your help, it is very much appreciated. I revised the mopping sequence several times and here is the final one ( I hope )Mopping_2.mov It occured to me last night, literally as I got on the bed, that the reason for the speckly effect in earlier versions may be because the key colour was 255 white and the file format was jpg. I'm not a very technical person ( you may have noticed ) but I seem to recall that Jpg is a 'lossy' format and I wondered if that was the cause of the speckles, because the compression algorhythm (sp ?) compresses whites so much and that comes out in the render ? When I changed the sequence and put a Blue 255 in place of the white the speckles seemed to have disappeared... regards simon

With great thanks to Nancy. Here is the latest revision. I will try to do a better animated map, over 100 rather than 50 frames, and post that result later. Thank you. regards simonMopping.mov

Nancy Thank you very much indeed for your comments and especially for your help. I will try to correct the errors and post that when done. I feel a bit bashful about the mopping sequence ( it is a sequence of jpg's ) as it only took about an hour to do. If I can get the whole thing to work, I'll redo the sequence to get the time lapse effect I want and post that. Thank you regards simon

Rob Here is the project Wet_look.prj and ( i hope ) here is one of the maps Thank you for your help. regards simon

I revised the map sequence ready for the final version ( by extending it to 50 frames )Mopping.mov But a number of anomalies haver crept into the result and I wondered if anyone might have suggestions as to how and why ? Exactly the same animated mopping decal is applied to each of the four quarters of the mesh. One stamp in each section. It is completely transparent in the top left quarter but visible in the others, and there is a lot of 'noise' appearing in the background of the map which is not there on the original. The background is 255 white and that is what is keyed for that colour. regards simon

If you turn on Show More Than Drivers for a model inthe chor you can access the properties of its decals. There you can keyframe "frame" values to make an image sequence play at other than the default. Rob Thank you for the tip about applying a decal in the chor ( I recognised what meant this time ! ) What I was hoping to do was apply the sequence in one place, ( top left ) have it run through for say0- 50 frames, then have another application of the sequence run from 51- 100 ( top right ), then middle left for 101- 151 and so on until the whole are was covered. Is that possible ? regards simon

Now I (sort of ) understand the process of getting reflections with maps, I was hoping to get back to the original mopping idea. The sequence seemed to be working in the way I wanted but now I need to apply it to the whole of the floor space, rather than two mop strokes worth. Is it possible to apply the animated sequence in multiple locations but have each location follow on in sequence so, as the figure moves from top left to top right, the mopped section is retained in the first sector , as the new one appears in the second and so on down the floor ? ( hope that makes sense.) I tried to apply a decal in a chor but that option was not available. It looked as though it might be possible to control timing with multiple applications as an action then off set the timings ? or do a new animated map for the whole floor space ... ? Does anyone have a better suggestion ? regards simon

He still has scars from the experiments...not a way I would go, but some people might think it's worth it. Certainly not for me either. The main thing, for me, about the book, was what he managed to achieve on a very small budget. $5,000 I think ? That was sometime ago, so you would need more now. Animation is much more expensive than live action because of the technical and human resources involved but a lot is still possible. One note of caution though; If the initial project is delivered on a very tight budget. Will future backers assume that level to be maintained in subsequent work ? If you've proved you can live on Ramen noodles for a year, will you be expected to continue to do so ? simon

It looks like you have the "repeat" values in the decal properties set to other than 1 Rob I wasn't trying for a repeat, just to see if I understood what was happening. I might do now ( maybe ). I added a reflectivity map to the same set up and this is the result.small_wave.mov The reflection vanishes in places but, I think that is because the map is black at that point. I'm going to try again with the mopping experiment tomorrow. Thank you for your help. Thank you to Nancy too for her helpfull illustrations of her process. regards simon

This is a small diversion before I get back to trying to make it wet. I wanted to make sure I understood what was happening? You can spot the tiles but, liked the effect... simonsmall_wave.mov

Nancy Thank you very much for your post and the links to your examples. I will try to digest and understand then apply to my things. That is certainly a fabulous effect you have there ( the model is very good too of course ! ) The mopping map was very simple to do. Its basically using the airbrush and the smudge tools in photoshop. It gave me an idea for something I want to use at a later date and, thinking about it now, could readily be used for rain on a window pane ? H'mmmm regards simon

I recall a similar situation some years ago about a guy who stuck himself in his cabin in Alaska with his PC and Lightwave and cranked out a short, some sort of mystical wolf thing. He got some favorable articles written about him and he got i on some festivals but it didn't result in any financial boon for him. Selling an independent project is just plain tough. You are correct, there was a similar article a few years back about the man in Alaska. He had two PC's as I recall, used one to animate on and the other to render.The impressive ( to me at least ) part of that article was his approach to the work and the management/organisation of the project. Didn't Jeff Lew do a similar thing, give up working for a tear to produce his personal project. Although he had already established a track record by then I think ? The decision rests on personal circumstances and responsibilities. If your only responsibility is to yourself and you are prepared to live very frugally while doing it then it may be a viable option to get it done and use that as a platform to make more? If a family, mortgage or other commitments are part of the equation then there are less options. I would not dare to suggest one way or the other how the decision should fall. Have you read the book " Rebel without a crew" by Robert Rodriquez ? Its about how he made 'El Mariachi' on a budget of $5.000, He did it by taking part in medical experiments testing drugs ro raise the money and used his time at the test centre to write the script and plan it all. It worked for him but that is a very extreme way of going about it and not for everybody. Certainly not for me on the drug testing side... simon

that's looking promising! Ultimately you'd do it on a flat rectangle, overhead view so you could easily apply it to the rectangular floor. Thank you. I'm enjoying doing the maps ( my roots as a painter I suppose ) but I can't seem to get the background to go as transparent as I would like. I tried doing it as a grey then inputting in that value as the key colour but it was still a bit murky. So I converted them all to RGB files and put a pure red in as the back ground and inputted the pure colour as the key but that came out even darker ( but semi transparent ). I shall have another bash at it tomorrow as the eyes are getting a bit tired at the moment. Thank you for your help. regards simon

William I don't know if you ever read the magazine 3DWorld ? Itsa UK publication but available all over. There was an article recently about a man in south America ( I think, but not sure which country ) and the short he had made and put out on the festival circuit yo some success. He too was stuck in a job he didn't like and wanted to make a short, He saved up everything he could for some years while preparing it, then quit and went toi live in a very rural lpcation with minimal expenses, to spend all his time on the short. I'm not suggesting that would work for you or that you should follow that path but, might it be something that would interest you? If so I can look the article up for you and pass on the reference ? regards simon

Revised testMopping.mov Going to try for transparent background next. regards simon