heyvern Posted August 25, 2005 Posted August 25, 2005 (edited) In the attached image I have several different styles of simple "building" graphics all created from one model with several poses. Now... check out the short building and the tall building. I am using a "window" decal with a color image and a bump image with a repeat. For the tall building I increase the vertical repeat.. depending on the height I increase or decrease this value. My question is this... I am very lazy... would there be a way to "link" the Y repeat of one image in a decal to another image? ... or... for bonus points, would there be a way to link the Y repeat value to the value of the "height" pose? I would love to have the "windows" automatically decrease or increase with out having to set it "by hand". Thanks for any guidance. Vernon "!" Zehr Edited August 28, 2005 by heyvern Quote
pleavens Posted August 26, 2005 Posted August 26, 2005 If the decal "y" number is keyable, you should be able to make the change happen in the pose itself. (I assume you used a pose to drive the vertical scale) If not, you could make a sequence of images and then drive the sequence frame with the pose. Phil Quote
heyvern Posted August 26, 2005 Author Posted August 26, 2005 Thanks Phillip! My brain was locked... Works like a charm. The only problem... I couldn't figure out how to use hold interpolation in a pose... how do you find the key frame settings in a pose? The reason I would like this is so that the windows don't "grow" out of the "ground". I would like the Y repeat to "snap" at specific points along the pose slider. Even if the window decal "squishes" slightly. This will work fine for now. I won't be animating anything yet for a while... just stills for a PowerPoint presentation. This is going to work great... as many different buildings as I need all from one model... yeehaaa! Vernon "!" Zehr building_grow3.mov Quote
John Keates Posted August 26, 2005 Posted August 26, 2005 You should be able to access the chanel type widget in the pws if you crack open the model. HTH Quote
Bendytoons Posted August 26, 2005 Posted August 26, 2005 Vern- just that short clip and my internal radio is playing "Powerhouse", pounded out on a xylaphone. Quote
entity Posted August 28, 2005 Posted August 28, 2005 your color map is different from your bump map---better check those poses, Vern. Quote
heyvern Posted August 28, 2005 Author Posted August 28, 2005 Yes... the settings for the two images were out of alignment.... It works fine now. I have found however, that at very small render sizes using the toon render... the images are consistently slightly misaligned. I need to do some more testing and then may report this... I think it is just the nature of the beast. Vernon "!" Zehr Quote
Admin Rodney Posted August 28, 2005 Admin Posted August 28, 2005 Wow vern... just now seeing this. A very cool project and I like the approach you are taking. ...you see... I'm...er.... lazy too. I wanna see more! Rodney Quote
heyvern Posted August 28, 2005 Author Posted August 28, 2005 (edited) Just for you Rodney! First off... I am thrilled with the toon render... I have never used it very much before and did not think I was ever going to get the nearly EXACT look I was going for with this! I fell off my chair when I saw this final render. I plan to import these into Flash and auto trace them for use in Adobe Illustrator... at some point... may need to animate... will probably just do that in AM since the client won't need to have those files for editing. I am converting to Adobe Illustrator so the client can use these images in other documents. -------------------- This project involves interpreting the extremely complex internal operations and connectivity of a very large organization. The analogy we agreed upon is a "city"... you have different areas that are connected and work with other areas (color coded)... all connected by... people... streets and electrical systems... plumbing etc etc... They want to show how different customers with different needs can "enter" their city through more than one place. This also needs to be as simple as possible to illustrate and also "reusable" for internal presentations... My idea was to use extremely simplistic flat shaded buildings... and people (think Fisher Price people), in bright colors that can be used individually or as a group and be moved around and highlighted to show how the various interconnected groups work together... The attached image is very very very rough. As you can see I originally was going towards a "non perspective" type of illustration so that the building "objects" could easily be moved around in a drawing program without worrying about perspective and scaling issues... ...however... I don't like it that way... it looks so much better with perspective... so... the heck with reusability... anyway... I will do both and let them decide. edit : This is a total and absolute untouched render straight out of AM!!!!!!! I am soooo happy! Vernon "!" Zehr Edited August 28, 2005 by heyvern Quote
heyvern Posted August 28, 2005 Author Posted August 28, 2005 As stated in my other thread about toon render... The "offset" image bump/color issue went away as soon as I turned on multipass. Even just one pass (which is all I need anyway) fixed this problem. I can render at any resolution now and have no problems with the color and bump decals lining up properly. Vernon "!" Zehr Quote
Admin Rodney Posted August 28, 2005 Admin Posted August 28, 2005 Entirely too awesome vern. This is web graphics to a T. (Whatever that means) I've done some similar things tracing A:M objects in CorelTrace and then using them in powerpoint... but mine never look that great. I think your client will be very happy. Rodney P.S. Thanks for the tip on multipass. I'll definitely file that one for future use. Quote
heyvern Posted August 30, 2005 Author Posted August 30, 2005 Here is the rough illustration I showed my client... They love it... I love it... I get paid to use AM! WooHoo! I just did a small animation of the buildings growing and shrinking... WooHoo! I will make a small confession... For this illustration I "removed" the toon lines from AM and used a stroke in Photoshop so I could have more control if needed... Don't get me wrong! The toon lines from AM were PERFECT... I just needed more control. this way I can use the same illustration in many different sizes and won't have to rerender to adjust the stroke weights. The glows were done in Photoshop as well... I am working on doing some tricks in AM to get something similar... but in the meantime this gets the job done. I used several of the layer styles in Photoshop to get that glow just right... I am sure with some time I will figure out some tricky way to get something similar right out of AM. Vernon "!" Zehr Quote
heyvern Posted August 30, 2005 Author Posted August 30, 2005 Here's the animation.... nothing to jump up and down over... but just a preview to make sure my ideas are doable... yes... strokes are way small... On the illustration previously... the "road" shapes are all done in AM. Each road is a complete flat mesh with groups for the sides and middle. Vernon "!" Zehr building_grow.mov Quote
3DArtZ Posted September 3, 2005 Posted September 3, 2005 Very nice Vernon! Mike Fitz www.3dartz.com Quote
Gerry Posted September 3, 2005 Posted September 3, 2005 Vern - nice work and great use of toon lines. Quote
NancyGormezano Posted September 3, 2005 Posted September 3, 2005 very very nice - interesting style Quote
heyvern Posted September 3, 2005 Author Posted September 3, 2005 Thank you for the compliments! I really really really like how this is working out! The out put is so DANG CLEAN! The lines are perfect. I did have to set the toon line falloff or whatever it's called, to 100 to keep lines out of the "face" of the objects. Then I have to make sure they don't get to close to each other or the outline... "shrinks" slightly in spots. I have a question.... I have tried to get the right kind of glow I like out of AM... but... I really like what I get in photoshop... I kind of figured out a way to do it with AM but it requires doing several renders, changing the toon line color... turning glow on and off... and composting. I have an action in photoshop that gives the same results much faster... well... instantly actually, from just the one render... plus I can change the glow radius and brightness really fast and easy. For animation I can run the same PS action on the image sequences then composite using AE or QT Pro... Is it okay if I just do it with photoshop? Will it offend the purists out there? Actually... I am a purist and I need some reassurance so I don't lose too much sleep worrying about it. Vernon "!" Zehr Quote
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.