"Un-Locking" the Mysteries

[MJL]

These letters are made is sections, like bricks. I wish them to go from shiny and new to old and rusty over a period of about 2 seconds. Hold for anther two, then begin falling apart. At first a few pieces, then faster, then all at once drop to the floor (about twice the 'letter height' ) in a pile.

 

Animating the material strength wold handle the first part, but how would I go about that. This is a Darktree/Simbiont material.

 

Would it be worth setting up a Newton simulation for the falling apart? I've never worked with Newton before. (I've heard he is a nice guy, but can be difficult to get along with.)

Lock.prj

[robcat2075]

For the material change maybe a material effector would be the easiest manuver.

[MJL]

I did a search for material effectors, Rob, and came up with 19 pages of miscellaneous stuff, including this post. Can you point me a bit more specifically?

[Fuchur]

I did a search for material effectors, Rob, and came up with 19 pages of miscellaneous stuff, including this post. Can you point me a bit more specifically?

 

Here is a tutorial on the subject:

Material Effectors

 

See you

*Fuchur*

[NancyGormezano]

Another easy way to animate the transition between 2 materials - would be to use 2 bitmap plus materials (with 2 different images) added to the LOCK group, and animate the blend property for the second material.

 

I wouldn't bother with Darktrees for this. It's not like you can't find a "rusty" image to use for the texture, nor whatever you want it to look like for the 2nd. If you want it to burn up, then that's a different story, & would require different technique most likely.

[MJL]

Now you've done it, Nancy, you've convinced me. But, once again, when I search for Bitmap Plus and/or tutorial there is way too much unfocused information to wade through. So. . . . . can you point me to a tutorial type edumacational imparting treatise of some kind to alleviate this dearth of knowledge from which I suffer?

[NancyGormezano]

Also - in case you are wondering how to do a bitmap plus material, simplest way (probably all you'll need to do):

 

create new material, change attribute to bitmapplus, add image to use, change size/scale to suit your model

[MJL]

You had this reply ready and waiting, didn't you, Nancy? Because you KNEW I'd be asking (begging?) for it. Thank you so very much, I believe you've given me the necessary information from which to extrapolate success. Thanks

[MJL]

Thanks again, Nancy. I've had a chance to play around with this. This was a feature of A:M that I've had no knowledge or experience with. You have opened up a whole new world for me. Some days my ignorance seems so vast that you could fill encyclopedias with it.

Myron

[robcat2075]

I'll note that if you very much wanted to use a Darktree material and still use Nancy's suggestion to animate the blend property you coudl "bake" the material into a decal.

[MJL]

I don't understand the "Bake" concept and at this moment trying to comprehend it might make my head explode.

 

I did render out some Darktree images and got them into Bitmap Plus Materials. I was thinking that the [/b]Blend[/b] property was animatable, but evidently I was wrong.

 

Isn't there a way I could just animate the decals? I seem to remember seeing something a while back on that.

[NancyGormezano]

I don't understand the "Bake" concept and at this moment trying to comprehend it might make my head explode.

 

I did render out some Darktree images and got them into Bitmap Plus Materials. I was thinking that the [/b]Blend[/b] property was animatable, but evidently I was wrong.

 

Isn't there a way I could just animate the decals? I seem to remember seeing something a while back on that.

 

The blend property is animatable - you have to "show more than drivers" in the chor.

 

And yes you can do it by animating decals instead - and you would have to show more than drivers for that as well.

 

EDIT: I was playing with displacement for bitmap material - and got ICE!

LOCKh264loop.mov

Edited February 7, 2012 by NancyGormezano

[robcat2075]

Fading a decal

 

FadeDecal.mov

[MJL]

Get out your galoshes, it's gonna get mushy.

 

Nancy and Rob, (flipped a coin for the billing order) as well as a slew of others, from the first moment I set my digital foot on this forum, have shown such extreme kindness and generosity such as you have just demonstrated on this thread. I have made a lot of progress with this amazing software and having still only scratched the surface, am in awe of you guys. Your CONTINUAL help to all of us who are constantly asking is appreciated more than you can know. From the bottom (and top) of my heart, THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO.

 

We now return you to our regularly scheduled folderol.

[johnl3d]

Okay I redid the model so I could get a rebuilt explode model and changed the gravity pull to have it fall slower when newton applied

 

Used material effector to get the rust this is quick run not sure why all the pieces did not flow but that could be fixed hope this helps

 

 

locktest.mov

 

locktest.zip

[Fuchur]

Okay I redid the model so I could get a rebuilt explode model and changed the gravity pull to have it fall slower when newton applied

 

Used material effector to get the rust this is quick run not sure why all the pieces did not flow but tat could be fixed hope this helps

 

 

locktest.mov

 

locktest.zip

 

You may want to use a falloff on the material effector... other than that: Great!

 

*Fuchur*

[MJL]

Life has kept me from the forum much more than I like and I haven't been keeping up. One of the things keeping me busy is working on this project. I've decided that I can only absorb so much new stuff in each project, but I AM making progress.

 

John thanks for your help with the newton stuff, but I decided to do it the old fashioned way. I got the bitmapplus material working, (needs tweaking, I know) and did the breaking apart in an action. I know it isn't as smooth as it should be but its a start and can be tweaked as well.

 

Thank you all for your generous help in getting me this far.

sDissolving_Logo.mov

[mouseman]

Neat stuff. The only thing to suggest is that if you are going for a certain level of realism, then the rate of falling is varying quite a bit. The way it should vary is by going faster the longer it falls, not slowing and then speeding up and then slowing again. The look of it however as well as some of the choices for movement of individual pieces are excellent.

[robcat2075]

I agree that the falling motion does not look right.

 

Over in David Simmons' bouncing ball thread I made some notes on how to do proper falling motion that you may find useful. It's easy to do but you have to do it right or it isn't right.

 

And on a follow up I talked about how to time any successive bounces.