| Issue with doing animated maps |
 Jock |
Hi there,
So ive been asked to look into doing 3D animated maps, which is for the purpose of military books to show battles with the modelled landscape and troop movements. My dad erites such books but currently all the maps are 2D illustrations and hes wondering about doing them in 3d.
I am fairly comfortable i could give the modelling a good bash, and also basic animations, but one that i cant really work out how to do is when i have a box (representing a group) and i move it over a hill, is there a way to make the box mould to the hill as opposed to through it like in the image below.
What i mentioned may not be clear enough, if not just say and ill attempt to clear it up a bit.
read 1904 times
9/25/2007 3:04:57 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 3:04:57 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
Like this?....
create a patch grid and then add a patch deform modifier to the box. add the displacement map to the patch grid and add the patch grid to the patch deform modifier
[edit] spelling corrected to make henrik look silly :p
[edit2] dont know why i thought you wanted the ground moving underneath the box, it is actually quite difficult to do if you wan the box moving over the ground as the patchgrid moves with it, hmmmm..... if the movement of the box is simple i.e. just moves from there to there, then you can simply reverse the movement into the patchdeform gizmo by aligning it at the keys of the box but if the box's movement is complex this wont be easy at all
read 1897 times
9/25/2007 3:35:08 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 3:58:08 AM)
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| Henrik Jonsson |
is a feorm modifier somehow related to the fronat?
read 1892 times
9/25/2007 3:40:27 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 3:40:27 AM)
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| Jock |
Thanks a lot for that, though as i work through it i'm a bit stuck at one bit. Where do i get the displacement map so as to add it to the patch grid?
I also noticed the grid seemed to slow my comp down quite a bit but im sure its normal.
Edit: Ah sorry just thought about this more. You have used a map to deform the plane, whereas i had used soft selection and raised it up so there wasnt a map as such.
read 1868 times
9/25/2007 3:59:35 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:00:41 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
ah ok that works too, but you must start with a patch object then convert to a editable patch (to get the soft selection options), not a e-poly and convert to a patch (doesnt work that way)
ive worked out how to do it too.
you can animate the box at element level in the editable poly subobject selection (the editpoly modifier doesnt work this way for some reason, must be the base objects element. once you animate the element moving then the patch deform mod will take that movement into account
read 1865 times
9/25/2007 4:05:47 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:19:02 AM)
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| Jock |
Sorry about this bud but i must be doing something wrong becasue mine doesnt seem to work like yours.
When i use element in Edit Poly, the thing refuses to animate at all.
So far I have:
Created a Patch
Converted it to an Edit Patch
Used soft selection to make hills
Apply a Patch deform to the box and select the patch
Apply an edit poly and in element mode tried to animate it.
Edit: Now i know the name of the tool (patch deform) ive been looking on the help files but it seems to say it only works on plane, cylinder, cone and torus. I have tried a cylinder and got it to work although not quite how i wanted. It immediately distorted, rather than wait till it passes over, but it seems thats to do with the diff between Patch deform and Patch deform (wsm)
read 1836 times
9/25/2007 4:39:53 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:49:21 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
nah thats what i said you have to animate an editable poly object not an object with an edit poly modifier, the modifier doesnt let the subobject selection get animated for some weird reason, collapse the object and animate the bottom item (editable poly)
read 1831 times
9/25/2007 4:49:09 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:49:09 AM)
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| Jock |
I've got you now. Cheers, i read it wrong.
read 1829 times
9/25/2007 4:50:00 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:50:00 AM)
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| Jock |
Its always something daft when i try these things.
The problem was my box had no segments so therefore couldnt deform.
Edit: And cheers for the patience :)
read 1827 times
9/25/2007 4:53:15 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:54:18 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
lol, yeah forgot to say that :)
is it going to be a box or group of people? will probably look a bit weird with a group of people as they will deform oddly
read 1823 times
9/25/2007 4:55:18 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 4:55:18 AM)
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| Jock |
Nah the idea is to keep it simple so it will just be loads of boxes. One for each regiment for example. Maybe whack a flag on top.
I think once its done it should look quite good and should be easier to read than the 2D versions.
read 1820 times
9/25/2007 5:00:14 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 5:00:14 AM)
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| Jock |
Just to make sure i'm not wasting my time, how would you envisage you would model terrain from a map?
I thought soft selection and basically just moving vertices around, but would it maybe be best to actually create a displacement map and apply it instead?
I know both would work but wondered how you guys would imagine it would get done.
read 1803 times
9/25/2007 7:17:06 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 7:17:06 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
displacement will clearly be more accurate and versatile than doing it by eye with soft selection, you can get an image of a landscape and create a displacement map based on it so it ties in exactly with the texture you apply to it, soft selection would take far too long imo to get looking right
(unless its a very basic landscape you're after)
read 1801 times
9/25/2007 7:28:29 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 7:29:09 AM)
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| Jock |
Ok cheers i'll learn it that way instead.
read 1797 times
9/25/2007 7:30:01 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 7:30:01 AM)
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| mrgrotey |
take a look at this, its a tut on modelling procedural terrains using displacement, could give you some more ideas.
http://freespacefilms.wordpress.com/tutorials/smartterrain/
read 1792 times
9/25/2007 7:37:33 AM (last edit: 9/25/2007 7:37:33 AM)
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