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Author Topic: wishlist: animation rollout option  (Read 1309 times)

cpember

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wishlist: animation rollout option
« on: January 18, 2017, 01:17:12 AM »
Hey al,

 Just a quick wishlist item:

in the animation tab of FP, theres a map slot for frame offsets etc.. is it possible to have a second for plant animation areas?

ie: I have an animation on source plants, but in the FP I just want to drive certain areas with that anim, the rest static (think a wind with more control) so like say I have a cube in the middle of grass, I could fake wind sheltering with it by painting a quick mask near the cube.
Workflow would be:
1. make a FP object and pick your source animated trees/grass whatever
2. make a map for the frame offsets (or even just use random anim etc)
3. make another map to describe *where* that anim is applied. White==yay animation, black == no animation.

cheers

cp

Michal Karmazín

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Re: wishlist: animation rollout option
« Reply #1 on: January 18, 2017, 11:41:34 AM »
Hi,

There are currently several possible ways. When using the Animation - Frame from Map mode, it's possible to easily mask desired areas (for example by the Composite Map as on attached screen-shot). In the sample scene, Gradient Ramp & Checker maps are used to show this work-flow (applicable to your customized maps).

Another possible option would be to divide the distribution into two Forest objects (one with Animation enabled & other one using "inverted Distribution Map" having Animation disabled).

Hope that helps.

Best regards,

cpember

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Re: wishlist: animation rollout option
« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2017, 08:51:53 PM »
Hi :)

thanks for the file, however,  I know you can do exaclty what you example is doing, but what I'm talking about is using a bitmap to drive animation offsets is limited at the moment. By this I mean in your example file, the objects only stay animated if the bitmap is animated. and as soon as it stops the animation stops. You can also try it in the other map mode, but thats even more convoluted to do what I'm trying to describe :) Basically all I'm trying to do (in a really broad way) is use the animation option, but its areas driven by maps.

This of this:

a radial gradient moving outwards and then stopping. The inner color is white, outer black. in your method, once the color is all white, theres no more animation, it has to constantly move to have animation (because its picking a frame of animation based on color) . If it was just "activating" the animation instead, we could use either hand keyed things, or procedural anim, and that  "activation" map would allow the FP to animate the objects doing whatever for however long. This could also use this in tandem with the other animation modes as well, so if you wanted, since really, its just "allowing" plants to animate or not.

 On a nutshell, basically I'm trying to make a shockwave that affects the plants all over the place, and the timing changes all the time due to art direction of the shot, and I'd like to just drive the animation areas with maps. (I have 35 FP entries per scene to do this to, and making 35 copies of each one to include/exclude isn't in the cards I'm afraid ;)

I had hoped after watching the FP-grow fx animation (one of the tutorial videos here) driven by a sphere that I could figure it out, but i cant. Its pretty much the same thing, but instead of growing I'd like to have the FP plants shake, thats all. I'm currently using some hero hand animated stuff for now with the FX bend away effect on the non hero stuff, but that has some limitations as well :/ Good start, just needs more time to mature :)

cheers for the example though :)

cp

Michal Karmazín

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Re: wishlist: animation rollout option
« Reply #3 on: January 24, 2017, 05:09:16 PM »
Hi,

For these purposes you can also use the Effects feature, which can drive the fpItem.animSample (or fpItem.animOffset) attribute(s). Attaching a sample scene showing the possible work-flow.

Best regards,