Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

It's one video per team is what I understand, but you might want to post that on the question and answer system on the FIRST website.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

DO you mean like for your title part and your credit parts? Or actual models that are letters in the animation?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

How do I stop selecting a selection class? It just won't stop!

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

You upload the video twice and put the same video into the two different competitions you are going to.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

1 of two things if its is blurry in the viewing screen in the program when you are putting it together just hit enter.

If the final product looks blurry it is probably the way you set it up. Exporting it as uncompressed first and if that doesn't work try to set it up as a different layer.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Click the selection class tab on the main toolbar up at the top. select it to all.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I love 3d studio max 8 so much

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I was wondering if anyone knew how i could change a question mark, into an exclamation mark in 3ds max? is it using a modifier? is it even possible? if not i will just stick to my original plan.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

take a box, apply a bend modifier to make the '?' and then straighten it out so it forms a '!'

that's the only way I know...

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

The box thing didn't work.But what i was thinking of doing was using it with text.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

make a question mark. then use the morpher modifier on it, set the preset thingy as a exclaimation point. as long as the two models have the same number of vertices you will be able to morph one into the other.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

the preset thing? where is that?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Pretty much finishing texturing and this is probably the most tedious part and some books I still need to take pics but this is pretty much my bookshelf. I will be adding some dvds to teh bottom self no to leave it barren.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

This is actually a pretty easy thing to do with the morpher.

1) Use the text tool to make a ! and a ? - these are only for reference
2) trace one spline over the straight part of the exclamation point, and another spline over the curvy part of the question mark
3) make a box, cylinder, w/e, however thick you want your character to be. Then, make a clone of it - COPY, do NOT instance
4) convert it to editable poly. Select the top face and click 'extrude along spline' options box(under 'edit polygons')
5) pick your spline as the question mark curve, and set the segments to a high enough number that it looks smooth. Add any taper, rotation, etc that you'd like.
6) do the same for the other plane, except with the straight segment. Add taper, or whatever to stylize it abit, and make sure that the segments is equal to the number you used for the question mark. You can modify the models however you want, as long as their topology is the same.
7) select the question mark, and from the modifier list, select morpher. Go to channel parameters, click 'pick object from scene', and it'll add the exclamation pt as a target. Now you have a morph target that you can keyframe (play with the slider and watch it move back and forward between the two...) in the morph channel list.

note -morpher will only work on objects that have the same topology over the vertex indices, even if they have the same vertex count (afaik../) - because, vertex 312 moves to wherever vertex 312 might be in the target. Also its a linear move, so you may need an intermediate morph to smooth out the transition betweent the two.

For the period, just make it however and either constrain it to the question mark or edit poly modifier attach it on.

Hope this helps

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

what do you mean by the spline?
But wow, seems like the type of thing for an advanced user. But i will try it and see what i get.

P.S-only a beginner.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Create->shapes->line

click points, right click to finish your spline. The vertex editing works mostly how you'd expect with the transform tools. Also you can select vertices, and convert them to different tangency types - bezier, bezier corner, smooth, corner - by right clicking in the viewport and selecting the type from the quad menu. I would go with bezier for this, since you can rotate and scale the tangency, and it has more control than 'smooth'.

Also you can animate the spline vertices, so you could just animate your spline vertices and set the spline to renderable. If you need more detail (ex,tapers,etc) on your text, then you can take a long, highly segmented box, do whatever you want to it, then use the pathdeform modifier on it with the animated spline.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

nice, mint, that was exactly what i was thinking. i have been running short on time and nerves, so i never got to really explain what i meant very well.

nice bookshelf, damelvin. are the edges of the bookshelf champhered? champhering edges a TINY bit adds a bit of realism to things. scince no edge is perfectly square, champhering adds the effect of tiny dings/curves to your objects.

BTW, Orson Scott Card's Novels are awesome, saw some on your shelf. nice.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Here, This guy needs some help with 3d Studios. If someone could help him, that would be nice.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I was wondering how you would make a light bulb look realistic and also cast light? Would a lume modifier or material work? .


Crumpled paper:

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Did a quick test for a bulb, doesn't itself cast light, but the effect seems *ok*

The model itself is a mutilated box, bottom face missing, with a shell modifier on it to give it thickness.

Bulb glass material is:

Standard, blinn shading
Diffuse: Pure white
Opacity: Falloff perpindicular/parallel starting at ~.05 with a sharp curve up to 1 the right - meaning, the sides are not transparent.
Reflection: Raytrace, with a mapping the same as opacity
self illumination (when on) - Glow(lume) shader with very high yellow intensity
Specular set to 0

The thing inside is:
Standard, self illumination with Glow(lume) shader with very high intensity. Black in the diffuse channel.
Specular set to 0

i then put an omni light with inverse falloff, set the outer bound to fit the scene nicely, and turned the intensity up a bit. Then I excluded the bulb stuff from recieving light from the omni. (Off pic has a sun on) To turn it off, i just turn off the omni and switched off the self illumination channels.

Used Mental ray to render (pardon the low AA), auto levels + specular bloomed a bit in photoshop. raytrace depth was 6 for everything.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

you can just make a bulb and turn up the self illumination, and if yu use radiosity or lighttracer, there is an option to turn the bulb into a light emitter.
alternatively, you can make an area omni, make it visible, and make it a sphere. I don't have max with me, but if you look in the MR omni optoins, look for a check box that says "make visible in renderer"

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I'd like to thank MiNT for trying to help me with the question mark/exclamation mark morpher thing. But, as a beginner, this seems a little advanced. If you can think of a way for it to seem easier than great, but other than that, i will just figure a way around it i guess.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

bend modifer with lower or uper constraints

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Well i tried and this is what I got now to just light the room right.


Now the room I am trying to get everything lighted without turning up teh intensity of the omni light. Can't get the mental ray shadows to work right so i wne t with raytrace and they work to teh most part and tehre is 3 omni lights in teh scene any thing need to be fixed Other wise its time to animate and render.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

animator - here is a simple .max with (from left to right in the scene). Drag the time slider back and forward to see them change from question mark to a line.

www.majestic12.modnmod.com/crew101/MiNT/Q.max

1. A simple line, created with create->shape->line, and i clicked 5 times.
2. The same line. I went into vertex subobject mode, selected all the vertices, right clicked, and clicked 'Bezier' (its in the top left of the quad menu that comes up when you right click in the viewport). Now that they're bezier curves, you can rotate and scale them. When you rotate, the green handles come up showing the direction that the line goes through them - the tangent. You can use the manipulator just as you normally would to change the direction. Also, you can scale the point, which lessens the degree of the curve.
3. The reference question mark
4. The bezier question mark, with 'renderable' checked, 4 sides, adaptive interpolation.
5. Just a copy of (2)...
6. A segmented box with a pathdeform modifier, using (5). The box will 'morph' around whatever path it is using, in this case, the animated spline. I also animated the y scale so the line matched up.

To animate the splines, easily, just turn on AUTO KEY (next to the key button on the bottom). I started out by keying frame 0, which is the question form. Then I went to 100, and made all the points straight, and rotated their tangents vertical. After, I went to the intermediate points (frames 50 and 75 int his case) and just rotated/moved points around until the transition was decently smooth. Whenever you change something with auto key on, a keyframe is added automatically at whatever frame you are at.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Heh, was about to say add some shadows, but I see you were already all over that =] As for the dark areas, you can safely lighten them by making an omni, setting it to diffuse only (uncheck specular), and excluding everything but the object that needs to be lightened. Then just position it however you'd like, adjust brightness, etc. Also you could perhaps add an omni, with 'ambient only' checked, at a low intensity. Keep in mind it will add with your other lights, so be careful you don't get any blowout.

For your wood materials, I would add a bit of a specular component - not too high, and with some glossiness, assuming this would would be coated. The, select the outside edges, and give them a small chamfer - this will let the corners catch a small highlight that will add a lot of depth to the scene.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

thanks for the file MiNT, but was it created in 3ds max 8 because i can't open it in 3ds max 7.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Ah, didn't realize that you were working in 7. I'll make another copy in 7 once I finish up hw...(it'll be there friday for sure).

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

ok, thanks. sooner the better. hoping to upload saturday.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I actually like teh shadow areas give it a little depth and I dont think I am going to do put lights in the shaded areas just exclude them from certain omnis. I will try waht you said about teh wood.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

updated for max7:

www.majestic12.modnmod.com/crew101/MiNT/Q.max

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Do you guys know if tou are allowed to edit the animation forms at all? :confused:

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Nope because then it will change the date on when teh papers when they were posted on streamline, so taht will probably disqualify u. I dont know though but I highly doubt you can change them.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

alright thanks, because we were thinking of putting some music in, but now we are most likely not.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Just clearifying on rendering, if I have teh camera just moving and nothing else important or text I dont have to set up teh safe mode or is that just a guideline? I am going to render these into tga format and use premier to put together. And then from tehre do I compress it and format it to quicktime and dv-ntsc?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Dont use permier it will turn out crappy. Download and use Avid free dv

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Quick question had problem with this last year, how would I have a tire spin if its part of the robot and the whole robot is already rotated? I mean taht makes the wheel spin really weird. Any way to constarin it or make it spin in place?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

ok, animate the wheel on it's own, before the robot is animated. then, link it to the robot, and then animate the robot.

if the robot is already animated, use the curve editor to adjust the rotation of the wheel. curve editor is accessed by a button at the top that looks like a graph with lines on it. you only want the wheel to have movement in one direction, so that means set all the graphs to 0, except for one.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I've got a quick question...

In the rules, it goes about describing the 5 second slate that is to appear at the beginning of the animation. The bullet just after that states, "Credits may follow that still frame..."

I interpreted this as saying that the credits should go after the slate (not after the animation itself), but every other team I've seen has put the credits at the end. Can someone clear this up (and if I was wrong, what possible effect may this have on the judging process)?

Thanks and good luck teams,
-alex

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

i have never seen the credits go between the splash and the animation. the credits get cut out of ther animation at the competition, so i think they want it at the end. It's easier to cut the end off an animation than the middle.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Unless they messed up in the wording- (i didn't double check) The still frame they are refering to for the credits to folow- is the Black still- Remember- they want slate- black-anim-black-credits.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Just wondering if someone can get me a video of scrolling numbers like in the matrix?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I guess no one could find one o well I just finsihing up everything. Mad though taht is looks really nice adn then since I was rushed teh end doesnt look good oh well 1 guy animating I think I did better than last year so whatever I probably post it later tonight.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

um, i don't have a video of it, but you can use this .gif i found on the matrix website of it, and in turn make it into a video. or even this screensaver (i'm sure you would know how to do that)

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

THats katakana and kanji. Thanks for help Ill look for a gif.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

i've also found this, http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial...e-vision/10234 and this http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial...e-vision/10234 not sure how much this will help, but can't wait to see your animation. :D

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Can you have still images in your 5-second slate?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

whoa, double post. oh well, i will say it again too i guess lol. yes, i know i do, and i have seen many teams have it. especially in past years too.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Holy freaking A! My team has the only rookie animation entry for my regional! :D

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Yeah, I have a question.

Are there any initiation files, or files we must fill out specifically for the animation that our team must submit for the competition?

Sorry, I was browsing all of the sites, and I couldn't find anything.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

yeah there is a form online that you fill when you submit your animation.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I was wondering if when they say does that include any sound effects added? like, if i went to a website to find a sound effect for like footsteps, or a vehicle, or something like that, do I need to get permission or is that just music? I am thinking it is all audio in general, but I just want to make sure and wondering if anyone knew about that.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I think only copyrighted sound will need written permission. But i'm not sure...

Anyways, we are making our own sounds, just because it isn't very clear on the rules (well it's a bit amateur since nobody here knows anything about this =p)
G.L. =)

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

IANYL, but anything you do not produce yourself is not your's to use. If the website where you got them from explicitly states that the sounds are freely available for use in your own productions and/or they are copylefted, then you are (probably) OK and do not need written consent.

If not, then don't use them.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Well, if i was to make my own sounds, how would i make a sound of say, a helicopter or something like that? That is something that would seem tough to make a sound for wouldn't it? or i guess i could record one myself if i get lucky and see one nearby.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

There is a lot of sounds you can do with your own body. Be creative. for example, the crushing bones sound you hear in the moive Jaws is actually cabbage being torn apart and cut with a knife.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

We are using a map for our background (sky), and I was wondering if there was any way to modify that (such as darken it) over time. My partner and I cannot seem to find a way using keys or anything. I don't think it's possible. Anyone have any idea's?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Okay what you need to do is make a sphere that covers the entire area so your scene is inside the sphere. Then import the bitmap into materials and give that material to the giant sphere. Make sure to check the "2-sided" otherwise the sphere wont show. In the bitmap parameters there is a graph that you can adjust to make the map darker. Also set the shere to 100 self illumination.

Or. you can scrap the sphere and keep the matiral and use the matirial as the background.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

We were doing that for some other things, I didn't think about doing it that way. Where do I have to move the map file to get it to show as a material? Also, do I have to change it anyway? Because wouldn't it still be a 2d map?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

alright, when you are in the evironment map adder window, on the left side of the window you should see material editor. Click on that and choose your material from there. I would suggests doing the giant sphere rout cause if your camera moves at all in your animation your sky will just say in one spot. If you do the sphere then the sky will move with your evironment. Although skylight wont work with the giant sphere.

But if you have problems with your lights you can exclude the sphere to the in the lights options.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

With the environment and material editor windows open, drag the backgroound map from environ. window to any slot of material editor, and name it as an instance of the map. Now you can change the attributes of the background image via material editor. To darken it, just go to the last (output) rollout and change the Output amount/RGB offset sliders (with autokey on) until you are satisfied.

You can use a cylinder/sphere to make environment, but I don't recommend unless your camera rotates a lot, and unless your environment map is "really" appearing...

But the sphere trick has some disadvantages: If your camera rotates 360º, it will appear the "seam" that represents the start of the map... Unless your map is "tileable" =p .
And like buddy said, it doesn't allow skylight to light the scene. And you have to flip the sphere's normals (or apply a 2-sided material), otherwise it won't work.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

You don't need a giant sphere.

Put a map in the Environment slot as usual, and then animate the "Output level" in the map's properties. 1 is regular brightness. 0 is black.

Note, has not been tested in Max.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Oh hey! That worked very well! My team has been trying to figure that out for the past two weeks!
I guess that's what you get what your 3d team consists of a 2 year and a 1 year animator :ahh:

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I win :D

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

You do know this means war........

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

I have a question:

Can you integrate a animated gif picture or a video onto an object as the material?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Yup, This in done in the material editor (press "M") Instead of choosing a bitmap or a picture as a texture choose the video file instead. Make sure in the parameteres below you set the frame when the video starts playing and if it loops or pingpongs. And you dont have to have it just be diffuse. You can also use the moive file for the other maps as well.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

hey all what time is it due for submission ? east coast time ?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

5:00 pm Pacific = 8:00 pm Eastern.

But I'll bet there will be gridlock on Autodesk's upload site as hundreds of teams try to upload massive video files at the same time.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

That is exactly why we uploaded ours before. A smoking 249.75mb. Cutting it close cannot even describe it.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Question about file size... We tried rendering our animation, and it came out to 2 Gigabytes!!! how can we tone that down? is that a rendering problem and/or an animation problem?

background info... we have one character, sparse animation, and a slideshow of about 14 pictures in the background.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

take a look on the number of frames you've put.... we had the same problem, but with 18GB... and 2.997 frames/s.... xD
hope it helped

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

what do you mean by number of frames?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Okay things that can jack up size of the video:

1- size of the video: If your video is 4096x4096 is going to be a larger file size. Render if out in 740x480

2-type of video compression: Your enty should be a Quicktime file and should have the NSTC codec. An umcompressed avi is ungodly large.

3-frames per sec: make sure your frames per sec are either 30, 24, or 29.97. If you set your frames per second to 60, 120, or 129,382,483,384 its going to be larger than it needs too

4- length of video: sometimes a program will render out 2 hours of black. Make sure your video is only the size it needs to be. Play the whole thing. If the little slider is still moving after your video is done playing, Then you have unwanted time of blackness.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Ok, we tried following all of these things, but it's still 2 gig. Is there anything else I can try? If not, we're fine with not submitting. (we had plenty of trouble coming up with a concept. The animation is cool, but there's no real point to it)

By the way, thanks for everyone's help :)

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

HELP US ! ! !
We are from Free Access Evolution Team and we are having problems trying to upload the animation. We developed the animation with all the specifications provided in www.autodesk.com/firstbase, but the upload didn't run. So now, we are thinking of making a new site to put our animation there, so we could tell FIRST the password to enter on the site. What do you think of this? Do you think t's possible?

P L E A S E A N S W E R U S ! ! !

Pedro (#2244)

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

HELP US ! ! !
We are from Free Access Evolution Team and we are having problems trying to upload the animation. We developed the animation with all the specifications provided in www.autodesk.com/firstbase, but the upload didn't run. So now, we are thinking of making a new site to put our animation there, so we could tell FIRST the password to enter on the site. What do you think of this? Do you think t's possible?

P L E A S E A N S W E R U S ! ! !

Pedro (#2244)

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

You could put it on your website, but who knows if it will get included on the DVD, or judged.. send the link to FIRST.
I assume a mentor - or someone with upload authority was trying to upload the movie? I had no problems last night.

Rob

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

yes it was a mentor who was trying to upload, but we received the answer from autodesk and they told us to stay calm, and try to upload...xD

we are trying to stay calm...xD

Tamires(#2244)[Hyniora]

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

ok, so we got turned the file size down quite a bit, but now we can't figure out how to put in audio while in 3ds max 8... can someone help us out? (again)?

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Hey
Is it possible to insert a picture into 3ds as a sort of guide? Since our animation team consists of two rookies, namely me and another guy, and we are just getting the hang of the program, we're not planning on entering an animation, but as practice, im trying to model a fighter jet, and i found a top side and front view of an F14, which I really want to model, Problem is, its a bit difficult to do it correctly if I'm constantly flipping between the file and 3ds, so can I insert it tonto the background, so I can sort of extrude and stuff my box to make it look right?

~Nick/1334

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Yeah that's pretty easy.

-First select a viewport you want to have it in
-Then hit alt+b and find the picture you want to use as the guide
-Finally click match bitmap, then click lock zoom/pan as long as you want the guide not to move.

Another way is to just use planes with textures on them. That's probably the best for your jet. It's best if you use blueprints to make the jet. So basically in your top viewport, make a plane with the top view picture on it. If you don't know how to do that, just go into the material editor and click on the diffuse map. From there select bitmap and find your top view picture. Repeat this process for the side picture just in another viewport.

-Good Luck!

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

That's one way to do it, but not my favorite. I usually make a material with a lambertian shader (or just set specularity and glossiness to 0), add the reference image as the diffuse map, copy it to the self illumination channel, hit the button for "view material in viewport", then apply it to a plane with the same aspect ratio as the image. That way you can move it around more easily. You can freeze it so that you wont select it by accident, but first you should go to the display tab and make sure that "Display frozen in gray" is unchecked.

Your way is probably easier, but I like the added flexibility this method gives me. If you do it this way, it also shows up in the renders unless you hide it.


EDIT - Doh! I only read the beginning of your post. The method I just outlined is the planes method you suggested. Good for blueprints and stuff, because you can match up the planes in the different orthographic viewports.

Re: 3D Animation Q/A
 

Make sure to go into Customize > Preferences > Something about DirectX and set the maximum texture import size to the highest or "match as closely as possible."

Audio and Compositing with Video Post
 

I was confused by Video Post... What apps did you all use to compose/ edit your animation. I rendered all frames as .tif , then used 3DMax Video Post to convert to a Quicktime. I could not add our audio track (.wav), so I ended up using iMove HD on the Mac - which degraded the quality significantly.
Last year we rendered directly to a .mov and had the audio imported in the 3DsMAx animation, and thus was recorded into the .mov.
This year I wanted flexibility, so I rendered as tif...
How'd you do it?

Re: Audio and Compositing with Video Post
 

We've also tried Video Post, and found it awkward for editing multiple scenes, audio tracks, titling, etc.

Adobe Premiere Pro is probably the most popular high-end video editing program. But at $700-$800 it aint cheap. Even the educational version is pricey - $280-$350.

Then we discovered Adobe Premiere "Elements" does most of what it's big brother can do and only costs about $70. So we bought that and are very happy with the results. You can download a free trial at Adobe.com but it'll put their logo on the top right of all your output. :(

IMPORTANT: At first we were very disappointed in the quality of the .MOV when saved in DV-NTSC codec. Then I found out it had nothing to do with Adobe. It was a simple setting in the QuickTime Player. Under Preferences I checked "Use high quality video setting when available". Then our animation looked great!