3D Animation Q/A

[BuddyB309]

Originally Posted by xrabohrok

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

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

[darkstar]

I love 3d studio max 8 so much

[animator1]

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.

[Tyr]

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...

[animator1]

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

[Capt.ArD]

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.

[animator1]

the preset thing? where is that?

[Damelvin]

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.

[MiNT]

Originally Posted by animator1

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.

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

[animator1]

2) trace one spline over the straight part of the exclamation point, and another spline over the curvy part of the question mark

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.

[MiNT]

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.

[Capt.ArD]

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.

[(InsrtNameHere)]

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

[Damelvin]

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:

[MiNT]

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.