Making 3D Objects Circle Around 2D Elements

[Jon Okerstrom]

Mel,

Are you talking about ProAnimator or Invigorator?

My assumption is you’re talking Invigorator. In that case, once you have all of your stars positioned, you can assign them to the same set and keyframe the rotation of the set in the X, Y or Z plane, depending on what you want.

Does this help?

Jon

[Mel2000]

Thanks Jon,

Sorry for the omission. I was talking about ProAnimator.

[Jon Okerstrom]

Okay. That helps.

Try Pose Position> Cylinder Wrap, adjust the bend slider to get your circular shape. Then go to pose grouping>spin y and check the use common center.

Does this help?

Jon

[Mel2000]

Thanks Jon. I’m still in the “read the manual” stage with ProAnimator, but I’ll certainly give your recommendations a try and let you know how things turn out.

[Mel2000]

Thanks Jon. I’m still in the “read the manual” stage with ProAnimator, but I’ll certainly give your recommendations a try and let you know how things turn out.

I followed your instructions and got the animation to work fine, and learned a lot more about ProAnimator in the process. My new problem involves the next part of the process: The matte “color” doesn’t seem to work.

As stated before, I aligned the 3D sphere in front of the circle on the 2D image. The sphere was colored blue and I selected the radio button for the matte texture/color. The texture/color thumbnail showed as a checkerboard, which I expected. When I selected the sphere and dragged the checkerboard onto it, the sphere remained blue, even after I rendered it. I tried all this with the color checkbox checked, and unchecked, but it made no difference. I need some advice on what I am missing here. Thanks.

[Jon Okerstrom]

Glad yhou’re making progress.

From what I gather, you want the “circle on a 2D image” background image to be located inside the rotating text. In this case the best way to do it is to create a primative plane, position it where you want it in 3D space and apply the image to it. If the image has a proper alpha channel, you will see only the image surrounded by the rotating text. The edges of the plane go away.

Is that what you want?

Jon

[Mel2000]

Thanks for your continued advice Jon, you’ve been extremely helpful. I’ve just got this last hump to get over.

From what I gather, you want the “circle on a 2D image” background image to be located inside the rotating text.

Yes.

In this case the best way to do it is to create a primative plane, position it where you want it in 3D space and apply the image to it. If the image has a proper alpha channel, you will see only the image surrounded by the rotating text. The edges of the plane go away.

But I don’t want the rest of the image (actually a background video) to disappear. I simply want the 3D text to circle around a specific circular image in the center of the background, leaving the rest of the image viewable, but uncircled. Everything is working fine so far due to your advice, I’m simply finding that the matte color function doesn’t seem to work. The matte is not applying itself to the sphere primitive I placed in front of the 2D globe. The sphere is only used to give the text something to circle around. However, I don’t want that sphere to show up on the final video.

Page 398 of the ProAnimator-ProModeler User Guide (Making 3D Objects Circle Around 2D Elements) shows pictures of the exact effect I’m after.

[Jon Okerstrom]

Okay…

I don’t have the manual in front of me, but if you were using the sphere as a guide and now want it to disappear, you can simply select the sphere and uncheck the visibility box for it.

I’ll see if I can dig up the manual and check you the page numbers yo mentioned.

Jon