[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Ren,

Here’s a recipe from Zax in the forum archives,

It’s not exactly looping but will get you there.

Jon

..The 3D Flag plug-in is a completely physics-based cloth simulation, so you can’t set exact start/stop keyframes. However, wind in this simulation is very very smooth, it doesn’t suddenly dip or turn unless you tell it to. So if you set the wind speed to be constant the flag will fall into a rhythm. You can then render out a few seconds of the animation and find a decent looping point to do a crossfade and, viola!, you have a looping segment of video.

Here it is in steps. . .
1- Set up the flag.
2- Set the wind speed to 11.
3- Set Pre-roll to 8 (you want to make sure the flag is well into the simulation before you start to render)
4- Render out 10 seconds of animation.
5- Take the clip into an editing program.
6- Duplicate it and make the top layer partially transparent.
7- Slide the bottom copy back and forth in time, until you match up the wave patterns.
8- Set the transparency back to normal.
9- Do a short dissolve from one copy to the other at the match point. (“short” means something like half a second)
10- Render out the looping section of flag.

There you go!
-Zax

[Jon Okerstrom]

Jerry,

Try your favorite search engine and search for diamond.dxf or diamond with one of the other formats. 3Dcafe.com is another place to check.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Thanks Richard,

I looked at my response again… I should have thought more about spelling the word “worthy.” 🙂

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

HI Richard,

It’s a very interesting technique but would have to be adapted for ProAnimator. Normally, the software app must support image projection mapping… where an image is projected onto 3d objects from the camera’s initial point of view and the camera can then be animated with certain limitations.

In PA’s case, you could use an image which includes a bacckground and foreground objects and create 3d primatives representing the floor, walls and objects in the scene. That’s typical for the technique, but now the process goes another way. For PA, you would have to use Photoshop to crop textures for each face of the primative object and use distortion tools to make the aspect ratio of the texture match the aspect ratio of the object face. Think of an image of a cube in three-quarters view. The image on each side must be stretched into a square shape and applied to the 3D cube. If PA’s camera matches the camera that took the picture, the look just might work.

I suspect this adaptation of camera mapping may not work as well as it does in something like Maya or Lightwave (both support camera mapping), but it would be wirthy of an experiment or two.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi Jerry,

Modeling a diamond shape is probably best done in another application better suited for creating complex shapes. You could also find a diamond model and import the model into ProAnimator. Check out some of the free model sites and you might find one.

Either way, you’ll want to add some glints to simulate refraction.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Harry,

My first thought is to create a pose group for all elements of the lid and animate the motion of the lid on one track.
Leave all of the elements in the base static on the second track.

Instead of flying both groups past the camera, create a camera track and fly it by the computer. It’ll make things a lot simpler.

I don’t have a receipe yet for making the lid group move on its “hinge.” If I get time, I’ll see what I can come up with. For now, hope this helps.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Harry,

Michael’s tip works for Invigorator. You’re using ProAnimator, right? Two very different animation feature sets.

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Thanks for the file, Tyler, it helps.

Here are some suggestions:

The fact that one end of the logo is much taller than the other is what’s causing the “jump” when you switch from the first 180 degrees to the second. This effect is ampllified because you’re using the camera with a “normal” lens, which causes things to appear smaller just because they’re farther from the camera. Changing the camera type to orthographic will remove the size>distance effect.

The second part of the solution may be to do a very quick dissolve at the transition point. I’m thinking a total of 3-6 frames… where transparency goes from 100 to 0% for one layer and 0% to 100% on the other. Do some experimenting and see what works for you.

Does this help?

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Sure.

You can send me the project file (no other art needed).

jokerstrom1 (at) mac.com

Jon

[Jon Okerstrom]

Hi henry,

Be sure the precomp you’re using as a layermap has enough resolution if you’re zooming in close to the Invigorator object to which it’s applied… you may need to increase the resolution – but keep the aspect ratio the same. Also be sure that you have chosen “best quality” for the precomp.

Jon