Animated Texture Map

[artcross]

How do you make animated textures? I want to make an object slowly vanish from the outside in while the camera revolves around it, so I was thinking an animated transparency map might do the trick...only I don't know how to animate something like that, or what format it needs to be. If it helps, I use AfterFX a lot.

[dunkelzahn]

Do a RMB on your shaders Transparency tab, select "Set key", scroll to the last frame of your animation, set Transparency to "0", RMB again, "Set key" an you are finished. This is one of Maya

[artcross]

thanks! not exactly what I had in mind though. I wanted to create an animated transparency map b/c i don't want the whole shape to become uniformly transparent. I also want to use the map to control texture emission for particles. I've done tutorials with this, but usually the animated texture is provided for me. I know how to keyframe.

[phoenix_germany]

Well, u can connect a ramp to your transparency. Set white to the top, and black to the bottom. Now RMB on "selected position" and key-animate the ramp to fade in the transparency. (u have to test with the type and starting position of black, until you have the desired effect). u can also animate your white point to fade in from black to white the first frames, or you will have a little bit of transp. all the time.

Or u connect to a - what ever - noise. Keyframe the treshold and amplitude to get a fade in to transparency, and use "time" to animate the noise.

if you combine the ramp with the facing ration of the samplerInfoNode, you can use the normal direction of the object to get a nice effect.

[dunkelzahn]

QUOTE(artcross @ 08/15/06, 03:08 PM) [snapback]245180[/snapback]
I know how to keyframe.

Sorry, no offense intended, so I hope none is taken.

Chris

[artcross]

QUOTE(dunkelzahn @ 08/16/06, 02:27 AM) [snapback]245265[/snapback]
Sorry, no offense intended, so I hope none is taken.

Chris

none at all! I'm still a noob, but I just wanted to clarify I needed a little more advanced solution. I'm going to try phoenix's advice b/c it sounds like it'll work well for what I want (thanks!), but what I really want to know is how I can make a custom animation. I know I can use psd files to map transparency's to, but how can I make an animated one? If this helps:

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/tutorials...vs\_uniform.html

They made an animated texture to control particle emission and transparency. I pretty much understand how they work, I just want to know how they made the texture to control those parameters. Thanks again!

[phoenix_germany]

Well, if you want full control of any pixel in your animated map - create the texture animation in some post-program like Combustion or AfterEffects, render it as a tga sequence (name.##.tga ) use the first frame of this in your file-node, check "Use Image Sequence", set the start frame with "frame offset".

u can use this for inside animations like a tv-content (connect to color and incandescence) or with grayscaled images in transparency or bump.

[joojaa]

Usualy a garaduation of a exsiting image is enough whet you do is keyframe a small band moving up and down the image file. Infact maya may be much better at theese tricks than AE is. + you have all your animation design in one place + no extra files!

Heres a example:
CODE
file -f -new; // im relying on static names because im lazy
{
  $shader=shadingNode -asShader lambert -n DemoShader;
  $set=sets -renderable true -noSurfaceShader true -empty -name DemoSG;
  connectAttr -f ($shader+".outColor") ($set+".surfaceShader");
  $slice=createNode -n "redSlice" ramp;
  connectAttr -f ($slice+".outColor") ($shader+".color");
  $coise=createNode -n "ReplaceThisWithFileTextureThatActsAsGradientPath" noise;
  connectAttr -f ($coise+".outColorR") ($slice+".vCoord");
  setAttr "redSlice.colorEntryList[2].color" -type double3 0 0 0;
  setAttr "redSlice.colorEntryList[1].color" -type double3 1 1 1;
  setAttr "redSlice.colorEntryList[0].color" -type double3 0 0 0;
  expression -s
  ("redSlice.colorEntryList[0].position=redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position-0.1;\r\n"+
   "redSlice.colorEntryList[2].position=redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position+0.1");
  // again i used expressions cos i was lazy 2 +-avg nodes would have done the same.

  currentTime 1;
  setAttr "redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position" 1;
  setKeyframe "redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position";
  currentTime 100;
  setAttr "redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position" 0;
  setKeyframe "redSlice.colorEntryList[1].position";
}

just swap the noise for any red channel flow trough image. Can eb a file or 2 actualy you can layare efew different ideas on top just liek you can in comp. prettymuch the only thein g that limits you is computational time.