Animating 3D extruded text

[mandy123]

I am working with a logo that is needed to be 3D. The word is a specific cursive style font. I need to figure out if possible how to animate the text writing itself out in Maya. I know it can be done in after effects masking. I was wondering if anyone knew a way to create the same effect in maya. If so please respond.
Thanks

[failure]

Why do you need maya if same can be done in after effects?

[mandy123]

I am curious to know if it can be done. And have been asked to see if it is possible with in Maya.

[failure]

Of course it is. But I can't elaborate more because you were not clear enough about what exact effect you need.

[mandy123]

Sorry...I wanted to try to create the effect of 3D text looking as if it is being written out in maya as the camera follows the movement of the text being created. Does that make sense at all. Its really hard to explain.

[positron]

Write the word out in Illustrator or similar, export the font as an AI or EPS file and bring into Maya. Then either use those curves (or trace over them with the curve tool) as the source for a path extrude. In the Extrude options, toggle from 'Complete' to 'Partial', and that will give you the ability to animate the path extrusion in both U and V directions.
Unfortunately the Maya tools for animating extrusions really suck and do not offer the same kind of flexibility as 3DStudio and others. For example, you cannot change the outline shape at different places along the path which would be nice, for example, to alter the width of the text at different lengths along the path. You also cannot do animated Lofts or Birail extrusions, which would be (in my mind) really great.
HOWEVER
be sure to keep your construction history active and the pivot set to 'path' not 'profile', that way your shape will rotate with the path, and you can get neat little effects after the extrusion by rotating or scaling your profile curve in different ways.

cheers

:xposx:

[joojaa]

well doing a well animated thing is as hard in maya s its in max. trust me.

The real way to do script lik ethings is to devise smart birails

Besides ist not terribly hard to amimate extrusion and mite type changes in maya like in max. Its just that most of you use the worng apporach for this.

The key is the same as in max, ie use poly modifers (max by the way handles most things as polys wich is bbad if you have ahigher order renderer at your dsposal).

[positron]

well doing a well animated thing is as hard in maya s its in max. trust me.

I trust you. I am a Maya user and haven't worked in Max for a while. However I remember some out-of-box animation effects which are hard to duplicate in maya.

The real way to do script lik ethings is to devise smart birails
Right, the point is though to do animated extrusions, and birails do not open up their history like the extrusion tool does. Thus they cannot be animated. Am I wrong? Is there a workaround or different approach?

Besides ist not terribly hard to amimate extrusion and mite type changes in maya like in max. Its just that most of you use the worng apporach for this.
What approach do you recommend then? Animating extrusions along paths is tricky and precise, and you cannot change the shape of the profile over the path length (except in Birail+ tool, which is not animatable).

The key is the same as in max, ie use poly modifers (max by the way handles most things as polys wich is bbad if you have ahigher order renderer at your dsposal).

Can you give examples? thanks.

[positron]

Also, back to the original question, Paint FX might be the way to go. You can animate more interesting types of brush strokes along the text path. Play around with some of the default pen & marker brushes in the Visor or use the Mesh Brush to make nice scalable width 3D geometries.
To animate the effect, either animate the 'Start/End Bounds' per path/stroke, or play around with the Gap and Flow Speed/Stroke Time controls which are buried deep within the Brush attributes under 'Gaps' & 'Flow Control'.

[joojaa]

Birail is animatable. But not by default you need to twak the history a bit. There are basicaly 3 approaches to this.

1) use birail 1. And then put sub curve modifers to the birail ccurve histories (after all its just a node), you need to do this manualy offcourse as theres no magic lemme do it button in birail for this.

2) use a trim curve wich animates the movement along the curve. works on any parametric shape, and tus can be used with a aloft or anything. As such this offers custom tweaks to shapes.

3) animate booleans. However due to complexity issues it might need to be combined with 2 to isolate effects on specific segments. Also 3 is good if you want to user prman and its mo blur capabilities effectively.

quick example sorry didnt put the lines on letters t but you get the point using methgod 2 on loft. 5 minutes of work

test.mov

more on the poly later when i have time.

[positron]

Thanks, this is all great stuff. But I messed around with the solutions and I need some more help:
1) how do I manually create the subcurve node in the hypergraph or hypershade, so I can construct the custom history? Also what do I append it to, in order to animate the 'draw-on' effect along the length of the birail?
2) The loft example is great--but I don't understand the technique you discussed. What do you mean by 'use a trim curve'? The subcurve nodes that are created with the loft are only for each individual rail--not along the length of the shape. Basically: how did you do the test anim?

Thanks & sorry for my ignorance.. hehe

:sean

[joojaa]

1. betweenn the input curves simple example paste into empty scene (for convinience set last frame to 100 if you want to playback the effect)

curve -d 1 -p 1 0 7 -p 1 0 -4 -k 0 -k 1 ;
curve -d 1 -p -1 0 7 -p -8 0 -7 -k 0 -k 1 ;
curve -d 3 -p -1 0 7 -p -0.666667 0.428078 7 -p 0 1.284234 7
-p 0.666667 0.428078 7
-p 1 0 7 -k 0 -k 0 -k 0 -k 1 -k 2 -k 2 -k 2 ;
singleProfileBirailSurface -ch 1 -po 0 -tm 1 -tp1 0 curve3 curve1 curve2 ;
createNode subCurve;
connectAttr -f curveShape1.worldSpace[0] subCurve1.inputCurve;
connectAttr -f subCurve1.outputCurve spBirailSrf1.inputRail1;
createNode subCurve;
connectAttr -f curveShape2.worldSpace[0] subCurve2.inputCurve;
connectAttr -f subCurve2.outputCurve spBirailSrf1.inputRail2;
setAttr "subCurve1.minValue" 0;
setAttr "subCurve2.minValue" 0;
setAttr "subCurve1.maxValue" 1;
setAttr "subCurve2.maxValue" 1;
setKeyframe "subCurve1.max";
setKeyframe "subCurve2.max";
currentTime 100;
setAttr "subCurve1.maxValue" 0.5;
setAttr "subCurve2.maxValue" 0.5;
setKeyframe "subCurve1.max";
setKeyframe "subCurve2.max";

2) you create a curve on surface and animate its u and ve values and than take a trim that keeps ths selected area and click on the end where the curev moves away from.... Gwaah no time to paste example for you (actualy its not realy code i just copy paste what i do to the forum directky form scipt editor)

[positron]

Hey, thanks, got the birail trick to work, is there a way to make the subCurve node appear visually in the hypershade? had to drag-drop in order to use the connection editor--but once connectins were working I put a set driven key (an expression would work as well) between the two subCurve nodes so the effect would be driven by one control--very nice! thanks! this opens up a lot of doors..

still can't sort out the trim curve-on-surface to Loft effect you are describing--played around but can't see where youre going with it--maybe if you have time for a more detailed tutorial!! thanx so much!

:xposx

[joojaa]

graph upsterams and downstrams connections with ttarget object selected? But i prefeer to use hpyergraph for graphing out the nodes as i have more controll on how it looks like.

Also you can find them in otliner if you uncheck dispaly dag only.

[mikedin]

That was a great piece of knowledge Jooja! Thank you. I have been using Maya for a couple of years and still seams to me that like the example you have given us, most of maya is hidden from the user. Where did you learn this or figure out how to generate the subcurve. Better asked this way; can a person create this subcurve node through the Maya GUI without using trims or mel? How many other valuable nodes exist in maya like this one that you can only get at this way?

[joojaa]

If you take a extrude and put sub curbvve options on maya odes exactly the same graph it and youll se. I just did use the info elewhare..

There are pretty much of them, and mot alias solutions is just garbagling about thgeese nodes. you can find them all at:

http://localhost:4446/Maya6.0/en\_US/Nodes/

[mikedin]

Jooja I have not been able to produce a subCurve node in Maya without using mel.

Please look at these 2 files I've attached.

"proj_trim_STZ.mb" is a trim with animated components. If you hypergraph this you won't see any subCurve nodes?

"extrude_STZ.mb" is an extrude based upon your last post. I have animated the nurbs curve cv's and the profile curve cv's as well and there is no subCurve nodes?

Files I've created are here: http://www.stzgraphics.com/temphttp://www.stzgraphics.com/temp

[joojaa]

The only line of mel youy need to use is createNode subCurve whiele you have your network graphed and then use connection editor for rest, its a bit tricky at first
Need video?

[mikedin]

I thought you were stating in previous posts that this node is created automatically by your trim technique and also through extruding. So it doesn't in fact exist anywhere while animating in maya without calling it through mel syntax: createNode subCurve?

Need Video?

Who doesn't? What do you mean

[joojaa]

no trim creates a trim. i statedthet teh subcurbve ie created by things like extrude whan you use them so interpolating form there it must allso work for any other thing.

sorry freeing up dissksopace now... now all i need is a capture program