How to animate the transparency of a whole group?

[daniloxl]

hi all,

i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

thanks a lot

bill

[daniloxl]

In reply to:
hi all,

i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

thanks a lot

bill

[artisan00]

i dont know exactly how to do this, but i can think of 2 ways, depnding on your situation.....
one, is that if the shaders are unique to the character (menaing that they arentused anywhere else in the scene), you could just key the transparency of the shaders individuialy, or better yet, make a driven key and and a custom attribute you could attach to the head or something that would drive the transparency of all those shaders simultaneuously....

the oetheer odea is basically the same,. but if the shaders are not uniques to the scaharcter, then you can use shading swithces maybe?...i dont have much expericne with them but they are in the onilne reference

[bosco]

In reply to:
i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

Map a ramp with just one color entry into the transparency of all the shaders. Keyframe the color of the ramp from black to white or vice-versa.

[gmask]

In reply to: i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

You could of course render the character in a seperate pass and then fade the transparency in composite.. this would give you easier control of the timing... otherwise you have to link the transpaerency and specular of all the shaders to a control.

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[daniloxl]

thanks everyone. i can't animated the transparency because my hairs and some clothing have transparency maps. i don't know how to write an expression or do something to get around that, any thought?
i ended up do that on the post. have to render that character in serparte pass. painful....

thanks,
bill

In reply to:
hi all,

i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

thanks a lot

bill

[artisan00]

just a thought....
you could make a blend color node with one input being your transparecny map, and one input being white (or black,....i never remember which one means completely transparent... )

then you could animate the blender control in that node you created, and map the output to the transparency of the actual shader.....

In reply to:
thanks everyone. i can't animated the transparency because my hairs and some clothing have transparency maps. i don't know how to write an expression or do something to get around that, any thought?
i ended up do that on the post. have to render that character in serparte pass. painful....

thanks,
bill

[quote]
In reply to:
hi all,

i've a character with many differents parts and shaders. all group together. is it possible to key transparcy for the whole group like in max? i don't wanna key visibility cause it's too sudden.

thanks a lot

bill

[/quote]