[Request] 3dsMax SOD Animation

[CABAL]

I have an MS3D file that I have attached to this post that I would like to animate. Unfortunately, it looks like 3dsMax is required to export animated SODs, so I was hoping someone here could help. What I would like is for outereffect to rotate 360 degrees about the z axis (should be the 'poles') and for innereffect to simultaneously rotate 720 degrees in the opposite direction about the same axis over the same amount of time. The end result should also have all meshes use additive blending. The blending functions now, but I'm not sure if it would get messed up in the conversion from MS3D to 3dsMax.

The effect itself is a new corbomite reflector model for Super Classic. Credit will be added to the readme, of course.

View attachment corb.zip

 

[Majestic]

I have an MS3D file that I have attached to this post that I would like to animate. Unfortunately, it looks like 3dsMax is required to export animated SODs, so I was hoping someone here could help. What I would like is for outereffect to rotate 360 degrees about the z axis (should be the 'poles') and for innereffect to simultaneously rotate 720 degrees in the opposite direction about the same axis over the same amount of time. The end result should also have all meshes use additive blending. The blending functions now, but I'm not sure if it would get messed up in the conversion from MS3D to 3dsMax.

The effect itself is a new corbomite reflector model for Super Classic. Credit will be added to the readme, of course.

View attachment 9390

I am planning on learning animations to animate some YY models, once I learned it I will be happy to help out (I want to finish all the YY Fed models first). So far I have no experience in animation and so I wouldn't be much help.

 

[MrVulcan]

Hey CABAL,

Seems like an easy animation. I could do it for ya, but would be even better if you could send the SOD file instead. This way I wouldn't have to rework the hierarchy and materials and the whole bit. Converting to 3dsmax requires you to export the model as a 3ds file, which loses the joints and special nodes. I could import from sod on my end, which keeps everything intact. Let me know

 

[CABAL]

Hey CABAL,

Seems like an easy animation. I could do it for ya, but would be even better if you could send the SOD file instead. This way I wouldn't have to rework the hierarchy and materials and the whole bit. Converting to 3dsmax requires you to export the model as a 3ds file, which loses the joints and special nodes. I could import from sod on my end, which keeps everything intact. Let me know

Sure, I can upload the SOD. I'll attach it later when I can use my desktop PC. Thanks!

And here it is.
View attachment corbsod.zip

 

[MrVulcan]

Made a few versions of the animation. Adm_Z mentioned texture animations in the other thread, so I used his suggestion.

v1 is according to what you said in the first post
v2 is with rotation speeds changed a bit. Thought 720deg per period is too fast
v3 is with sliding texture animation. You need to add the tex animation lines I included in the zip
v4 is with texture sliding and slight pulsating effect using scaling.

Let me know what you think. These are fairly easy to set up, so changes are not a problem.

Just a note, the sliding animation requires the texture to be seamless on all sides.

View attachment Corbomite Animated.zip

 

[CABAL]

I think the sliding and pulsing animations on 3 and 4 may be a bit too much movement, but I do like the second one quite a bit. They did get me thinking, though. What about a simple four frame texture animation on #2 that pulses the intensity of the texture? Here's the textures so you can see what I mean. By the way, blank.tga is just meant to hide the shield buffer box thingy.

View attachment CorbAnimTex2x2.zip

 

[MrVulcan]

I tried it with your texture and agree with you. The last two versions were difficult to look at with that much movement.

Reworked v3 to be a little slower. See how this one feels. You should update the sprite entry as well with 128 frames / 6 seconds.

Also I made one with the texture animation (v4). It just doesn't feel right flickering.. not sure what it is. I renamed the 4x4 texture to Wcorbrefr4.tga. Have a look at it, see what went wrong

View attachment Corbomite Animated Update.zip

EDIT: oh, and I'm not quite sure what the buffer box is meant to do. Is this necessary to scale the corbomite effect properly? Should I keep it in the sod?

 

[CABAL]

Reworked v3 to be a little slower. See how this one feels. You should update the sprite entry as well with 128 frames / 6 seconds.

That looks much nicer now.

Also I made one with the texture animation (v4). It just doesn't feel right flickering.. not sure what it is. I renamed the 4x4 texture to Wcorbrefr4.tga. Have a look at it, see what went wrong

I think it just needs more frames to have a smoother transition. And possibly a more vibrant pulse. It was supposed to look kind of organic, so four frames probably wasn't enough. I can make a 16 frame version, but it will start getting pretty big. 2048x2048 for the whole thing. Lengthening the duration to 1 or 2 seconds would also probably help.

EDIT: oh, and I'm not quite sure what the buffer box is meant to do. Is this necessary to scale the corbomite effect properly? Should I keep it in the sod?

FO has the shields scale differently. Without the box, the effect goes out twice as far, which is part of why I decided to do a new model and not just a new texture.

 

[CABAL]

And here is the 16 frame texture. I also remade the base texture because the pattern seemed too dense when fully zoomed out. Dropbox link because it's above the 2MB limit.

CorbTexV2 and 4x4.zip

 

[MrVulcan]

Even with this texture, I'm having trouble getting the whole thing to look smooth. For some reason the texture animation still appears to flicker, like its skipping some frames. I think it may have something to do with the way the patterns overlap (patterns overlap - everything goes bright, patterns offset from one another, everything is darker). Going to give it another shot in the morning. Might have to tweak the texture or try something different. Out of ideas for now

 

[CABAL]

If it doesn't work I'll just use the revised #3 since that one looked pretty good. Don't worry about it too much if it doesn't work out, you've done great work already.

 

[MrVulcan]

ok so I haven't been able to come up with a nice texture animation for the effect.. I kinda like the #3 animation too. I did try the effect with double-sided polygons (ei, you can now see the opposite side of the bubble, not just the side that's facing you). The whole thing looked mesmerizing lol. Was a bit noisy though, so I darkened the texture a little.

View attachment Corbomite Animated Update2.zip