I have been testing the anim plugin a little bit lately, and some questions
have come up,  I think they have not been covered earlier.
-Does scanline rendering support some kind of texturing?
-It seems like rotation is not interpolated very well between keyframes.
How can I make a "person" move along a curve and make sure he is always
looking along the tangent of the curve? I know curve animation is not
supported, but it should be possible to make him move in a circle with a
little bit of rotation per frame without having keys on every frame.
-- 
Hans Petter Birkeland

han### [at] c2inet
http://home.c2i.net/hanspb/

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Hans Petter Birkeland wrote:
> 
> I have been testing the anim plugin a little bit lately, and some questions
> have come up,  I think they have not been covered earlier.
> -Does scanline rendering support some kind of texturing?

Flat (single color/shade for entire triangle), Gouraud (each vertex
shaded, colors inbetween interpolated), and Phong (every visible pixel
shaded/colored).  Pick one.


> -It seems like rotation is not interpolated very well between keyframes.

Rotations can be non-intuitive.  If you say to interpolate between -180
and 180, I can legitimately do nothing.  If you say to go from -179 to
179, I will choose the short way.  All rotations are turned into
Quaternions, interpolated, then turned back into Euler angles.  This
method of handling rotations is what almost every other animation
package in the world does.


> How can I make a "person" move along a curve and make sure he is always
> looking along the tangent of the curve? I know curve animation is not
> supported, but it should be possible to make him move in a circle with a
> little bit of rotation per frame without having keys on every frame.

Unfortunately, I really need to add a few more things to the plugin to
make this easy in the general case of following a path.  For your
particular example, I don't see why you have a problem.  By combining
local and object coordinates, you can do just what you want.  Move the
person out to the radius of the circle, then rotate about the origin. 
He will always be facing forward.

Xander

P.S. Keep the suggestions coming.  They might not get done instantly,
but I'm listening.

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Xander,

I think your e-mail link on the Moray Plug-in page is old - its pointing to
are### [at] hotbotcom

> P.S. Keep the suggestions coming.  They might not get done instantly,
> but I'm listening.

So, you are open to suggestions??

How about adding a constant to be applied to an object for every frame?
Your plug-in is a great tool.  Unfortunately we can't combine some of what
POV anim can do with the plug-in.  What I had in mind is if someone was to
do an animation of a vehicle and you wanted to rotate the wheels - the
constant can then be used to do the work for us - rotate the tire 5 degrees
for each frame.

And how about a random noise generator to be applied to an object for each
frame?  With limits entered by the user?


Mike

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Alexander Enzmann <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote:
:> -Does scanline rendering support some kind of texturing?

: Flat (single color/shade for entire triangle), Gouraud (each vertex
: shaded, colors inbetween interpolated), and Phong (every visible pixel
: shaded/colored).  Pick one.

  Those are shading methods, not texturing methods.
  Texturing is when you apply a bitmap image to a surface (no matter if the
surface is shaded or not).

-- 
main(i,_){for(_?--i,main(i+2,"FhhQHFIJD|FQTITFN]zRFHhhTBFHhhTBFysdB"[i]
):5;i&&_>1;printf("%s",_-70?_&1?"[]":" ":(_=0,"\n")),_/=2);} /*- Warp -*/

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Mike Weber wrote:
> 
> Xander,
> 
> I think your e-mail link on the Moray Plug-in page is old - its pointing to
> are### [at] hotbotcom

No - that's actually the right place.  I don't want all messages about
the plugin to come to me at work.

> 
> > P.S. Keep the suggestions coming.  They might not get done instantly,
> > but I'm listening.
> 
> So, you are open to suggestions??

Absolutely.

> 
> How about adding a constant to be applied to an object for every frame?

I've actually been thinking in a more general fashion.  Part of what is
necessary in the timeline tools is the ability to attach what MAX calls
an "f-curve" to things.  You build a function and attach it to some
animatable property (translation, rotation, color, ...).

A thought I've had is that it would be really nice to have some sort of
external call available when evaluating things.  Some sort of way to say
that the translation is connected to a DLL [or even better, Java class]
that gives back values over time.

> Your plug-in is a great tool.  Unfortunately we can't combine some of what
> POV anim can do with the plug-in.  What I had in mind is if someone was to
> do an animation of a vehicle and you wanted to rotate the wheels - the
> constant can then be used to do the work for us - rotate the tire 5 degrees
> for each frame.

Yup.  At the moment the anim generator is just the basics [and it sure
took a lot of time just to get there].  When I have time I add things
on...

> 
> And how about a random noise generator to be applied to an object for each
> frame?  With limits entered by the user?

See above.  With a flexible enough system for attaching functions to
attributes, that could be accomodated.

Xander

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Nieminen Juha wrote:
> 
> Alexander Enzmann <xan### [at] mitreorg> wrote:
> :> -Does scanline rendering support some kind of texturing?
> 
> : Flat (single color/shade for entire triangle), Gouraud (each vertex
> : shaded, colors inbetween interpolated), and Phong (every visible pixel
> : shaded/colored).  Pick one.
> 
>   Those are shading methods, not texturing methods.
>   Texturing is when you apply a bitmap image to a surface (no matter if the
> surface is shaded or not).

I think you will find some ambiguity on this matter.  RenderMan uses the
term shading to mean evaluation of color at a point (to include the
lighting calculations).  I am using this sort of general term.

What you are refering to is often stated as, "texture mapping". 
Applying a bitmap to a surface can be done in many ways.  Most often it
is for making color.  With many rendering packages, bitmaps are also
used to control specularity, reflectivity, transparency, ...

I made the assumption that the original poster was interested in what
kinds of quality were available from scanline.  Many scanline renderers
evaluate lighting at vertices and interpolate color [possibly using a
texture map] across the triangle.  The plugin renderer is capable of
doing that, as well as per-pixel shading.

Xander

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> >
> > I think your e-mail link on the Moray Plug-in page is old - its pointing
to
> > are### [at] hotbotcom
>
> No - that's actually the right place.  I don't want all messages about
> the plugin to come to me at work.

I sent an e-mail to that above address and it came back undeliverable.

>
> Yup.  At the moment the anim generator is just the basics [and it sure
> took a lot of time just to get there].  When I have time I add things
> on...
>

I agree - I've been working on a b-spline plug-in and it does take a lot of
work.

Mike

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i've been thinking about the two ways rotation-values can be
interpolated.
like xander said, there is the short way and the long way. or: should
the plugin take care about the 360-degree-periodicity of rotation-values
or not?
my suggestion is:
let the user choose with a "euler xyz"-checkbox.
user friendly default-settings would be:
-if the rotation-value has been typed-in and is higher than 360 degrees,
"euler xyz" is set by default.
- if the rotation-value is lower than 360 or has been set with the
mouse, no "euler xyz".

alex

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what is the "euler-xyz"?



--
Mike

wk: mik### [at] pyxiscom  www.pyxis.com
hm: mwe### [at] sciticom  www.geocities.com/mikepweber
www.geocities.com/mikepweber

> let the user choose with a "euler xyz"-checkbox.
> user friendly default-settings would be:
> -if the rotation-value has been typed-in and is higher than 360 degrees,
> "euler xyz" is set by default.
> - if the rotation-value is lower than 360 or has been set with the
> mouse, no "euler xyz".
>
> alex
>

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Mike Weber wrote:

> what is the "euler-xyz"?

well, i really don't know what euler got to do with it (i know the name
from max) but i mean that the rotation-values can be higher than 360
degree and lower than 0 degree and the values are interpolated simply
like translate- or scale-values.
alex

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