Animated Textures

[Legacy_dusty.lane]

               I'm baaaaaaack~ And with more questions, what do you expect from me after all? This time, mere curiousity drives me instead of me being riddled with problems in 'max. So now, I was wondering, can animated textures be applied to creatures? How does it work? Would it be a lagfest (in the case of it does work)?

I also have a side question, does NWN support stuff like glow maps? I have an idea on how to accomplish "false glow maps" in NWN, but I'd really rather do it the more sensible way, so can anyone shed some LIGHT on that? '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Well animated plasma weapon textures (recolored water/lava/ice) have reported to drop frame-rates on older video cards...

Will try making some plasma golems and see it they are animated '>

Tho im thinking u might mean the OTR style animation tables?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 18 octobre 2012 - 01:46 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Can animated textures be applied to creatures?
Yep.  By animated, I mean animated like a flip-book animation.  Not speaking about procedural distortions which can behave a little differently.  Proceduretype arturo/water are procedural distortions, for instance.  They can be applied to creatures too, but in some instances long thin UV triangles can cause a slowdown.  It really depends on what the procedural texture does and how intensive it is.

How does it work?
Just apply the texture to the creature.  A .TXI with proceduretype cycle causes the frames in the image to flip and animate.

Would it be a lagfest (in the case of it does work)?
Nope, not in my experience.  It probably depends on how funky the target geometry's UV mapping is.  At the end of Part 5 of my series of tutorial videos on making animated textures, the textures of most of the stuff in my scene (including the grass) has been replaced with an animated texture.

I also have a side question, does NWN support stuff like glow maps?
Glow maps, specifically?  No- but see the next paragraph.  The effect is usually faked by using multiple emitter planes perpendicular to each other.  Usually 2 but sometimes 4 or more.  They don't have to be done with emitters.

But back to glow maps not being in NWN: It's sometimes hard to answer what NWN can or can't do, definitively, because A) Even after 10 years, the full capabilities of the NWN engine aren't fully known (Virusman discovered this only about 5 months ago) there are sometimes similar effects (see VFX_DUR_AURA_BLUE for instance) which might be tweaked through some trickery to do close to what you want and C) third-party tools like NWNCX (or the defunct Voodoo Shader) can extend or modify the existing GFX capabilities when used.

I have an idea on how to accomplish "false glow maps" in NWN, but I'd really rather do it the more sensible way, so can anyone shed some LIGHT on that?
Good luck with whatever you're trying out.  If it doesn't work like you expect, simply try to think of another approach.  There are often many ways to approach the same problem in NWN.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 18 octobre 2012 - 01:43 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_dusty.lane]

               @Carc,
Well, I do kind of mean OTR style animation, but I was also thinking of the plasma when the idea flew into my head of involving animations with mobs. Also, anyone's computer still lagging from stuff in NWN.. *SIGH...*

@OTR,
Well, I am not sure I am going to use anything of the sort on my current project. Can distortions be used to make something spin I wonder, or would a frame cycle work better for that?
Also I am going to take a look at those videos, might be a bit of help, and you know I can always use the help. Hehe.. xD

Thanks for the answers though.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

dusty.lane wrote...
@OTR,
Well, I am not sure I am going to use anything of the sort on my current project. Can distortions be used to make something spin I wonder, or would a frame cycle work better for that?

AFAIK, a distortion can't make something spin.  I assume you're talking about spinning a texture, like animating a simple pinwheel would look.  If that's the case, a flip-book style animation would do it, but so would animesh- where you rotate the UVW map of the texture instead of using an animation.

The simplest way of going about it is just rotating a mesh object which has a regular texture applied. 

If I'm doing something like that, I like to attach whatever is being animated to a dummy node and then animate the dummy node.  This is a good idea for all kinds of reasons (there are certain issues with hooking an animated mesh directly to another animated mesh) and it allows you finer control over how (whatever) is being animated.  For instance, I might make 3 dummies: A "bob", a "pitch" and a "yaw", with bob as the parent to pitch and yaw as the child of pitch.  Then connect whaterver I want animated to my "yaw" dummy.  So I can animate my bob (bezier position up and down), then my pitch, then my yaw.  If I don't like how any of them are coming out, I can just remove that dummy, attach a new one in the correct spot in the hierarchy, and start again.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 19 octobre 2012 - 08:33 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

dusty.lane wrote...
@OTR,
Well, I am not sure I am going to use anything of the sort on my current project. Can distortions be used to make something spin I wonder, or would a frame cycle work better for that?

AFAIK, a distortion can't make something spin.  I assume you're talking about spinning a texture, like animating a simple pinwheel would look.  If that's the case, a flip-book style animation would do it, but so would animesh- where you rotate the UVW map of the texture instead of using an animation.

The simplest way of going about it is just rotating a mesh object which has a regular texture applied. 

If I'm doing something like that, I like to attach whatever is being animated to a dummy node and then animate the dummy node.  This is a good idea for all kinds of reasons (there are certain issues with hooking an animated mesh directly to another animated mesh) and it allows you finer control over how (whatever) is being animated.  For instance, I might make 3 dummies: A "bob", a "pitch" and a "yaw", with bob as the parent to pitch and yaw as the child of pitch.  Then connect whaterver I want animated to my "yaw" dummy.  So I can animate my bob (bezier position up and down), then my pitch, then my yaw.  If I don't like how any of them are coming out, I can just remove that dummy, attach a new one in the correct spot in the hierarchy, and start again.

  The seperate purpose specific dummy objects is something I hadn't considered.
  I don't think I would delete it if it was off, though.  You could just select that dummy and remove all the associated animation keys that were off.  It seems to me that would be faster than remaking, positioning, and linking the new object.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Failed.Bard wrote...
  The seperate purpose specific dummy objects is something I hadn't considered.

It's a huge time saver for what I like to do.  I believe that setup also prevents gimbal lock, FWIW.

Failed.Bard wrote...
I don't think I would delete it if it was off, though.  You could just select that dummy and remove all the associated animation keys that were off.  It seems to me that would be faster than remaking, positioning, and linking the new object.

Absolutely correct.  That would definitely be the better way.