i need to know how to!!

[andy shand]

i need to to an animation of a tower thats is being built up over time ...with all the panels and trusses being thrown together in roughly their correct order ...each component flying in from off screen.

 

So this is more than just using scalpel.

 

now i have seen some adds on tv doing just this so it must be possible.

 

i cant beleive that someone has animated each part individually...or maybe they have??

 

are there any plugins or techniques that might help to do this from within max9.

 

cheers

[andy shand]

thanks for the tip but this is a 90 storey office block with like thousands of glazing units??

 

i know how to animate individual objects but this is a much larger excersise..

 

its the ammount that is the problem ....

[andy shand]

more than likely a script or a third party plugin.

[andy shand]

wow ur right....thats seems to have solved my problem.

[Tommy L]

Eh? What a bizzarre thread. 'In order to accurately keyframe thousands of mullions and glazing panels over time, plug your mouse into the usb in the front of your computer"...........wtf?

[andy shand]

.....im still open to other suggestions.

[Devin Johnston]

Good God I've had my mouse pluged into the back of my computer all this time and am only now finding this out!

Ha..Ha...Ha....LOL I love this site

 

I don't know of any other way in which you could do it either.

[andy shand]

hehe ...yeah youve got to laugh ...but im still looking for a script or something ....throw me a bone cause im dammed if im going to animate each panel individually.

 

i suppose its a bit like a gradual explosion from the top down ...but in reverse.

[Nils Norgren]

Here is a script that I wrote a few years ago, it will do what you need with some requirements. All the items you want to animate must be seperate objects with pivots aligned, and you really only want to do one side of the building at a time.

 

This script is provided "As is" I gave it away at the first Vismasters, along with a few other procedural animation tools.

 

Hope this works, make sure to post you animation once you finish.

 

-Nils

 

ps. to run the script open it and choose "Execute all" from the menu.

[Devin Johnston]

Nils, can you give a better explination on how this script works?

[andy shand]

thanks nils....ill give it a whirl and let u know how i get on. ..cheers mate.

[andy shand]

maybe im doing something daft...but it seems to be not having an effect?

 

i select all the panels first...and ive tweaked all the variables

 

is it max version specific?

 

im on max9 xp64.

 

??

 

ps..im hitting the sack now.....ill look in ..in the morning..might try it with max8

[bigroo]

An alternative approach could be to:

1. have the completed building

2.then set the needed number of frames

3. Go to the last frame and start removing parts as you work back toward the beginning.

 

When you play the movie it will end with an assembled building.

You could also set the individual parts to go from invisible to visible (fade in) rather than flying into place.

It seems a little easier.

 

Setting the transparency of each individual component. There's a thread here I read a couple of days ago if you look hard enough.

[bigroo]

http://www.cgarchitect.com/vb/25891-how-did-they-do.html

 

I looked hard enough.

[Nils Norgren]

I am going to do my best (I am on a train with a Mac laptop, so I don't have max in front of me)

 

As for the script, the best way to test it out is to reset max (to an empty scene) then make a box, tall and thin like a pane of glass. Then make copies across and up until you have an approximation of a face of a building, with a few hundred(or thousand) panes of glass, select the glass and launch the script.

 

First step in the script is click on "Capture selection", you then set the settings, most of them are fairly self evident, one part that may give people trouble is the "Weight" area. The individual numbers do not matter, only the relationship between them, if you have 0 in the x, 0 in the y and 1 in the z the order will be straight up, if you have 10 in the x, 0 in the y, and 10 in the z, it will be diagonally (Front View) from bottom left corner to top right corner. The purpose of this is to allow for a diagonal leading edge.

 

As for the position, this is the amount they will start away from the plane they are animating toward.

 

The best way of learning how to control the system is to play with the settings with this simple scene, use the delete animation button before the create animation button or things might go haywire. ALWAYS have a backup scene of whatever you are working on before running this script. I am not saying that it will give you problems but you always must be careful.

 

Once you are comfortable with the script and what it does think about how you need to break up your model and layer it so that you can use this script on parts. It would make sense for steel to be animated in before mullions, and then glass, put the objects on layers, and animate them seperatly. I breakup models based on side of building, material type and animation order.

 

Good luck!

 

-Nils

 

I have no idea about he 64bit thing although I would be surprised if that were a problem.

[ipxstudios]

hey try exploding all the glass then reverse the frames in combustion or after effects.

[dinhtuan]

@NilsN: It's very useful script. Thanks you.

Tested ok with Max8, max9 32bit not work

BR

[Nils Norgren]

@NilsN: It's very useful script. Thanks you.

Tested ok with Max8, max9 32bit not work

BR

 

Thats odd, I am using it in Max 9 32bit, it seems to work fine.

 

could you describe the manner it which it fails? Does it launch?

 

I will try to upload some examples of animation using the script later today.

 

-Nils

[dinhtuan]

I Did follow your intruction but nothing happen after I press Creat Animation. I'll try again tomorrow when I comeback to work.

BR

[anvaraziz]

thanks Nils....

[Spooner04]

Just out of curiosity,

If it's a building with many identical floors, could you animate one floor and then proxy it in multiple times or clone it somehow? I haven't worked with proxies, so i'm not sure. just curious.

[andy shand]

in the end i am trying to emulate that "uniform" video...using animated transparency ...hopefully in vray rc5.....but at this stage anything is possible....thanks for all the tips......

 

and ....3dstuff.....thanks mate ....appreciate the humour.... im gonna have a whisky on you for that one.

[Nils Norgren]

Here is a quick animation that I built in 20 min. using the script, the model is a little thrown toghether, but it gets the Idea across.

 

-Nils

[Spooner04]

Very cool Nils,

Are you guys opening up an office in Dallas any time soon?

[andy shand]

acctually nils that script looks great!!!......but my model is in 9!! otherwise i would have used it.