Animating transparency in 3ds max for AR-Media plugin

[Gils]

I am looking to animate a construction sequence for a building and to do that I need to hide/unhide objects in certain parts of the animation sequence. I won't be rendering the animation, it will run automatically in the AR-Player (Augmented Reality).

 

 

AR-Media plugin supports opacity, but not the animation controlling of it!

 

So far I have tried to Visibility Track, Blend Material and animating Opacity Control, however nothing seems to be working.

 

Any advice how to tackle this issue (e.g. animating object hiding, layer on/off - don't know if that is possible)?

 

 

Thanks in advance.

[-MerlyN-]

if all other fails key the position. have the objects out of visible area until needed and then move them in from one frame to the next

[Gils]

I was dreading this, given that I have to animate more than 1000 components. Thanks for the advice.

[DaveC]

Did you manage this in the end?

 

The AR Media plugin is quite limited really, and so you need to feed it information that a real-time graphics system would be more likely to use.

 

So for transparency, using a texture map that is white at the bottom, black and the top, is ideal. Then place it in the opacity slot on a UVW channel you are not using.

 

Then use a UVW planar map that moves up and down over the object quickly (or slowly if you want), or sideways, or whatever to unmask the object.

 

 

I think the AR plugin is good, but ideally if you have some decent programming ability for the project there are better open source systems out there.

 

Dave