The sphere is a wire only mesh when rendered - so it shows like a grid net plan of the sphere ( i’ve got another sphere inside it with a black surface so you can’t see all the way through the grid to the other side )
Now i start the grid spinning along the z axis.
As the sphere spins … I want to start applying a texture.
( You guessed it - it’s a globe )
So - the texture would start at one point - and as the globe spins - it would carry on applying the texture along that point.
ie… in one degree spin - it would have textured the one degree of globe that had passed that point. In 360 degrees ( one full revolution ) it would have textured the whole globe.
Maybe you could work with multiple materials on the sphere. One wire-material and one texture-material. First all faces are with the wire-material. Then step by step you change the faces to the other material.
There is one big problem with this approach: It seems not to be possible, to change the assignment of multi-materials over time. Or is anyone out there who can??
You could make many materials and assign them to the sectors of the sphere. (sector 1: material 1, sector 2: material 2, …, sector 125:material 125… ) Then let the materials change from wire to texture in the right moments.
Now - which of the two is more likely to work in the application.
( The application being turning a net grid sphere into a planet as it rotates about it’s z axis - in an animation )
If it’s not too much trouble - can you give me some pointers on this at the same time - since i’m struggling with the info in the blender manual.
The Build effect is located in the Animation Buttons window, in the same frame as the particles. To get the correct order of build, you’ll also have to use Xsort (in the Edit Buttons window).
The Stencil effect is used with textures, and the button is located in the Material Buttons window.
Stencil would be easier to control afterward, but a bit hard to setup at first.
Edit:
Another big problem is that because it’s a wire mesh - the object has no faces yet.
If i give it faces … then it won’t be a wire mesh any more. … …
How can i avoid this - by making it a faced object with a net for a texture from the start ?
Thanks
I’m afraid I’m getting no where with this bit
I’ve had a look at the description of the stencil buttun in the blender guide…
I can’t understand how it should work or how it applies to what i’m trying to do …
Well, to do the wire mesh effect, select the “wire” button on the material window (F5)
I’m afraid I’m getting no where with this bit
I’ve had a look at the description of the stencil buttun in the blender guide…
I can’t understand how it should work or how it applies to what i’m trying to do …
Can anyone shed some light on this for me please?
Cheers
Gareth
Gareth, I’ve had an idea. For the textured world, have half a sphere. Apply the texture to this using global scene coordinates. Then rotate this half sphere 180 degrees, this will then appear like the texture is slowly appearing on the mesh sphere as long as the size of the textured sphere isn’t to big compared to the wirefram sphere.
Of course,there is the problem of the back of the earth, again, this could be done by another half sphere, which only starts rotating 180 after the first textured sphere. Again, apply the texture to this using the global coordinates.
Its kind of difficult to explain in words, but I’m a little pushed for time to do an example scene. Hopefully someone must understand what i’m on about? :-?
Here’s a quick example of what I think you want to do. I use Stencil, but it’s really not needed for what I’m doing because I’m also manipulating the alpha.
Edit:
Hadn’t read last post at this point!
It looks EXTREMELY hopeful!
Thank you so much for the effort expended in the example
Good idea - only it doesn’t need a second half to achieve the second half.
( God that makes no sense! )
I mean - you have a globe inside a half sphere.
The half sphere rotates to reveal the front of the sphere…
the globe then rotates to reveal it’s rear - as if it was rotating before and it’s simply continuing that rotation.
Tthis only works when i change the whole grid thing to a texture from being a wire system.
HOWEVER:
That assumes the seam of the change of the globe is at the side of the sphere ( our horizon ).
I was hoping to have the seam right in front of you …
I’ll see how it works though.
Ripsting, I’ve done some modifying to your setup. The problem I found with your solution was that the texture seemed to be “rotating” at a faster speed than the wireframe mesh.
Rather than animating the texture postion emty by hand, I created a circle the same size as the globe, parented an empty to it, and made this circle rotate from 0 to 180 degrees. Once 180 degrees is reached, then this circle stops rotating
I then added a constraint to the texture pos empty to copy the x location of the empty parented to the circle.
You also have to make the “wireframe” sphere rotate at the same speed as the circle.
Thanks for the modifications - they sound like they’ll help.
2 things though:
The link won’t work - Angel fire’s server is complaining about “direct linking from offsite”
If you can - could you mail me the zip ?
Failing that I’ll have to telnet to angelfire and manually input the headers - then try and get the file through there - |'ing the output to a file - and then see if i can get the rubbish out of it and run it through tar.
Edit:
I tried just going to your home page - then going to the zip - and the server gave up it’s arguments - so no worries here
Thanks
I’m not nearly done with my problems yet I’m just getting started!
This is all new to me ( though I’ve used blender - most of these techniques are undocumented in the guide … etc ) - and what I’m trying to do may get more complex yet.
However the next bit, i think, will be more an issue of python control.
I have NO idea how to do that at ALL yet. I know python as a language - just not how it fits into blender and what the access methods are.
I’ll see how far i can get on my own though.
Thanks so much for the demonstration - I’ve been working on and off on it today ( in between the stuff my boss calls real work and programming ).
I’ve got to the stage of understanding a lot of the stuff i had no clue about before - like parent relationships, parenting, texture control etc.
Now:
In your example A empty follows the path of a circle as this circle rotates.
Another empty copies the x position from this first empty.
This second empty, moving along one axis only, is bound to the globe’s texture.
HOW ? I can’t see where it’s stated that the texture should inherit anything from this empty, and more importantly, what property of the material is being affected over time by the varying position of the empty.
The texture is constrained to the empty in the material buttons (F5). Look in the upper middle for a green button that says “Object”. You type in the name of the object that will control the texture (in this case an empty) and viola! Normally it’s set to Orco.
I had in fact bound it to Texturepos in the object.
However in my version - the empty was called Texture position.
Tell me - if i bound it to a mesh, and altered the mesh’s shape over time - would the shape of the applied texture follow, or merely the leading position of it?
I ask because i was considering it might give me a more spherical texture reveal - rather than the flat line one i’m getting now.
I’ll post a link for the current state of the film soon.
The texture position has nothing to do with the mesh part of the object. It’s only looking at the object’s center. But moving, rotating, or sizing the object WILL affect the texture. Things like RVKs, armaturs, and lattices will not.
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