This is something I have been working on recently. Its not great. Does anyone know why I get these edges in the text? The CBS logo turned out fine but it looks like the text isnt set smooth. Heres a pic that shows what im talking about. Any ideas on how I can make this look really good?
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The Animation
Thanks,
Mike
Select the text go to the edit menu (F9), change the “DefResolU” to something higher… that should do the trick.
Hey…thanks once again Tumtidum. Now does anyone have any crits please? I think that the text should be more reflective but when I try this it reflects to much floor causing it to look dark. How can I make it more newsy?
lol, you’re welcome again. What does “more newsy” mean anyways? hehe I get the point though. First of all let me say I like it, specially the waving flag is nice, all looks quite “newsy” to me. Now some crits… 
When the camera makes the swing to the right there’s a point at the end of the movement where the “a” of America gets half cut off.
You could give the plane underneath more colour so there’s more to reflect. Also playing around with the Mirror Fresnel and the Blending Factor could help you maybe? the world colour is quite dark so I guess that’ll make your objects also darker when reflecting. But the truth is that I don’t really have a good solution on the reflecting matter these are just suggestions…
The eye logo and text are both white, maybe consider doing something with the colours aswell? The waves on the flag could be made some clearer, maybe bigger or add some extra waves with a different size and speed to get little more chaos (you could also use softbodies with wind though… quite realistic!)
Now on the “newsy” part… most networks use all kinds of particle stuff and lightbeams and don’t forget the boombastic music tunes… Hope this helps.
Hey thanks for the crits. Very helpful. I am not happy with world now at all so I probably will go with something brighter. Also, I am thinking about animating the world to have more chaos. I also, agree that waves need to more pronounced. Im gonna look more into using softbodies. The current effect is just waves of course. I think COG has some good info on using softbodies for flags. Do you have any idea how I get lightbeams in blender. I would like to get a volumetric light ray effect similar to the SHINE plugin for After Effects but I dont know how. I would also like to add some animated bling to the logo and text but once again I cant get it to work. I would like to get a subtle halo or glow effect that quickly travels over the whole logo right as the camera stops. Ill work on it more. Thanks again.
Ok, a short one on the volumetric light…
Open a clean scene, add a cube or something, Add a lamp, make it a spot, place it so that it shines from top on the cube, in the lamp button window activate “Halo”, the lamp should produce a haze already now… maybe change the “Dist” to something bigger like lets say 100. Do a render, you’ll see the spothaze now, but the cube doesn’t produce a shadow in the haze which ofcourse is not quite natural. Go back to the lamp buttons, make sure “Buf.Shadow” is on (which I think is on as standard), change the “Halo step” to 1… do another render, that should look more satisfying… change the “Halo step” to something higher and see what it does… Well, this could be a nice gadget for some “newsy” like effects… 
As far as I know there are several ways to get glow effects, I think there are plugins available aswell, do a search on that and I guess you’ll find some more info on the glowing stuff…
I have changed very little with this. Its more of a plea for help than an update. But, there is a change. This is not what I want the animation to do but this will give a good idea for what im trying to do. I want the halo(or some other shiny flare type thing) to follow the path as is(probably a lot faster.) The problem is that I want this to start when the camera stops on frame 300. I have found how to specify the length(in frames) of the follow path but like I said, I want it start on frame 300 rather then one. Also, does anyone know how I can get the halo to affect the logo, like make it glow or have like an ADD effect to it? If anyone has any other ideas on how I can an effect like this please let me know. I just want the text to give a quick gleam when the camera stops. I really appreciate any advice. I still plan to change things such as flag turbulence and the world, text and plane colors.
DivX
The animation
Thanks,
Mike
Select the object which follows the path, go to the object buttons (F7), there you’ll find the “Follow Path” constraint, change the “Offset” to 300.
Well, im almost done with this. Im really tired of looking at it. I changed the world settings and took out the hideous texture. Its almost how I want it but somethings not right to me. But, I like it. This will be my first finished project. C and C welcome.
Thanks to Tumtidum for all of the very helpful and timely replies.
DivX
CBS Animation
Hi Muckiem14! You got the modeling sorted out. The flag wave’s getting there but maybe starts too late. Movement is good if like the president has died, but usually TV = rapid. The halo effect is a bit too Tinkerbell, I’m afraid to say. Might want to look at this tut http://www.vrotvrot.com/xoom/tutorials/Welder/Welder.html
Took a while to complete, but learnt a whole lot along the way. Maybe your desired halo effect is hidden somewhere in there…
Thanks patdog. I recently did that tutorial hoping it would help. That is where I learned how to make the particles follow a path. I admit that the halos are not what I was going for but I cant find any info on how to do what I want to do. I really just wanted the text to throw off a quick gleam when the camera stops but I dont know how. I have searched all over elysiun with the welding tutorial being the only thing close. If you have any ideas I would really appreciate them. Thanks again.
Quick ideas:
-throw a moving spot light over the scene
-add a keyframe in Materials and crank the emitter up
Less quick ideas:
In the weld tut you learnt how to make a halo small and soft. You extended the life so it would become a letter. If you shortened it’s life it would run over the letter like a highlight. Remember that was an animated texture, but you could also just use one frame - the outline of all the text and use it to emit at the end. Sure there are more ideas to find! Enjoy yourself
