How to create a shaped trail?

[Srek]

I did something similar by creating ghost images (slightly transparent copies of the object) as a particle trail of the original object.
Cheers
Björn

[mnu]

This would be one possibility:

Trace the planes vertices with Mograph Tracer. Convert the resulting splines to real ones. Put each in a Spline On Spline Object. Put these in a Loft. Now animate the SOS growth settings to mach your anim.

http://www.entagma.org/alteseite/plugins/SplineOnSpline101.zip


cheers mnu

[Kokosing]

Thanks for those quick suggestions, guys.

MNU, I'd love to try your plugin, but I'm on a Mac and I gather that's not an option right now. Thanks anyway.

Srek, I think I can make this work with the particle trails as you suggested. I've made the emitter a child of the moving plane. Is there a way to stop the particles from inheriting the parent's rotation after they've been created? They seem to want to spin as the plane spins - which I suppose is what real world particles do as well, but not want I want here!

Thanks,

Will

[mnu]

hi again

are you on ppc or ub?

cheers mnu

[Srek]

Have you used the original animated plane as a shape? If yes i would create a non animated copy and use that one instead.
Cheers
Björn

[mnu]

Hi again,

try this example file. It should do what you want. It uses an old COFFEE plug I once did. This work for mac too, plug is included. Just drop "WormTag" into your plugin folder before opening the file.

download: http://www.entagma.org/download/trail.zip

cheers mnu

[Kokosing]

Hi again,

try this example file. It should do what you want. It uses an old COFFEE plug I once did. This work for mac too, plug is included. Just drop "WormTag" into your plugin folder before opening the file.

download: http://www.entagma.org/download/trail.zip

cheers mnu

Hey that's very cool!

Are there any special instructions for creating the rectangles (like which plane they should be oriented to?) My trail ok, but occasionally spin around when the target object changes direction.

Great plug!

W

[mnu]

Hi again,

in general the Rectangles should be oriented like the original plane. The idea behind this plugin has its shortcomings though. It's not alway as smooth or controlable as I would like it to be. Hope you get your effect with it,

cheers mnu

[dennishmiller]

Hello. Could you provide detailed steps to creating the spline "path" that this uses (the upper spline in the heirarchy)? Does that require Mograph - quite a fantastic effect.
Best.
DM

This would be one possibility:

Trace the planes vertices with Mograph Tracer. Convert the resulting splines to real ones. Put each in a Spline On Spline Object. Put these in a Loft. Now animate the SOS growth settings to mach your anim.

http://www.entagma.org/alteseite/plugins/SplineOnSpline101.zip


cheers mnu

[Per-Anders]

For more complex shapes this really is something to do in post, you just render at a high frame rate and just use frame blending to get the trail result. This would be much faster than other methods.

If you want just a general trail then the MoGraph instance object is your friend, this will trail the whole object in space, a frame apart for x number of frames.

For a more general simple more 2d like form, e.g. a plane, disc or even a spline then you'd use the loftnurbs object. and create a loft history of the object itself, it's a little complex, however you basically do it like this:

If it's a polygon object then select the edges on the object you want to create a trace from, do a convert to spline. now make a tracer object in mograph and use that to trace the spline edge object, set it to be limited from end by a few frames.

Make several matrix objects, set them all to generate on object, and use the tracer object as the source, set them to use a "Count" of 1, with Loop set to off (keeping per segment on), now set each matrix objects offset to be slightly further on, so that they range along the tracer spline.

What we'll do next is simply create a linking spline around each of these sets of matrix points using tracers and we'll loft that to create a lofted trail, so create as many tracers as you have matrix objects, so one tracer per matrix object and make sure it's linked like that, then in the tracers make sure that they're set to either "Connect Elements" or "Connect All Objects" (as there's only one object in there it doesn't matter too much here which one you use). make sure they've also all got "Close spline" checked, and put them all into a loftnurbs. now you should have a sort of history loft based on the edge spline (not always useful).

[Kokosing]

Thanks Per-Anders. That works well. And I can't say I would have come up with that strategy myself. (Using the matrix objects.)

I would agree that post is the place for things like this. But I'm eager to have the camera move through the trails - similar to a popular ad at the moment. I'll have plenty to do in post even with the trails done in 3D.

Thanks again,

Will

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