wvdeerhunter
01-05-2007, 06:17 PM
I am trying to animate my custom created 3DS trees for Southlogic Studios Deerhunter 2006 game.
Creating in 3ds Max 5 and I am fairly new at this.
Southpark Studios said this about animating trees:
I do not recommend using mesh animation for the wind. The best way is to use the same effect we've used for the trees on the game (It's animated on the vertex shader). That way, the tree will bend to the correct direction, and will move more if the wind is strong.
About the wind effect, to make it work, it's just a matter of painting vertexes. Just set the vertex color with white to make this vertex solid, and black to make it flexible. You can also use shades of grey to make it more or less solid, as you wish.
To paint vertexes, I recommend you to use the "vertex paint" modifier, but there are other ways too, like edit poly/mesh, but it's more low level. our artists used vertex paint. You have only to paint the alpha chanel of the vertexes.
So now...on to my question:
weeeelllll...i'm confused. Can anyone give me more explanation on the phrase "animate on the vertex shader". Mesh animation seems simple enough and I can do that. But how is animating on the vertex shader done????
Creating in 3ds Max 5 and I am fairly new at this.
Southpark Studios said this about animating trees:
I do not recommend using mesh animation for the wind. The best way is to use the same effect we've used for the trees on the game (It's animated on the vertex shader). That way, the tree will bend to the correct direction, and will move more if the wind is strong.
About the wind effect, to make it work, it's just a matter of painting vertexes. Just set the vertex color with white to make this vertex solid, and black to make it flexible. You can also use shades of grey to make it more or less solid, as you wish.
To paint vertexes, I recommend you to use the "vertex paint" modifier, but there are other ways too, like edit poly/mesh, but it's more low level. our artists used vertex paint. You have only to paint the alpha chanel of the vertexes.
So now...on to my question:
weeeelllll...i'm confused. Can anyone give me more explanation on the phrase "animate on the vertex shader". Mesh animation seems simple enough and I can do that. But how is animating on the vertex shader done????