Mograph "Billie Jean" effect?

[JoelOtron]

One way would be to add a step effector and set it to effect color only (parameter->color mode-> on)

Add a material with the luminance channel activated. Add that material to the effector (not the cloner)

Then give the effector a falloff, MAke sure the effector spline controller is aligned at "100%" on both sides of the spine.

You can move the effector through your cloner and it will cause the cubes to "light up"

Im sure theres a way to automate this effect--so it runs through the sequence on its own, however, I havent found a good way to do that yet.

[JoelOtron]

Heres something that might be helpful

The formula effector might be the way to do it.
I was also trying a group effector which inclduded a step effector for ordering and a time effector to effect the step effector over time--but wasnt getting great results.

[thomastraum]

Hi Joel thanks very much for your help! The Formula Effector works already much better than what i came up with. But what I still dont manage to do is that it lights up in the luminace channel. I think even in your example it just modifies the material color but doesnt influence the luminace? if I put a 5% strong light in the scene you hardly see the cubes still turning on?

Its a general thing in mograph that I never manage to influence the luminace channels unless i use lights in the first place.

I know I could just have lights cloned inside backlight cubes, would look good but the rendertimes will be way too big for the effect I want to achieve.

[thomastraum]

Actually on further playing with it, I realized that the formula effector just makes it white wether it has a material or not. I dont manage to make it mix with a material on a cloner. :-( Any ideas?

[RickBarrett]

Joel got you halfway there. You actually should put the material on the cloned object, and use the MoGraph color shader in the Luminance channel. The color shader will put the resulting color from the effectors into whatever channel. Note that you can also nest the color shader inside layer or filter shaders - here I've put it in a filter to boost the contrast.

So just set up your effector to pump out the desired color, and put the color shader in the lum channel.

- Rick -

[JoelOtron]

Joel got you halfway there. You actually should put the material on the cloned object, and use the MoGraph color shader in the Luminance channel. The color shader will put the resulting color from the effectors into whatever channel. Note that you can also nest the color shader inside layer or filter shaders - here I've put it in a filter to boost the contrast.

So just set up your effector to pump out the desired color, and put the color shader in the lum channel.

- Rick -

DOH!
I started with the mo-color shader in the lume channel and on a cloner--but something happenned--got sidetracked and went with this method. And thats the story Im sticking to.
:)

[JoelOtron]

Rick

Now I'm becoming curoius how to solve another problem.
What if you wanted the luminance channel to move through each successive clone, one at a time? (I think this is what I imagined the original challenge to be)

I took your file and swapped a step effector for your random effector. But Im trying to figure out how to offset the step over time. I could animate the spline (in the effector panel) to do this--but was wondering if theres a more procedural method. The formula effector does this (moves the material trhought the clones in succesion) but then its harder the control what clones are influenced.
Below are shots of what I've done. Any suggestions? thanks

[thomastraum]

Thanks very much Rick, I played with that color shader so much but never got it to work.
Thanks very much for both of your help. And ultimately what Joel is up to would be the ideal thing i guess.
I am thinking now with xpresso it should be able to get through the single clones through an clone DATA node. But then how do you switch materials with xpresso?

[crackle]

over at base80.com may have a few sugestions to do this with xpresso

http://www.base80.com/index.php/2007/02/28/night_and_day_proximal

http://www.base80.com/index.php/2006/04/05/visibility_by_distance

i maybe way off base, but there maybe something else there you may find useful. like rangemapper node fun.

[thomastraum]

Hey Joel I think I found the solution. Just input in the formula effector ( id == t ) and then set t to something like 5 and you get exactly only one clone lighten up.

I discovered this through per anders amazing post here: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-475036.html

tt

[JoelOtron]

Hey Joel I think I found the solution. Just input in the formula effector ( id == t ) and then set t to something like 5 and you get exactly only one clone lighten up.

I discovered this through per anders amazing post here: http://forums.cgsociety.org/archive/index.php/t-475036.html

tt

Interesting. I get one clone to respond, but lose the motion when I input those numbers in.
Maybe I did something wrong--did you insert only the id==t in there or did you insert that somewhere within the default sin(((... formula?

Need to read up on this stuff more.
Would be good if there was a drop down library of preset formulae we could pull from and edit.

[abdelouahabb]

hi
i've a tip, perhaps it will work :thumbsup:
*mograph is not used
use directly xpresso, there is a node called collision, in the help document there is a good exemple using a sound as result of a collision! so, instead using the sound node use the material node, and connect the luminsence channel, -i think using and activator is useful- now each time polygons will collide, it will chek or unchek the channel! so like this when the dancer's foot will touch the surface it will illuminate :D

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