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View Full Version : Animating a loft in 3D Max

rkgibbons
04-03-2003, 11:46 PM
Hi folks,

I'm looking for an easy method of animating a loft within 3D Studio Max -- ideally a solution that involves nothing more than changing a percentage spinner. I'm still stunned that 3DS Max doesn't provide native support for this simple function (or does it? Am I missing something?!)

I realize that lofts can be animated using a scale deformation (adding keys to scale the loft shape down to zero, and then animating the movement of those keys for the duration of the lofting).

This works in some situations, but when I try to loft a concave shape (say a moon-shape) the scaled deformation makes the loft appear to be closed-off at the tip of the loft.

I need a method of animating the loft and yet maintaining the proper shape of the loft shape.

Is there a plugin available for this? A script?

Thanks for any help or suggestions that you can provide.

Keith.
EricChadwick
04-04-2003, 12:21 AM
Not sure what the problem is, could you post an image?

When I animate the scale deformation, it looks mostly OK, even with a concave shape.
rkgibbons
04-04-2003, 12:59 AM
The problem with using deformation scale is that it simply scales the loft shape down to zero size. This works fine for shapes that are symmetrical around a central point, or even convex.

However, when you use non-symmetrical concave shapes, the scale deformation ends up acting like a cap on the loft.

Check out the image -- and let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks!
rkgibbons
04-04-2003, 12:59 AM
The problem with using deformation scale is that it simply scales the loft shape down to zero size. This works fine for shapes that are symmetrical around a central point, or even convex.

However, when you use non-symmetrical concave shapes, the scale deformation ends up acting like a cap on the loft.

Check out the image -- and let me know if you have any ideas.

Thanks!
rkgibbons
04-04-2003, 12:59 AM
Got a little carried away with the send button.
EricChadwick
04-04-2003, 01:13 AM
Well, you could animate an opacity map. But that leaves you with no cap.

You might be able to get away with an animated boolean. But boolean can be messy.

There is a plugin out there, Scalpel I think, that does what you want. But I think its $. Can't remember. Too lazy to look it up.
qwatkins
04-04-2003, 08:59 PM
For that particular shape you could just take the "C" shaped cross-section and do a simple lathe and then animate the degrees control to give you a "growing" effect
qwatkins
04-04-2003, 09:06 PM
For a non cylindrical "path" just create that path as a NURBS curve and then create the cross-section in NURBS and do a sweep. Then go back and hand animate the curve points because NURBS can be animated without any type of X-Form modifier and the curve will animate and update accordingly.
rkgibbons
04-04-2003, 09:31 PM
The sample image I posted is merely a demonstration of the problem I'm having -- it's not the actual loft shape that I'm trying to create.

I realize that there are many workarounds that involve manually keyframe stuff -- but I guess my question can be simplified to the following:


Is there a plugin available that will faciliate the animation of lofts using a simple percentage spinner?

Thanks.
EricChadwick
04-04-2003, 09:35 PM
Well, you could just animate the length of an instanced path, but that's probably not what you wanted to hear. If you were using lofted UVs, it could be difficult to match the tiling to the path length, to make it appear like the UVs weren't scaling too.

Just an idea.
qwatkins
04-04-2003, 09:39 PM
how bout "grow" http://www.digimation.com/software/
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