texturing: Fading out a material

[EricChadwick]

If you want the inner edge of the concrete to show as it dissolves (the broken edge of the concrete that surrounds the rebar), then the easiest way would be to use an animated Boolean, and just animate a "concrete cutter" operand moving downwards. You could even assign a material to the cutter, which would be applied to the edge, for a unique look (red for example). Look up Boolean in the help.

But booleans are notorious for giving problems. Crashes, disappearing mesh, shading problems, etc. If so, you could try PowerBooleans.
http://www.npowersoftware.com/booleans/booleans.html

If you don't mind not seeing that inner surface, then an animated opacity would work.

[KINGOMONKEY]

Im not sure, but are you trying to show the concrete disappearing and leaving steel work showing??

If so why not model both independantly and use a morph to pull the concrete downwards??

Maybe this would work, maybe not, but i think it would. Hope this helps

KIngomonkey

[schmoron13]

kingomonkey, the only thing I'm working on is the absolute bottom of the pic. the shown pic is touched up in photoshop. What I'm trying to do is have the concrete at the bottom FADE TO WHITE. One solution I found last night was to map it in photoshop and then create a texture out of that...any other clues?

[EricChadwick]

Ah, totally misunderstood you. Sorry.

To fade out the bottom, take the concrete material and add a Gradient Ramp map to the Opacity map channel. Add/adjust the gradient flags (little gray pentagons) to get the right kind of lop-sided gradient (right-click them for color options, left-click the gradient for new pentagons). Rotate the map either by using a second UVW channel (a UVW Mapping modifier set to channel 2, Gradient Ramp set to same), or by adjusting the W Angle spinner in the Gradient Ramp map.

Make sense? Black in the Opacity channel is clear, white is solid, grays are semi-transparent...

[Tony Richardson]

Posm hit the nail on the head! A gradient ramp map is the best way to do this.

[schmoron13]

thanks for the help guys. It worked....kinda but now i have a new problem. Since it fades to clear, the sides get a weird reflection (like glass)...is there a way to avoid this?

-doron

[edaddy]

I thought I could cutout the still, and then using after effects (since I'm compositing the animation anyways)

...but as a) I've never used an alpha channel and don't know squat about it,

? how are you compositing then? alpha channels are your best friend --
me-> :beer: <-alpha channel

[edaddy]

reflection on the sides? hmm that doesn't sound right - show a pic of the mat. , and a render shot if you can

[schmoron13]

yeah well I looked at the 600 page manual and the clock that showed I had 3 hours till deadline and I (ahem cough cough) through the book under a pile of papers....


eventually, I got comfortable with the super basic features of (essentially, just doing bpm sequences) but never dealt with compositing....


not exactly sure how to go about doing it really. Do I need to set something up in max first?

[EricChadwick]

Opacity map channel only knocks out Diffuse Color. Relfection and Specular (and whatever else you have) need to be masked by the same Gradient.

Copy (Instance is the best) the gradient into the Specular Level map channel. In the Reflection channel, add a Mask map, Keep Old Map as Sub Map (your refl map), copy(or instance) the Gradient into the Mask map's Mask slot.

Should do it, I think...

[schmoron13]

here's the pic of the map and end result. A couple of things to note: I didn't apply a uvw map nor a uvw unwrap as regardless of the application, I can't seem to get it right...

[EricChadwick]

Hmm. How about a screengrab of the Material Map Navigator popup window for that material?

[schmoron13]

here you go posm...hope this helps

[schmoron13]

here's a snapshot of the uvw placement (note: no uvw map or uvw unwrap applied)

[edaddy]

hope you didn't miss your deadline- but that map pic you posted obviously isn't correct b/c the gradient on the sides is going horizontal and you need it to go vertical .. and your specular map could be whats causing the 'ghosting' effect as well...

[EricChadwick]

Yeah, the side gradient is rotated incorrectly.

Also, to get rid of the specular in the transparent areas, you need to place the gradient in the Specular LEVEL channel, not Specular Color. This will mask off the brightness of the specular highlight, so it will fade out too.

Deadlines are a bitch.

[schmoron13]

I've tried and I tried and it just seems to be getting worse:shame: It's almost comical in a way.

In terms of the deadline, it's a soft deadline, so I'm not crying over it, but I'd really like to nail this.

Here's the first of 2 pics: this one's the map navigator and I hope this explains why this is going nuts?

[schmoron13]

and here's the final render. is there a reason why it almost looks like a glass material?

[schmoron13]

also, there reason that bottom piece is a seperate piece is that during the animation, the concrete wall rocks back and forth over the foundation (which is that bottom piece). But is should still be the same concrete material. Is there a way to make that seamless?

[EricChadwick]

Didn't notice this before, but it appears your Bump Mask has nothing in its Map slot. Should be a bump map in there, at the least the same bitmap as the Diffuse. Same issue with Reflection... I see no reflection map in the Mask's Map slot. That's probably the problem... the surface is reflecting the gradient, rather than reflecting someting else and being masked by the gradient.

Can you post a Max file?

[schmoron13]

the max file is 2.88mb so I can email to whoever wants to look at what I'm f*ing up?

once again, thanks everyone for being so helpfull.


oh and I added a bump map to the bump slot, and unchecked the reflect slot and here's what came out. the horrizontal arrow is there because I'm not sure why this banding is occuring. The bottom object is sitting flush under the wall.
the other arrow just shows what I think it's the inside of the object?

[Peter Ryskin]

I figure you've probably gotten it right by now, schmoron13. But if you're still having trouble, I've attached a Material Library that contains a faded concrete material that should pretty much work as is.

It uses the standard Max Concrete (ConcGray.jpg) for texture details, a Gradient Ramp for the Opacity, Brice texture as reflection (simple spherical environment), etc etc.

There's an unused Specular Level mask, you just need to apply a map, and enable both the map and the mask, if you want to use specular mapping.

You need to unzip it to your matlibs library, and Browse From Mtl Library in the Material/Map Browser. Open the matlib and you should be able to use it.

You may want to click off 2-Sided in the Shader Basic Parameters, because as it is set up, all it does is increase your rendertime.

Let us know how it goes

[EricChadwick]

Hey that's cool Peter. I made quickie model too, figuring it might be UV/mesh issues. Not a pretty material, but here it is.

Peter, I'm curious why the double Mask in the Bump? A mistake maybe?

[schmoron13]

OUt of curiousity, does the fact that I'm using vray free affect the opacity levels? I tried using the matlib that posm graciously provided but here's what rendered using vray

[Peter Ryskin]

Edit: Posm:

Yeah, basically. Thought I'd fixed that in the copy I uploaded, but I was probably too concerned with why the matlib was taking up 47 kb (I don't like the Clear Matlib button, heh).

The double Masking tones down the bump not quite like how I'd have thought, though, going to poke around that a bit.

So, yeah, the single Opacity (Gradient Ramp) should suffice.

[Peter Ryskin]

Schmoron13, it looks more like a case of the object XYZ's. So, if you find the Gradient map that is used for the opacity, and dink around with the XY, YZ, ZX radiobuttons, one of them should put it right. Mind you, thats what it looks like to me ;)

Another Edit: Posm is using the UV-mapping, if any (I didn't, not on the gradient), so it would be UV VW, WU.

[schmoron13]

IT'S SOOOOO CLOSE...the only major problem is the texturing on top. I went into the Epoly face select, selected the top, and applied a different material id to the top face (as it's not supposed to fadeout), but I can't get the mapping correct, and it's super bright.

[Peter Ryskin]

What happens if you don't give it a new ID (ie, same ID all over) ? Fully transparent, or skewed (as it shows there) ?

[schmoron13]

could this just be a lighting issue?

[Peter Ryskin]

Well if you have a reflectionmap, check it off. Change the angle to either a much higher degree of glancing, or almost directly on top, and zoom in. Variance in the surface should be visible in a close zoom.

[schmoron13]

ladies and gentlemen, WE HAVE A WINNER!!!!

this is just what I wanted to (quickly) do:rolleyes: , and all it took was 3 days frustration. YOU ALL ARE LIFESAVERS!!! THANKS A LOT:buttrock: :beer:


-doron

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