3D Intro. Input appriciated.

#1

Hi Cgtalk members!

     I want to create a fairly simple effect but i cant get my head around how to actually do it in maya. 
     
     [b]What im working with is a Rubics Cube, and I want the rows in the cube to "split" in half, thus making the cube go from 3x3x3 to for e.g a 4x4x4, 5x5x5 and so on 
     [/b][i]- the interpretation of this is that a specific "problem" is getting harder and harder.[/i] 
     
     later on: the cube will shuffle, then shatter (bypassing the common solution) and assemble into two small cubes (one orange, one gray) - the mediatechnology programme logo. 
     
     Ill post the storyboard so you can have a look, but really, im stuck with the "split in half" thing - you know sort of like this luquid metal/morph effect. The best way to describe it would be imagining the sound it would make, sort of - "blup" and suddenly there are two rows... [b]Think of a waterdrop that divides in two...[/b]
  
  
    
    [b]STORYBOARD:[/b] [http://www.fctstudios.com/MTDIntro.jpg](http://www.fctstudios.com/MTDIntro.jpg)
 
 [color=Cyan]All comments are greatly appriciated. Thank you.

[color=Red]THIS SAYS IT ALL : http://www.fctstudios.com/Splitten.jpg
[/color] [/color]

#2

Im thinking - either ill use blendshapes, which might be difficult because i heard it requires the same amount of vertecies.
Or, ill just scale the objects out from one another - but from experience i know this will cause a lot of flickering and such…

Maybe using particles? but that seems like too much work for something very simple…

Im frantically looking around for scripts and solutions, I know there must be a simple one -
Maybe I am just using the wrong keywords in my google search?

If you feel that i havent provided enough information for you to help me - I will try to explain it further. But as I said - any input is good input.

Thank you.

#3

Hey.

I dont really know how it would work with blendshapes. I did a little test. and it seems if you have the 4 cubes intersecting to create the big cube with the bevels and edges slightly overlapping you cant see them when you render, didnt notice any flickering when i did a render.

Then scale the cubes slightly with the pivot on the outside edge.

thats my input :slight_smile: dont know if it helps

#4

Thank you Harthorg,

Yes this seems to be a good way to go. The thing is, i want to make it more fluent.

Currently what ive done is that i have created the one with the most rows/columns, duplicated, scaled every 2nd row and got a good working blendshape, although i guess ill have to switch it to a non-combined object later on so that the other cube-color can pop out…

I did a small test: http://www.fctstudios.com/CubicTest1.mov

Although that is very very static, to make it more fluent i guess i have to make a lot of inbetweens…
I will try to do it with blendshapes, if it wont work ill do it as you suggested. But i would like to know - is it possible to make it more fluent? sort of like metallic liquid?

Cheers.

#5

Hey, here I made you a scene with Rubics cube splitting and rotating as an example of how you can animate the splitting. I started with individual cubes and I animated the modeling process of merging the edges and deleting faces by keying the state of the history nodes. The file is Maya 2009. I didn’t render the animation, just these frames but in the viewport it plays OK.

This is the cube at the beginning

And this is how it becomes after being split into smaller cubes

#6

Thank you Emil33D!

I fully understand what you have done, but not entierly how…

Couple of questions:

[ul]
[li]How did you key the state of the history nodes? I have never done this and i have been searching cgtalk and google trying to understand how its done - no results + the attributes dont seem to be keyed either in the timeline or in the channelbox - how come?[/li]

[li][b]How did you go about animating the rows? - How do the cubes know which locator they belong to after each turn? And how did you set it up? [/li]
Do they re-parent after each turn (you might notice im noob to rigging)

[/b]
[/ul]I tried repeating your steps but i ended up with a wierd looking spider web in my hypergraph, then i tried keying stuff in the channel editor … well it didnt go so well…

Thanks again, I understand it might be difficult explaining some things over internet, but i really appriciate all the help.

/Michal

#7

I keyed the Node State in the Attribute Editor, Node Behavior section - right click on the name of the attribute and choose Set Key. By default this attribute is not in the Channel box but if you wish you can use the Channel control to display it there - I didn’t bother. If you want to see the key ticks in the timeline, open the Outliner, from its Display menu uncheck DAG Objects Only, and in the filter box paste: *nodeState . Then you can select any or all of the animation nodes to move their keys on the time line with the Shift key. You can also select all of these by pasting this in the Mel line: select -r ls -sn "*nodeState"; and press Enter.
To see all key ticks from all animated attribubutes in the Mel line paste:
select -r ls -type animCurveTA -type animCurveTL -type animCurveTU; then if you want you can move all (the entire animation).

  I used parent constraints to animate the rows. All cubes can rotate from a pivot (locator) in the middle of the Rubics Cube but to avoid the gimbal lock I made more pivots and moved them appart in the centers of each row for easier selection. Using parent constraint you can parent the same objects to different parents and animate which parent has the influence and for how long. Usually this is quite envolved work but I use this script which makes it a breeze. [http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/zv-parent-master/description#tabs](http://www.creativecrash.com/maya/downloads/scripts-plugins/character/c/zv-parent-master/description#tabs)
 
 I started with creating a default cube. The only thing I changed was its Create UVs attribute as you can see in the history. Applied bevel. In the UV Texture Editor you can see how the UVs are arranged - I cut the sides off the beveled part, left the beveled part in the 0-1 quadrant, and moved all sides to different quadrants. This allowed me to map the color of each side with different texture by using the Translate Frame attributes of the place2dTexture nodes - you can graph the material in Hypershade to check these nodes. The texture overlap was avoided by unchecking the WrapU & V attributes and then the each of the following texture was pluged in the Default Color attribute of the texture node (I used checker with 2 equal colors).
 I left the vertex normals of the bevelded edges soft and made hard the edges of the colored sides.
 I animated some rows and then with all individual cubes selected used Mesh > Combined, to make all one object. On a frame before the rotation starts, deleted the faces of all inner geometry and keyed the node state of the deletion. Then cantinued changing the object and animating it backwards by keying the node state of merging the opend edges from the deleted faces. Next, made some vertex animation by keying all vertices before and after scaling individual rows between the colors - first flattening out the ridges and then narrowing the gaps. At the end, merged the vertices of the gaps and deleted the edges by keying all this backwards.
 I think that was basically it, let me know if you need more info.
#8

Very good step by step explanation, than you very much Emil3D! :smiley:

I never thought that was possible, to key the nodeState? - I thought that actions such as deleting are more or less permanent, because they dont display any options by default in the channel editor.
And i really like the ZVtool, it even came with an instruction video and all - Im currently testing how it works, dont fully grasp yet how the locator/keying thing is done but its just a matter of time.

[color=MediumTurquoise][b]As of now I have really [u]only one question[/u]:[/b][/color]

[ul]
[li][color=MediumTurquoise]How would you switch between two shaders in an animation? (sort of the effect of an old tv starting up, 50% of the cubes will suddenly (at some frame) have an orange glow material).[/color][/li][/ul][color=MediumTurquoise]I tried using the condition node, adding a boolean attribute for each cube in their channel boxes and applied an ‘if statement’ to it ((…)sets -e -forceElement blinn1SG(…)) - this clearly didnt work.
I also tried using a blend node, but it didnt pass all attributes to the final shader (for eg. glow effects).[/color]
[color=MediumTurquoise]
[/color]
[color=MediumTurquoise]If all else fails I guess ill do it in compositing, but it would be much more handy being able to controll this effect in 3D - wouldnt it?

Thanks again Emil!

/Michal
[/color]
#9

It is easy to animate transitions between two shaders by using the layered material. I will give you step by step instructions how to try this using my file. I will try to to do it in a way that makes the process easier to understand instead of looking for the fastest way.
Go to the last frame of the animation.
From the viewport’s Panel menu choose Saved Layouts > Hypershade/Render/Persp and also make sure that the Attribute Editor is open too.
Select the Rubics cube.
In Hypershade: Graph material on selected objects. Select blinn1 material node, and from Hypershade’s Edit menu choose Duplicate > Shading Network. Choose Graph > Rearange Graph (or click the 8th button). Right click on the original blinn1 and choose Select Objects with material.
Go to the Rendering Shelf and click the Layered Material to asign it to the cube.
With the Middle Mouse Button drag blinn2 node from Hypershade and drop it next to the green swatch (layer) in the Attribute Editor. Repeat the same with blinn1 but instead of dropping it in the layers area, drop it on the Color attribute of the green layer. Change the Compositing Flag attribute to Layered Texture.
Back in Hypershade, Shift select all checker texture nodes taht are chain connected to blinn2 except the first one that is with black colors for the bevel.
In Attribute Editor change the Color 1 attribute to the orange color you want.
Make sure the checker textures stay selected in the same order, then press Ctrl + a to switch to the Channel box. There, click first on the value of the Color 2R attribute, then Ctrl click the value of the Color 1R, and press Enter. Repeat the same for the colors 2G and 1G, and 2B and 1B. Switch back to Attribute Editor and select individually each checker texture to make sure that all textures now have the same colors.
On the last texture from the chain change its Default color to the same orange with the help of the eyedropper in the Color Chooser.
Select the Layered Shader, go to the Attribute Editor, make sure that Blinn1 (the first) layer is selected and drag its Transparency slider. If your video car is capable of this, you should be able to see the blending between the 2 blinn materials in the viewport if not, test render.
Regarding the glow, if you want to do it in Maya, select Blinn2, go to the Attribute Editor > the Special Effects section, and increase its Glow Intensity. To fine tune the glow, select the shaderGlow1 in Hypershade and start playing with its parametares and test rendering. IPR is working OK with glow.
Oh, to remove the glow from the bevel or any other faces, apply a new material on these faces.
I hope this helps.:slight_smile:

#10

Wow. That’s crazy emil. It looks awesome.

#11

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.