Impossible animation?

# 1 30-05-2006 , 03:13 AM

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Can someone help me find an approach in animating this logo?:
user added image

Thanks

EDIT: the goal is to rotate it 360°...

Last edited by Axel; 30-05-2006 at 04:22 PM.

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# 2 30-05-2006 , 04:59 AM

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ok - I guess I found an answer...

Animating Impossible Objects

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# 3 30-05-2006 , 07:44 AM

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???
do you mean that you can't do something like this...

1. pick an axis you want to rotate on
2. at keyframe 1 set a key at 0 degrees on the axis you are rotating
3. Now go to say keyframe 30, rotate your obeject on the axis you are rotating to 360 degrees, and set a key on that.
4. activate the camera view you want to view the animation on, press play and watch your object rotate.

... and that should do the trick, but if it only plays once, then that means your timeline isn't set to loop its playback head. You can change that in the Maya's prefrences options. Just navigate to Window -> settings/preferences -> prefrences. In the prefrences dialog, goto the timeline section and in there is where you can change the playback prefrences according to your needs

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# 4 30-05-2006 , 08:48 AM

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Originally posted by murray74
???
do you mean that you can't do something like this...

Originally Posted by

Maybe I didn't make myself clear - I ment creating a 3D- out of the attached 2D-object and animating it... which seems to be a bit more complex as you can read in the previously posted link (Animating Impossible Objects).

Nevertheless, thank you for reviewing the basics user added image

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# 5 30-05-2006 , 06:03 PM

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Originally posted by Axel
Maybe I didn't make myself clear - I ment creating a 3D- out of the attached 2D-object and animating it... which seems to be a bit more complex as you can read in the previously posted link (Animating Impossible Objects).

Nevertheless, thank you for reviewing the basics

Originally Posted by

oh my bad. I did not think you where refering to 2D. However, I am still kind of lost. Why would you want to have a 2D object as a final object in a 3d application? Are you refering to doing this in Maya at all?

If you are, there many different things you can do with a 2D object in Maya. If your object is a vector you can convert it to 3D. You can do really cool things in Maya with an Adobe Illustrator file, especially if you have Maya 6.5 or above which makes importing a hell a lot easier. Have a look at this video...
creating an ice cream cone which by the way I wish simply maya would do some more freebie bells and wistles like this one.

Also another cool trick is if you still want this object of yours to be 2d, you can create an alpha channel which will allow you to control what is transparent and what is visible. Then map the image onto a polygonal plane, and then it should be easier for you to rotate it in Maya. If you are not sure how to create an alpha channel, then here a couple of tricks. An alpha channel is created by meaning any area of the image that is black will be transparent, any area of the image that is white will be visible, and any area of the image that is inbetween will be the percentage amount of transparency. So that means in Photoshop, you would want to select the area of your image that you want visable, and then fill that part as white in an alpha channel. Then you can save the image as a targa file and make sure you save it as a 32 bit image file.

Then again, if this not for maya you could do what the link you gave above explains, or I think flash has special effects for that kind of thing which makes it easier to do.

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# 6 30-05-2006 , 07:59 PM

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I think the point here, is that the above object is an "impossible" 3D object, but the aim is to try to make it rotate as if it is actually a 3D object. It would be the equivalent of trying to animate a flyaround of "ascending and descending" or "waterfall" (actually that would make a cool, if difficult project)

https://www.meridian.net.au/Art/Artis...scher/Gallery/

you'd have to animate a couple of models and keep compositing them.

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# 7 30-05-2006 , 08:01 PM

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His problem is that the geometry (if you take its shading literally) is impossible to represent in a 3d system. The same object is neither infront of, behind, or level to itself at the same time... its all three.

To the question: You might get away with blendshapes/animated textures to fake the shading. (Set it to the illumination channel in the shader so it doesn't light with the renderer, similar to a skybox)

But that probably violates the purpose.

Last edited by Phopojijo; 30-05-2006 at 08:05 PM.

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# 8 31-05-2006 , 01:44 AM

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Thank you guys for your feedback.
I am now back to the drawing board - starting with a simplier shape first... user added image

Are you refering to doing this in Maya at all?

Originally Posted by

I was asking myself the same question...

It would be the equivalent of trying to animate a flyaround of "ascending and descending" or "waterfall" (actually that would make a cool, if difficult project)

Originally Posted by

indeed, that would be cool!

You might get away with blendshapes/animated textures to fake the shading. (Set it to the illumination channel in the shader so it doesn't light with the renderer, similar to a skybox)

Originally Posted by

I'll try to follow these directions - after I went through the lightning and shader tutorials user added image

Thanks again

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