Some Newbie, Some not-so Questions - Simply Maya User Community

# 1 26-09-2004 , 09:11 PM

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Join Date: Aug 2004

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3 Keyframing Questions

1) (Newbie Questions) How would you go abouts turning an emitter (especially fire which appears to have a fixed emitting speed) on or off at various keyframes.

2) (Newbie Question) How would you go about creating and destroying (or showing and hiding) an object in a maya scene throughout various keyframes. (without keyframing the object to appear from behind the camera)

3) (IMO: Not newbie Question) How would you go about keyframing shader-changes in a Maya scene?

Say you have a beaker model in Maya, and you drop an object in it. A particle emitter turns on at that point to create a cloud raising upwards, the object disappears, and the fluid in the beaker changes from a blue to a red color. (Example which covers all 3 questions -- not the animation I'm using it for though :b)

Last edited by Phopojijo; 26-09-2004 at 09:19 PM.

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# 2 26-09-2004 , 10:07 PM

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For those who played the game Halo, I'm doing a fan-animation which involves a character turning Active Camoflagued. That requires an average skinned character slowly shifting to a clear refractive (and slightly reflective with a bit of glare) mesh which (when raytraced) will yield an object that kind-of warps the objects behind it. Those of you who have seen Die Another Day, the Aston Marton "Vanish" does the same effect (with Q's foot), only in Halo its a smooth transition, where in the Bond flick it kinda flickers out before becoming visible.

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# 3 27-09-2004 , 04:27 PM

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Re: 3 Keyframing Questions

Originally posted by Phopojijo
1) (Newbie Questions) How would you go abouts turning an emitter (especially fire which appears to have a fixed emitting speed) on or off at various keyframes.

2) (Newbie Question) How would you go about creating and destroying (or showing and hiding) an object in a maya scene throughout various keyframes. (without keyframing the object to appear from behind the camera)

3) (IMO: Not newbie Question) How would you go about keyframing shader-changes in a Maya scene?

Say you have a beaker model in Maya, and you drop an object in it. A particle emitter turns on at that point to create a cloud raising upwards, the object disappears, and the fluid in the beaker changes from a blue to a red color. (Example which covers all 3 questions -- not the animation I'm using it for though :b)

Originally Posted by

Hi,

1. I would keyframe the emitter rate.
2. I would keyframe the visibility of the object.
3. I would keyframe the shader's values.

Seems like you know what to do, so I'm not sure what you're looking for.

sj

www.digitalplanetdesign.com

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# 4 27-09-2004 , 06:26 PM

The Maya Mountain
Join Date: Aug 2002

Location: Seattle, WA

Posts: 8,245

1) Agreed.
2) Yep. Or, keyframe the transparancy of the object's material.
3) Agreed.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 5 28-09-2004 , 10:03 PM

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Join Date: Aug 2004

Posts: 408

How do you keyframe shader values? The "S" key doesn't seem to work :b

Also -- how do you freeze particles in time for X frames... say I want fire to be emitted from an object, and when it reaches one point, I want to do swirl the camera around that point in time without the particles being emitted, moved, or destroyed.

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