3D Assets and Formats

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3D Assets and Formats

• Texturing
• Animation
• Rendering
• Director Real-time 3D foibles.
• Texturing Foibles
• Animation Foibles
• 3D in Director
• 3DPI
• Behaviours
• MNW 2006

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Texturing and Material Map Channels

• If a material in uniformly transparent we can
  simply lower its opacity in the parent material
  gt basic parameters.
• If however a material is transparent in some
  areas and opaque in others, we can use a map in
  the opacity channel to define these areas.
• All white areas of the map will be opaque and all
  black areas will be transparent.
• All the greys in between will be more or less
  transparent according to their brightness.

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Applied Opacity Map


Diffuse Map



Opacity Map
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Opacity Map Detail
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Using the Bump Mapping Channel

• Bump mapping is used to give a surface fine
  topological detail.
• Imagine trying to model some Braille text. To
  model all of the individual bumps on the page
  would take ages. Using a bump map with white dots
  on a black background would accomplish the same
  thing very easily.
• All white areas of the map will be raised from
  the mesh surface level, and all black areas will
  be sunken in.
• All the greys in between will be more or less
  raised or sunken according to their brightness

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Applied Bump Map


Bump Map
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Bump Map Detail
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Common Mapping Properties

• Opacity and Bump maps can be full colour images
  but only brightness (Greyscale) data will be used
  for the map.
• Such maps are not actively visible in the view
  ports but are revealed at rendertime.
• In the fly wing example above, the same image is
  used as both the Opacity and the Bump map,
  because in this instance the opaque areas are the
  same as the raised areas of the material.
• Such maps need only be flat bitmap images and do
  not require an alpha channel.
• These will also, obviously, obey the same UVW map
  co-ordinates as the diffuse map.
• These mapping types are often ignored when
  exporting scenes for use in realtime 3D
  applications like games.

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Texture Creation in Photoshop
Original
Unwanted text is removed using the Clone tool. Image is saved as Diffuse Colour Map
Image is inverted to make all the light colours dark and vice versa, then desaturated to remove all colour
Image has the contrast increased to exaggerate opacity and bumpiness. Image is saved as Opacity and Bump map.
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Animation in Max

• Animation length and speed
• Animating a free camera with key frames
• set start position
• turn on autokey (automatically generates
  keyframes)
• Move and/or rotate the camera to set a new key
• Animating a target camera with key frames
• Animating a cameras target

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Animation Controllers

• There are many different ways of animating other
  than through simple PRS keyframes.
• A choice of commonly needed animation controllers
  facilitate the production of movement in your
  scene.
• XYZ
• Path Constraint Animate camera DEMO
• Noise
• Sound
• Attachment
• Each of these still requires keyframes but they
  simplify what would be very taxing processes
  using keyframes alone.

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Path Constraint Position Curve

• Time (in frames) runs from left to right
• Position (in percent) runs from bottom to top
• Curve describes the location of the Box 02 along
  the path to which it it attached

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Keyframe Type and Curves

• Animation curves are used to describe how an
  object animates from one keyframe state to the
  next.
• They assist in creating smooth transitions that
  again would take ages manually
• All parameters that can be animated have an
  associated curve that can be controlled
• PRS
• Path Position
• Bend
• Morph
• Colour

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Keyframe Position Curve

• Time (in frames) runs from left to right
• Position/Location (in units) runs from bottom to
  top
• Curves describe the location of the Box 01 in all
  3 axes at any given time
• Red X
• Green Y
• Blue Z

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Curve In out Types

• Each keyframe can have a different way in which
  the curve arrives at it and leaves it.
• This in turn affects the pace of the animation

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OOR Out of Range Types

• Out of range curve types allow you to dictate the
  shape of a curve before and after the keyframes
  you have already defined.
• This way you can create and control a longer
  animation with minimal extra effort
• OOR types can be
• used on any curve type
• OOR types can be
• used on any parameter

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Rendering / Output

• Bitmap Stills
• Bitmap Animation / Video (compressed)
• Vector Animation / Flash (optimized)
• No Textures
• Material colour
• Fills, Outlines, Object separation
• Swift 3D Max (othersIllustrate, Vecta3D)
• Editable in Flash
• W3D ? Director

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W3D in Director 1/4

• According to preferences set on Max export, the
  W3D file retains nearly all the info from the Max
  scene.
• It will not however retain mapping channels other
  than the DIFFUSE channel.
• To use alpha mapped textures, these must be in
  TIFF or TARGA format with an alpha channel.
• It will not retain exotic or advanced animation
  controllers i.e. sound, noise, ffd
• It will retain simple PRS animation and bones
  animations. See next

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Animation MAX ? DIR 2/4

• Some types of animation in MAX are not retained
  by or exported in the W3D format .
• Standard Linear Animation PRS ?
• Path Constrained Animation ?
• Look At Controlled Animation ?
• Linked Look At Animation ?
• Noise Controlled Animation ?

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Directors 3DPI 3/4

• Displays detailed information about W3D
  CastMembers.
• Models PRS
• Textures Bitmaps
• Animation
• Lights
• Cameras

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3D Behaviours 4/4

• There are 2 types of 3D behaviour
• Actions Define how models and the scene behave
• Triggers Define when the above behaviours occur
• These can be dragged and dropped onto 3D sprites.
• Parameters can be entered as to the specifics of
  the behaviour.

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Recommended

• 3D for the web via Flash and Director
• A great source.
• Available in ST Peters library