How to make "Line morph animation"

[Dimension43]

I've been looking for the way of "line morph animation".
The example video image is as follows.

http://www.youtube.com/w/Home-Made-K...0made%20kazoku

I heard from my friend that this kind of animation is not suitable for LightWave. Is this true??

I suppose this effect must be possible by using some sort of plug-in or so.

If you know how to make this, please tell me the way on Lightwave 3D 8.0.

[SaturnX]

The main way would be probably to use particle effects, via sprites and gradients, and also... good old particle age.
that would easily create the effect your looking for, at least in relation to that video... and also, moving the camera in relation to the particles, to get that cheesy pan movement thing thats happening... or you could do that in post.

Originally Posted by Dimension43

II heard from my friend that this kind of animation is not suitable for LightWave. Is this true??

When you catch on, animating particles in lightwave... is way too much fun.
Your friend needs to be re-educated.


An alternative...
Would be to try using D-storm's trailer plugin... to animate geometry, as opposed to particle vfx.

ciao

[prospector]

not suitable?
oh pishaw

I can think of 2 ways right off

1 way I like better than the other for visuals

the 2 ways that come to mind without thinking too hard

1

look for the slug tutorial on ...here http://www.md-arts.com/sluggish.htm

use it to make the ribbons to a large format (not 720 X 486) but like 1920 X 1080 or something big, because from the video they were layered into the scene and some places were rotoscoped also. (so the lines looked like they went behind the people, trees and whatnot). And the lines weren't static but moved in relation to the camera so the larger size lets you pan across the pic and get that effect. And using LW gives you a chance to make the ribbon any cool texture you want.

2
The way I like better

set your camera in 1 position then move it say 200 frames later to a place along the X axis so you have some travel.
along that x akis put some nulls (not alot just 3 or 4)
as the camera gets to a null have it trigger the null to move away from and in a smoothe curving line the camera and have some just offscreen and move towards the camera in same manner.
then apply an emitter and emit 1 particle per frame with no deathrate and have the particle use HVs. This should let you make a ribbon with any texture like the boiling sun preset, it should leave a line wherever the null goes, and it should be moving like the lines do in the video.
Then take the anims and layer them to your video and also rotoscope them into the scene. But this COULD also be done in LW by using your video as a background image, making some plane single poly planes (??), umm a single poly, and put that in front of whatever you want the line to go behind (texture it black with no reflection, shine ....just flat black, use black as background (after the video is done being used in this step).
and as the video goes along, keep the poly in front of the person and key the sizes as you go (resize, stretch poly). Once the anim is set, remove video as background, make it black (default) and render anim.
The HV will go behind the poly, dissapear, and then reappear on other side.
Now when you composit the HV will seem to go behind the object and come out the other side.

just a few suggestions off the top of my head

after I posted this I forgot to give ya some hints about the flat poly..
mainly it may be better to make a few layers of them in modeler and save them in the layer mode because in Layout ya may need to move individual ones and size a few to match the backgraound like going be hind an arm, then thru the body and behind the other arm, so ya may need a few polys to do that, but you'll see what you need as you do the video.

[prospector]

haha saturnX beat me

[Dimension43]

Prospector and SaturnX, thank you very much for your　advices.
I'm so impressed with your quick replies!!

However, I'm still struglling against this animation.
Please let me write a few points I still can't understand.

1st question
Where can I set the particle lifetime as deathrate??

2rd qustion
Which following ways of emitting particles are better??

I think there are two ways to emit particles on "Layout".

1 way is [Items]-[Add]-[Dynamic Obj]-[Particle]-[HV Emitter] .

The other way is [Utilities]-[Additional]-[FX Browser]-[HV Emitter].

When I use the particle effects on LightWave, I always use the latter way.
My usual way is that after setting the FX Browser property, through using FX Linker, I can attach my favorite object to each particles.

However, it seeems to me that this way of using Nulls is kind of different.
Don't I have to use the FX Linker to attach some objects with the Nulls?

Thank you very much in advance.

[prospector]

well life is deathrate....sorry for confusion
I usually say death cuz either they die or don't, and death can be set for time + or -.
What sounds neater?
I'll let you all live for 100 frames?
OR
You are all gonna DIE in 100 frames?

I like the latter

I always use the particle emitter first because they let Layout run faster when setting up (refresh rate), then add HVs to them and dissolve out the particles 100% so they don't show in renders and there is no rendertime hit to render them too. But that's just me.

nope, because I use particle emitters I parent them to a null and animate the null.But I suppose you could just animate the emitters.and save a step for each one.

[Dimension43]

Ｔｈａｎｋ you very much for reply.

To be honest, sorry, I still can't achieve this animation, Prospector gave me lots advices though.

Maybe this is because I can't grasp how to use Hyper Voxels correctly.

My current animation is very poor.
Just one gray ball try to catch up on the Null.
And as particle emitter proceeds, the gray ball particle can't follow the emitter in spite of parenting to it.

The rest of things I have to achieve is to make the one round particle become flat line.
As you answerd first, I supporse I have to attach flat poly using FX Linker?

Sorry for taking your time, however, I really want to achieve this.
When you have enough time, I'm very grad if you give me another hint.

Thank you very much in advance.

----------------

sorry, I forgot to attach the files completely.
I would like you to see them.
Thank you very much.

[prospector]

would it be possable to send scene and whatever obj files ya have and I'll take a look

[Dodgy]

Do you mean something like this?

[Dimension43]

Thank you very much.

As you gave me suggestion, I attached my Lightwave files.

As you can see, in my movie, one Null travel by being followed by emitter and object.

My setting is as follows.

Particle 1particle per frame
Particle limit 1
Particle weight 5

sorry for so many confusion.
I really appreciate your help.

I'll manage to achieve this animation.

Thank you very much in advance.

[prospector]

here it is..I hope it's what ya was lookin for.
this is why I like HVs better, better control, better textures
first line is snow texture, second is the Mercury setting, third is fireball as they come on screen.
Look from top view to see what I mean by moving with camera.

[Dimension43]

Thank you very much for your advice, Dodgy.

Is that the same way as Prospector taught me?

Now that I can understand how to make this animation thanks to Prospector demo files, I can aford to find the another way.

And through this experience, I became to love Lightwave3D much more.

[Dimension43]

I really appreciate your advices, Prospector.
Thank you very much!

I could find what I misunderstood or what I needed to understand through seeing your demo files.

I'm going to analyze your file in detail.
And I'll try to make other versions on my own.

Without your help, I couldn't undestand this.
I really really appreciate you, Prospector.

Thank you very much!!

[prospector]

just don't forget to tell your friend that LW is more than happy to do that kinda stuff...

[Dimension43]

I'll never forget to tell it to my friend.
Thank you very much, prospector