- iClone 4.31 3D Animation Beginner's Guide
- M.D. McCallum
- 1108字
- 2021-08-27 12:20:54
Time for action - adding fire effects to the grill
The outdoor grill that we placed on the deck earlier has a fiery charcoal texture already added to the inside of the grill, but to make it look better, we need those charcoals to glow. The built glow channel will take care of that for us. We just need the right glow map and one is provided with iClone.
- Select the grill in the Scene Manager or select it with your mouse and then press the home button in the upper toolbar to bring the grill into view.
Tip
Focusing the camera on an object
The Home key is a very important tool that focuses your camera around a particular prop, character, or other object in the scene. With the object that you want to focus on being selected, press the Home key to move the camera to that object. You can then adjust the camera angle to your preference. The following image shows the camera controls:
- With the grill selected, click on the right mouse button to invoke the prop's right-click menu. Choose Remove All Animation. If the grill is open in the first frame then you can go to the next step. However, if the grill is closed, we need to make sure we are both working on the same animation state and that is why we are removing the animation. This does not strip the animation out of the prop as it only removes any active animation currently triggered in the prop.
- With the timeline scrubber at the beginning of the timeline, right-click on the Animation, go to Perform, and select Open Grill.
- Right-click again on the grill and once again select Remove All Animation.
- Move the timeline scrubber back to frame 1 before continuing to the next step.
- Select the grill directly with the mouse or in the Scene Manager.
- In the drop-down box located within the Material and Texturing settings section of the right menu, select Charcoals. You should now see the charcoal texture in the Diffuse channel.
- Double-click on the Glow channel and select Desert-Sun as the glow map.
You should now have glowing charcoals. You can set the intensity of the glow by adjusting the slider bar under the Strength setting.
Adjust this setting to your preference.
What just happened?
As mentioned in step 5, we need to make sure we are both working at frame 1 on the timeline with a grill that is already open instead of waiting several frames for it to open. This allows us to see the charcoals in the grill. Had we gone down the timeline to when the grill opened to apply the glow, then the glow would not have been triggered until that frame. This would leave the coals without a glow until the timeline reached the frame in which we applied the glow.
The next image shows the Charcoals material selected in the drop-down box and the Glow channel that was used to add an orange glow to the charcoals material:
Tip
Remembering our place on the timeline
When adding glow or textures to a prop or arranging a scene such as placing props and characters, always remember where you are on the timeline. If you are not in the proper location to add a prop, texture, or movement to the timeline then that prop, texture, or movement will not be visible until the timeline reaches that point. For example, let's say we intended for a change to happen at frame 1 but we applied it at frame 124 because we forgot to reset the time scrubber to frame 1, so the change we made will not appear until frame 124.
In some 3D applications changes are not recorded until a mode or button is pressed but in iClone, the timeline is always active, therefore, any changes made are reflected at that point in the timeline.
The left grill has no glow map applied while the right grill has a glow map set at 100%.
Creating see through material
As stated earlier in this chapter, opacity maps are black-and-white, with the white areas being visible and the black areas invisible. Shades of grey also control the amount of visibility in the same manner as black, but grey will show depending on the color of grey used. This can be used to create see through material.
In the case of the grill shelf, the diffuse map and the opacity map are the same image, but in most cases, you will have a colored diffuse map with a black-and-white opacity map.
A chain fence texture map (as shown in the following image) was used to simulate the expanded metal grilling shelf above the charcoals:
The diffuse and opacity channels when used together create the grill shelf, with the black areas of the diffuse map being canceled out by the black areas of opacity map and thus leaving a shelf that can be seen through. The following image reflects the difference which the opacity map makes:
Turning nothing into something
Opacity maps are also used with billboards and flat planes or even Live Plants to represent 2D content in a scene. A billboard will always face the camera whereas a 2D plane will maintain its original position.
Opacity is a powerful tool that turns nothing into something.
The character in the foreground of the following image was made with a billboard using diffuse and opacity maps. The group located behind the 2D character is a Live Plant Grass planting made with the same diffuse and opacity maps. They even cast shadows.
Live Plants are basically hybrid billboards with a plant diffuse image and an opacity image.
A meadow full of flowers or an entire army of characters can be placed on-screen with little or no overhead from the 3D engine by using billboards. The opacity map makes this possible.
Tip
The cast of thousands Live Plant trick
If you need an army but don't have the army or the computing power to display a 3D army, then use Live Plants and change out the plant diffuse and opacity image with that of a posed soldier. Since Live Plants move in the breeze, you use that movement to simulate an army standing in a loose formation or milling about waiting for something to happen.
The following scene was created by planting Live Plant grass and changing out the grass image for the soldier image:
The following image shows the diffuse and opacity maps that are used to create the standing army:
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