morphing text

tenkoku1_005b08db22

This should be super simple, but I'm having no luck figuring out how to turn a straight line into a question mark in Carrara.

I thot it would just involve making a vertex plane look like a line at the 0:00 mark, going to the 1 second mark, and there tweaking the mesh into a question mark.

But alas, not to be.

What gives?

Diomede

There is almost always more than one way to do something in Carrara.  Depending on what you are trying to accomplish, my suggestion would be to model it backwards, meaning start with a question mark, create a morph to a straight line, then in the animation, start with the straight line morph parameter set to 1, then at the correct time of the animation, move the morph parameter to 0 so the question mark retuns to base shape.  A way to do that would be:

- Insert a text object

- type a ?

- select the text object and from the top menu choose EDIT : Convert to other modeler, and choose vertex

- select the converted object and enter the modeling room

- under the morph tab, create a morph area (whole thing), then create and save a morph which straightens out the question mark to a straight line.

- return to assemble room and set morph parameter to 1

- advance sequencer to desired time and set morph parameter to 0

 

Others are likely to have a more simple method so I encourage anyone to chime in

 

WendyLuvsCatz

you could bone it too

tenkoku1_005b08db22

Thanks for the help, diomede.

It works like a charm.  In this situation, I could just squish the question mark into a thin line, which was super simple.

However, I would still be lost if, for example, I was trying to morph an "A" to a "B" or some other letter, unless I wanted to spend hours fooling with all the mesh to make it just perfect.

I still don't understand why a powerful program that can interpolate all the mesh and everything on it with a gorilla running, can't interpolate a single vertice pull in the model room....

FifthElement

tenkoku1_005b08db22 said:

Thanks for the help, diomede.

It works like a charm.  In this situation, I could just squish the question mark into a thin line, which was super simple.

However, I would still be lost if, for example, I was trying to morph an "A" to a "B" or some other letter, unless I wanted to spend hours fooling with all the mesh to make it just perfect.

I still don't understand why a powerful program that can interpolate all the mesh and everything on it with a gorilla running, can't interpolate a single vertice pull in the model room....

I did not brushed on my math for a very long time, but as far as I remember( from my topology classes), not all objects are morphable into whatever you want them to be, letters A and B are good examples, letter A can be morphed into torus (donut shape if you will) and letter B cannot (you end up with something shaped like number 8 or double donut).

Of course, people do all kind of tricks to do the mathematically imposible with visual effects done in 2D or 3D 

Carrara is not that powerful, lol, it's pretty old and some tools are better then others, it's what you do with them what matters, user makes all the difference 

DUDU

If you accept that your letters should be more "organic", it's easy (?) to do that with metaballs.

Diomede

Now that is a perfectly placed (?)!!!!!!!!   Easy with metaballs?, LOL.  Well said, Dudu.

 

DUDU said:

it's easy (?) to do that with metaballs.

 

DUDU

With "(?)", I want to say "With a lot of skill and patience".

If it was me, I would do that with a few morphes in the vertex modeller (like you said here up).

Diomede

And I think WendyCats (ToeJam) is best for a more general morphing letters project.  Make straight vertex strips. Rig them.  You can now combine them to make any number or letter or punctuation mark starting from a straight line.

Your metaball suggestion is a good suggestion.  The opening credits of one of the worst movies of all time (intentionally so) starts with the metaball approach, but used claymation.

3DAGE

 HI Tenkoku

tenkoku1_005b08db22 said:

I still don't understand why a powerful program that can interpolate all the mesh and everything on it with a gorilla running, can't interpolate a single vertice pull in the model room....

Morph's are simply a re-positioning of the existing "vertices" in any mesh. whether that's a human turning into a gorilla, or a burning candle melting,

Interpolating the Animation of a rigged figure is also completely different to the way that morphs work.

Bones have rotation, and position values, and that's what get's animated using keyframes,.and carrara can interpolate those values in various ways (tweeners)

Morphs can only move from one XYZ position to another XYZ position in a straight line.,.

In your example you mention a vertex plane,. which would have one vertex at each corner,. four vertices in total,. 

so,. simply,. your object doesn't have enough vertices to enable you to manually shape it into a question mark,.to create a Morph.

You'd need to create more geometry to allow you to create the morphs shapes you need, for the animation you want.

I'd also agree that the idea of rigging the models would allow more creativity,.

But,. at the same time,.I feel the need to point out that this can be done really simply (in a 2D program).

 

DesertDude

You can also animate the points on a Spline Object:

 

tenkoku1_005b08db22

Thanks for all the advice.

I first chose Carrara because of the great people commenting in the forum.

Then basically quit using it when the forum got wiped out and started over.

Maybe I should put more effort into it again.....