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Assistance for Carrara Animation

agsears_f6a68cb825agsears_f6a68cb825 Posts: 169
edited December 1969 in Carrara Discussion

Does anybody know if Carrara can animate a stroke on a plane, like a pencil drawing a line? I know how to do it in After Effects, but I would like to try to do it within Carrara.

Any help would be appreciated.

~Alexa

Comments

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Alexa Sears said:
    Does anybody know if Carrara can animate a stroke on a plane, like a pencil drawing a line? I know how to do it in After Effects, but I would like to try to do it within Carrara.

    Any help would be appreciated.

    ~Alexa

    Somebody used a particle emitter to draw a letter before. Unfortunately, that thread was on the old forum.

    If I recall correctly, the person used metaballs in the emitter and the amount of particles per second that was emitted seemed fairly low as well as the emission angle.

  • MarkBremmerMarkBremmer Posts: 190
    edited December 1969

    Since you already know AE, I'd create and render an animation of the stroke and then import the animation as a displacement map shader on a "writing" plane that is slightly lower then a "paper" plane above it. That way, it would displace through the "paper" and become visible.

    I haven't thought about or tried the particle emitter that EP mentions. I think that is probably a good way to go too but it would be harder to animate the real gestures you could automatically capture with AE.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    I recall the emitter provided a nice effect, but I also recall it wasn't real easy to set up for the OP.

  • JonstarkJonstark Posts: 2,738
    edited December 1969

    PhilW had a similar tut of a rocketship emitting flame and smoke clouds as it rose. I know it was a particle emitter, but can't remember if it was smoke, volumetric clouds, or metaballs offhand that he used.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Was that Phil that had the rocket emitter? It was basically emitting splats or billboards set to point at the camera and that used a particle shader based on time to go from flame color to smoke. That is, if that is the one I;m thinking about. I used that emitter with some minor modifications to make this image.

    Breathing-fire-final.jpg
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  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,326
    edited December 1969

    MarkBremmer said:
    Since you already know AE, I'd create and render an animation of the stroke and then import the animation as a displacement map shader on a "writing" plane that is slightly lower then a "paper" plane above it. That way, it would displace through the "paper" and become visible.

    I haven't thought about or tried the particle emitter that EP mentions. I think that is probably a good way to go too but it would be harder to animate the real gestures you could automatically capture with AE.

    Amazing... I was about to reply with a nearly-identical post... then I read that it was already written by Mark! That makes me feel pretty good, actually ;)
  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited March 2015

    Here's a quick experiment - if you play around, I'm sure you can get the metaballs to be less blobby:)

    http://youtu.be/ykeKwNNPkd8

    Post edited by Roygee on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited March 2015

    Roygee said:
    Here's a quick experiment - if you play around, I'm sure you can get the metaballs to be less blobby:)

    http://youtu.be/ykeKwNNPkd8

    Since my Carrara Monthly Challenge scene crashed mid-save, I've been experimenting with using a meta-ball emitter to spell a word for the fast animation challenge mmior started. Here's a screen shot. I should have the video up on youtube later and I will make the Carrara files available as well for those that want to experiment with the settings.

    Picture_3.png
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    Post edited by evilproducer on
  • RoygeeRoygee Posts: 2,247
    edited December 1969

    That's what I was looking to do - can't wait to see the settings :)

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,038
    edited March 2015

    I have done it years ago using lightbulbs intensity of 1with crosscreen effects as particles with a figure tracing a "sparkler" in the air but actually never thought to try anything else :lol:
    I know the lightbulbs one took a damned long time to render.


    Whoa NOW I HAVE OR4C must retry it with emitters!!!!

    Post edited by WendyLuvsCatz on
  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 38,038
    edited December 1969

    http://youtu.be/Dq1Iwdn14cI
    using my method particle emitter on motion path
    used object (sphere) as metaball particles do not work in Octane

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Nice job Wendy!

    I've been trying to refine the approach a bit. One more test render and that's all the time I will have for this scene.

  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Been trying to lengthen the crosses on the "F" and "T." That's been my hold up so far.

    Picture_1.png
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  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    So, here's the Carrara files. There are two files. One with the image map I used as a template for using the emitters to write, and the second has the image map removed.

    Things you may want to look at for the emitters would be the number of particles, meta-ball influence and friction. Adjusting any of those may help with the look as the meta-ball are emitted. If none of those work, there are other settings to try, or you could use a writing implement to hide the emission point.

    I don't know what effect it had, if any, but I also changed the surface properties of the paper to have low bounce and high friction.
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7370483/emitter-writing.zip

    The video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQySueK00c&feature=youtu.be

  • JamyJamy Posts: 192
    edited December 1969

    Hi,

    you can see a discussion about it here:

    http://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/20233/

    And the result here :

    http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2kbmm3_caudalie_lifestyle

    And one more time, thank you to the forum for the help :)

  • JamyJamy Posts: 192
    edited December 1969

    All is made in Carrara, with no post prod.

  • VIArtsVIArts Posts: 1,499
    edited December 1969

    Don't know if this was said already, but... Change the Motion for the emitter to pathsu.

  • MythmakerMythmaker Posts: 606
    edited June 2015

    Pathsu...okay thanks for the tips. Will experiment.

    evilproducer said:

    I don't know what effect it had, if any, but I also changed the surface properties of the paper to have low bounce and high friction.
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7370483/emitter-writing.zip

    The video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQySueK00c&feature=youtu.be

    The blobbiness looks SO lively and cute! Presumably that is using metaball particles... If true, I wish OR4C could render particle emitter metaballs!

    I just got into particle emitter department. My limited tests so far show that scene effects bounce/fiction settings don't seem to influence particles behavior. So I think particles simulate inside its own physics bubble.

    Post edited by Mythmaker on
  • evilproducerevilproducer Posts: 9,050
    edited December 1969

    Mythmaker said:
    Pathsu...okay thanks for the tips. Will experiment.

    evilproducer said:

    I don't know what effect it had, if any, but I also changed the surface properties of the paper to have low bounce and high friction.
    https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/7370483/emitter-writing.zip

    The video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmQySueK00c&feature=youtu.be

    The blobbiness looks SO lively and cute! Presumably that is using metaball particles... If true, I wish OR4C could render particle emitter metaballs!

    I just got into particle emitter department. My limited tests so far show that scene effects bounce/fiction settings don't seem to influence particles behavior. So I think particles simulate inside its own physics bubble.

    Yes they are metaballs. The friction and bounce settings are set within the emitter. I also adjusted the surface settings for the object that is being written on.

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