Dynamic Texture Changes

[koollkidd]

Hi. I am creating a project where an object (A Playing Card) turns around with a front texture on it, turns back around, and when it turns around again it needs to have a different front texture.

Any advice would be greatly appriciated.

Chris.

[Ron P.]

Hi Chris,

First, are you using Cool 3D or Cool 3D Production Studio?

I only have 3DPS, with it you would use the keyfrrames on the texture to change it. I'll give you a general procedure to accompllish this.

1. Start with your card object. Have the Front Face Bevel selected. Deselect all the other faces. Set the texture for this face.

2. Now set your rotation however many frames you want before it turns around to face you again.

3. Now determine the frame where the face (you are changing) starts to appear in the rotation. Just prior to this you need to set
1 a keyframe so the first one to still be there. Then
2 a second keyframe just afterwards where your new face will appear. These keyframes will be on the Texture timeline.

4. The second keyframe is where you will change the texture to what you want it to be when it comes into view the second time.

Hope that helps and makes sense...

Ron P.

[koollkidd]

Hi, thanks for the quick reply, I have my cards all rotating at the required time and now i arrive at texturing them...

The textures i need are Jpegs (or any other format photoshop can save) that i need to import into Cool3D (Production Studio).

I have tried adding the key frames as suggested and changing the image texture in the Texture attribute panel to no avail.

I suspect that texture keyframing will only work on textures pulled from EasyPalette. Which brings me to my new question, how would i go about importing an image (Jpeg or similar) into EasyPalette? I have hunted on numerous forums and have heard that it is not possible? It would seem strange that such an obvious feature would be overlooked.

I look forward to hearing from anyone who can shed some light.

Thanks

Chris.

[Greg]

Have played around trying to do what I think you need, and unless someone can tell us different, it would appear you cannot change the texture only the attributes of that texture.

Try this as a workaround. You say you have the card rotating as you want it and are just ready for the texture change. In the object manager, select the card, and copy and paste, call it card2, and replace the desired texture. At frame 1 make the transparency 100, and at 1 frame before the change, make it 100 as well. At the change frame make transparency 0 at at the end 0 as well. Select the original card and at frame 1 make transparency 0, and the same at 1 frame before change. At change frame, make transparency 100 and also at the last frame.

A bit messy, but should give you the effect you are after.

Regards,
Greg

[Ron P.]

Kris,

Greg is correct..I've never really tried changing the texture on the same face of an object. I use different textures for the different faces of an object. I was assuming that the keyframes would allow a texture to be changed. However after experimenting with that, no it will not.

You might also try the "Show-Hide", to Hide the second object until it is needed.

Ron P.

[htchien]

Keyframes of texture is a way to do it, another way is to use the video texture....

Render the images as a video (use the first texture image in the first section of the video, and then add the next texture image at the video frame that you want it to show on the 3D object) in some other video editor, render it to some video file such as DV AVI or MPEG and then import the video as video texture on the selected face of the 3D card in C3DPS.

Wish you can understand what I wrote.

Hope this helps.

H.T.

[Ron P.]

Hi H.T.

I understand what you are saying, however with the keyframes, if you choose a different texture, then it changes it for all the preceeding frames too. I thought that using the keyframes would allow the texture to be changed on the same face, but so far I have not been able to accomplish this. Changing the video texture I have not tried, but I think the outcome would be the same as if you were to change texture or color...

Could there be some problem with my install, where the keyframes don't act fully as they should?

Ron P.

[htchien]

Hi Vidoman,

A little busy here. I think I will check it later, maybe tonight (in your place it might be tomorrow morning).

Sorry about this.

H.T.

[Greg]

Ron,
I think what HT is trying to say re the video texture is that if the original movement of the card were say 100 frames long, and the texture needs to change from picture 1 visible from frame 1 - 50 , and picture 2 from frame 51 - 100, then in VS or MSP or other create a video file that reflects this, then use that as the texture rather than an image.
This would achieve the effect Chris required, but the problem with this method is it becomes a bit static. Should you now preview this clip and decide that you wanted the change to take place at frame 46-47 instead, it would mean recreating you video file.
Keyframes on the texture only seem to allow changes to the attributes of the texture, either video or image, but once a texture is selected, it remains for the duration of the project. Maybe next release?

Regards,
Greg

[klowther]

Another way to do this would be to combine the two texture images into one larger texture image and adjust the texture position mapping at the appropriate keyframe. I just tried this and it worked ok.

- Ken