Way to animate fill texture ?

[rajeeshrajee]

HI,

i have given a texture as fill in my selection. I want to animate the texture when I move the points. Is there any method to do that?? for now when i try, the texture jus stays there as a fill.

Thanks

[synthsin75]

Bone strength will influence image textures. Other than that is just the fill effect handles.

[Greenlaw]

Directly animating shape points has no effect on texture deformation. That's because the shapes are essentially masks for the textures, not deformers. As synthsin75 points out, bones are used deform bitmap textures but you can also keyframe transformations for the texture maps.

That may not sound like much but you can get a lot of mileage by key framing transformations of painted fill textures (Image Texture fill effect or a masked Image layer,) and tying the transformations to Smart Bones within the rig itself. I've been using this technique at work and this semi-deforming texture effect can be quite convincing.

I learned about this technique from studying Victor Paredes' Woolbuddies video posted here:



What really makes this 'cheat' look convincing is when you swing the character through the motion--this makes what's actually going on with the texture maps less obvious. Additionally, you can add bones to deform the texture maps but I usually find that attaching simple transforms to Smart Bones within the rig or in SB Dials is enough for most characters.

Naturally, the regular bones in the character rig will also deform the textures.

G.

[rajeeshrajee]

thanks so much for the replies. The above video looks great. There's much to learn in this software, when i just thought i got hold of all the tools. I get the idea for manipulating textures, which i wanted to know. But above that i am curious of how he did that smart bone dial for the turn in that doll? in drawing we can move the point s to manipulate the rotation, but how did he do that for the images?? any one know?

[Greenlaw]

If you look at the footage very carefully, you can see how this works. Generally speaking, the textures are being transformed, that is, they are sliding and being squashed or stretched. So in character 'rotation', for example, the texture might slide from side to side within its shape and other elements on top are animated in sync with the sliding. All of this can be linked to a Smart Bone, either as part of the rig or a Smart Bone Dial. In some cases, like the 'twisting' octopus arms, it's a combination of texture sliding and deformation from bones.

It really is a brilliant technique. In fact, this video totally changed how I think about rigging and animation in ASP.

I think that's it in a nutshell. Obviously, Victor can explain this technique much better than I since he created the video. Maybe if you ask him nicely...

G.

[PaperWaspNest]

Depending on what the texture is, you could also create a Multi-Brush made out of samples of that texture. Then, draw a stroke and apply the Multi-Brush to the stroke. Mask this stroke within your character's shape (Example: If it's a denim texture, mask it inside the character's pants/legs layer), and then parent the stroke to the same bone that's animating that body part. Then the stroke will move and deform along with the character, and you'll see the texture move too.

This works best if you use textures with rounded or fuzzy edges in the Multi-Brush, so the Multi-Brush's effect blends together smoothly. Try out some of the default custom brushes/multi-brushes in AS to see what I'm talking about.