I would like a cylinder with a uv mapped inside to get a rolling background. I suck at uv mapping.
Dale
a cylinder uv mapped inside?
Moderators: Víctor Paredes, Belgarath, slowtiger
Short answer: You can't do that in AS since it can't bend a plane into a cylinder.
Long answer: 2D animation does this in a different fashion. The backgrounds in 2D are flat planes and quite long. The "repeating" of background parts was a necessity in former times when things had to be painted by hand and couldn't be too long because they had to fit under the camera. So if you have a scene of normal length, you could do a long enough background without repetition nowadays easily.
(Tip: Create a group layer for the BG first, then import images into it and arrange them in row with the translate layer tool (1). This way you only have to animate one layer to get the BG moving.)
A repeating background must be at least 3 screenwidths wide. Think of it as being in 3 parts: A, B, A'. The A part is at both ends and must fill the screen completely. The B part can have any length.
Long answer: 2D animation does this in a different fashion. The backgrounds in 2D are flat planes and quite long. The "repeating" of background parts was a necessity in former times when things had to be painted by hand and couldn't be too long because they had to fit under the camera. So if you have a scene of normal length, you could do a long enough background without repetition nowadays easily.
(Tip: Create a group layer for the BG first, then import images into it and arrange them in row with the translate layer tool (1). This way you only have to animate one layer to get the BG moving.)
A repeating background must be at least 3 screenwidths wide. Think of it as being in 3 parts: A, B, A'. The A part is at both ends and must fill the screen completely. The B part can have any length.
By rolling background, I am assuming you wanted to create a infinite or continuous looping background.
One technique used in the old camera and film days was to have two backgrounds whose 'ends' matched the start of the other background. The technique is called cycle backgrounds: If it was a street scene, one background would end at a drainpipe running vertically up the frame. The start of the next background would be a similar wall.
As the edge of BG1 comes towards the edge of shot, you add BG2, and pan on to it. As BG2 totally fills shot, move BG1 back to the other end. In this way, a pan contnues for infinity, hence the other name of infinity pan.
The nice thing is you can add a third alternating background, maybe a side street or alley on BG3, then pan onto the original BG1. The cycle would be BG2, BG2, BG1, BG3, BG2, BG1, BG2 etc. This confuses the audience as the background does not appear to be a true repeated loop.
Hope I have explained this clearly enough - in practice, it is really easy.
Rhoel
One technique used in the old camera and film days was to have two backgrounds whose 'ends' matched the start of the other background. The technique is called cycle backgrounds: If it was a street scene, one background would end at a drainpipe running vertically up the frame. The start of the next background would be a similar wall.
As the edge of BG1 comes towards the edge of shot, you add BG2, and pan on to it. As BG2 totally fills shot, move BG1 back to the other end. In this way, a pan contnues for infinity, hence the other name of infinity pan.
The nice thing is you can add a third alternating background, maybe a side street or alley on BG3, then pan onto the original BG1. The cycle would be BG2, BG2, BG1, BG3, BG2, BG1, BG2 etc. This confuses the audience as the background does not appear to be a true repeated loop.
Hope I have explained this clearly enough - in practice, it is really easy.
Rhoel
Woohooo!
I love Slowtiger's method. Just for fun I started to play around with this because I know I will need it eventually and I've been using a more complicated method. It is that "A B A" concept that I missed. I know it is fairly easy to set this up but it still takes a bit of fiddling... then it hit me... this would be great for a menu script:
Following the "A B A" set up select image A, script automatically loads image B creates a background group or bone layer and sets the layers up with keys for a looping background!
Now THAT would be a cool and useful script... pretty simple too... put that one on my list.
-vern
I love Slowtiger's method. Just for fun I started to play around with this because I know I will need it eventually and I've been using a more complicated method. It is that "A B A" concept that I missed. I know it is fairly easy to set this up but it still takes a bit of fiddling... then it hit me... this would be great for a menu script:
Following the "A B A" set up select image A, script automatically loads image B creates a background group or bone layer and sets the layers up with keys for a looping background!
Now THAT would be a cool and useful script... pretty simple too... put that one on my list.
-vern
As I said, it is an old method which was useful under a rostrum camera. But instead of fiddling around with one small background, trying to fit the ends and the speed of movement, I prefer the group layer method - just put everything into one large container, position it once, and then move the whole thing. Since AS handles large backgrounds as easily as small ones, I can save a lot of my time.
Tip: if I prepare several Photoshop files which should form one large background, I take care to give them a soft edge at one side (fade to transparency). This way I can position them more easily, the soft edge over the next image hides any inaccuracy.
Tip: if I prepare several Photoshop files which should form one large background, I take care to give them a soft edge at one side (fade to transparency). This way I can position them more easily, the soft edge over the next image hides any inaccuracy.
One of the problems is that the offset is a multiple of -1.3333.... if you use anything other than multiples of 4 widths (based on a 3 to 4 ratio). Best to use multiples of 2 so you can use an exact number to offset the translation.Tip: if I prepare several Photoshop files which should form one large background, I take care to give them a soft edge at one side (fade to transparency). This way I can position them more easily, the soft edge over the next image hides any inaccuracy.
For example if your background is, A on the ends (2 widths) and the B section is 2 widths, then the group layer would be offset to -4 x axis on the first frame of the loop and 4 x axis on the last. This would guarantee the images line up. The only trouble of course would be AS's annoying anti-aliasing "bug" which might put in a "line". I haven't tested that part yet.
-vern