wwwmwww Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 Its still a work in progress as I need to add the fixed white lines to the trail and the flasking spokes to the wheels. After I have that in place I'll have all I need to add several different colored cycles and sit back and watch them run around on the game grid. If anyone wants to work on some interesting non-intersecting paths for me to animate feel free. This one is: <0,10> <20,10> <20,40> <10,40> Lets fix the game grid to <0,0> to <1000,1000>. I still have no effect for bikes blowing up, thus the need these be non-interesting paths. At the moment if you give me more then one path the speed of each bike is just determined by the total length of the path that it must cover during the course of the animation. One other 'feature' that I'm working around at the moment is the effect at the head of the trail is determined solely by distance from the center of the rear tire. This means that if a bike comes close enough to its own trail it will effect the color of parts of its own trail that it shouldn't. The effect extends out 7 game grid units in all directions. 1 game grid unit on each side of a bike gives it enough clearance to navigate a maze however as the windows extend out .77 game grid units on each side so two bikes must be atleast 2 game grid units apart to pass each other or travel side-by-side. Also the bike itself extends 4.4 game grid units ahead of the center of the rear tire. Since the bike pivots on the center of the rear tire at turns there must be 5 game grid units clear ahead of the bike's planed turning points (atleast at the time the turn takes place). A bike could travel though that space later for example after the first bike has already made its turn. Enjoy... Carl Quote
MSW Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 Hey, not to shabby! Kinda cool seeing how you have to program in the placement of thngs each frame just like they did on the original....One thing I would do though is to loosen up the camera a bit as it's pan-stop-pan-stop motion tracking the bike is a bit jarring, makes it hard to tell what is happening in the sequence... Maybe move the camera one grid space during the shot, and use the general animation guidelines of anticipation and follow through and inerta on the camera pan...it's harder stuff to calculate then 90 degree turning bikes, but they pulled it off on Tron pretty well... Quote
EXO Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 GIF's acting funny, had to download it. Pretty nice. Were they stuck on the white lines in the movie? Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 4, 2004 Author Posted March 4, 2004 Hey, not to shabby! Kinda cool seeing how you have to program in the placement of thngs each frame just like they did on the original.... One piece of POV-Ray code generated that whole animation. I didn't touch anything at the indivual frame level. And thanks... One thing I would do though is to loosen up the camera a bit as it's pan-stop-pan-stop motion tracking the bike is a bit jarring, makes it hard to tell what is happening in the sequence... I agree. This was just a test of the effect used at the head of the light trail. The camera is fixed in space and just pointed at the rear tire of the bike. When I get serious the camera will move along a smooth spine and look at a point on another smooth spine. That will fix all those problems. I can also put the camera on the bike so you see a raider's POV but the 90 degree turns will make that jarring again. Maybe move the camera one grid space during the shot, and use the general animation guidelines of anticipation and follow through and inerta on the camera pan...it's harder stuff to calculate then 90 degree turning bikes, but they pulled it off on Tron pretty well... Actually the 90 degree turning bike is harder. The camera stuff is easy to fix. I just need two splines. Carl Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 4, 2004 Author Posted March 4, 2004 Were they stuck on the white lines in the movie? Thanks... and to answer you question... No. Or atleast I don't think so. However the way I have it set up at the moment the grid lines are only drawn every 5 grid units. So I can still stick to whole numbers and get off the white lines. In fact the code is general enough I don't even have to limit myself to whole numbers but its simplier for me to keep things strait if I limit myself some. Carl Quote
Father Jack Posted March 4, 2004 Posted March 4, 2004 In the immortal words of err "Damn man those things are fast!" That's sweet dude makes me want to go watch the movie. Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 5, 2004 Author Posted March 5, 2004 This is a test of the flashing spokes and the fixed white lines. Still haven't played with the camera positioning. What do you think? Quote
Father Jack Posted March 6, 2004 Posted March 6, 2004 Hmmm It's a start keep working on the spokes and it will be uber cool. Quote
muswp1 Posted March 6, 2004 Posted March 6, 2004 Looks like a great start. I just have one question though, even though I haven't seen the movie in a few years, I don't remember the underside of the bike being shiny chrome. Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 6, 2004 Author Posted March 6, 2004 HmmmIt's a start keep working on the spokes and it will be uber cool. What do you suggest? They just flash on and off from one frame to the next in the movie and are fixed in place. I'm thinking about making them rotate like they were real spokes. If might give a better sense of motion but it wouldn't copy the effect seen in the movie but I might be ok with that. If they were to flash and rotate I think that'd look a little jarring. Or do you think I should just change the shape or the texture of the current spokes? Carl Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 6, 2004 Author Posted March 6, 2004 Looks like a great start. I just have one question though, even though I haven't seen the movie in a few years, I don't remember the underside of the bike being shiny chrome. Thanks. And you are correct. The shiny chrome is artistic licence on my part as well as the ground reflections and a few other minor tweeks. Its easy enough to make the underside a flat gray and it even renders faster that way. I just like the look of the chrome. In other of my TRON works I've also made the body transparent and I like that look more then the flat red but it renders much slower so I'm not using that effect for these test animations. Carl Quote
Father Jack Posted March 8, 2004 Posted March 8, 2004 Perhaps the rotation that might look cool. However if you are trying to keep it as close to the movie as possible then just leave them flashing. It is your model after all Quote
wwwmwww Posted March 10, 2004 Author Posted March 10, 2004 Here is the first half of my next test... still playing with some of the effects. This time the camera is in a chase car looking back at the trail. What do you think of some of the changes I made? The blinking light... the rotating spokes... the fixed white line starting out as red then turning to white. That last one is just the oposite effect of the rest of the trail that starts off as white and turns to red. I wanted to see what these effects would look like but now I'm not sure if they are much of an improvement over what I started with. Comments... Quote
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