The Rendering Times: Topas Try Me's

Topas Try Me's:

Multi Element Animation - Spinning Globe around a sun -- Part 2

Render this short animation to see what you've done.

ANIMATE -- RENDER -- MAKE MOVIE

You should end up with something along the lines of this.

Now that you have a basic understanding lets leap forward into a spinning globe around a sun.

We are going to use this sphere/cube group in our next step. However your existing motion paths will not be used to they need to be deleted. You may want to save them prior to the next step.

ANIMATE -- CLEAR ANIMATION

We need a sphere or two more.

BUILD -- SIMPLE -- SPHERE

Make one larger than the one you have from the last example. It will serve as our "sun." If you are a bit ambitious you can create a third sphere to use as a moon to orbit around the "earth" you have from the last example.

The spheres need to be placed and grouped properly. Put the sun in the center of the modeling area, and place the moon in orbit around the earth. I find it easier to do this type of placement from the top.

CAMERA -- CAMERA POSITIONS -- (TOP) (Alt - F7) eclipse.gif (1183 bytes)

MODIFY -- SIMPLE -- MOVE (Ctrl - F8)

Don't look at the eclipse too closely kids. Place all the items in line.

After the placement is complete add the moon to the earth's sphere/square group.

BUILD -- GROUPS -- ADD TO GROUP

Select the earth group
Select the moon object

It is often helpful to name your objects. This helps in quickly selecting each one in the future.

MODIFY -- NAME OBJECT

Associated names are easy. Such as sun, earth, and moon.

You should add your textures now if you haven't already -- a bright sunny texture on the sun, earth wrap on the earth, moon wrap on the moon.

Lets get moving -- time to start the animation paths.

Hint: It's often helpful to assign group members motion paths prior to group motion. This way you don't have to chase your objects all over the screen.

ANIMATE -- CREATE -- KEYFRAME

Now spin the globe you've made a bit, but don't spin the rest of the planet grouping.

MODIFY -- ROTATE (Ctrl - F10) / press the letter "n" to select by name, and choose "earth."

Select the Y axis. For every 360 degrees your earth will spin around one time.

(Jump briefly if you want to add specific animation to your moon)

For this example I expanded the motion paths that we included with Topas rather than plotting them out by hand. This allows for ease in dealing with orbiting paths, but difficulties with your timing. Each path is set for a certian time frame, and to get them loaded concurently sometimes is a bit of a trick.

You will need to save the file you've made so far and expand the motion paths from dos if you haven't done it before. They can take up a lot of disk space depending on how you've partitioned your hard drive.
Run the file "EXPMTNS.BAT" from the topas/anim directory. When this is done restart Topas and reload the model file we are working on.

FILES -- MOTIONS -- LOAD

You will need to select the "Orbit" directory then the "Y-Orbit" directory. Choose an motion path either plus or minus depending on which way you desire your planet group to orbit the sun. Don't choose one with built in rotation, as this will negate the specific rotation you set up with the previous command.

All you need to do now is render you movie.

ANIMATE -- RENDER -- MAKE MOVIE (or RENDER FRAMES)

Here are the model files that I used to make these examples. Two models, orbit1 which is what you see here, and moon which is from the jump out on how to make it orbit the earth. I did them at seperate times, and they are not exactly the same. Also included are the *.ani files that go with them. Place these in the topas/anim directory. I didn't supply the maps that I used, but you shouldn't have too much trouble finding ones that work well for yourself.

The Rendering Times: Design and Copyright & © 1997 -- David Chandler Spake. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without the express written permission of DCS is prohibited.