Is Cheetah capable of doing this?
Dear all,
I apologize but I am really in need of doing one specific thing and I am afraid that without your help I will not have the time to find out if Cheetah is the appropriate tool for me. I am a researcher and would like to create two animations because they would really help getting my point across to a larger audience on a conference.
Problem 1)
I need to create an abstract tree-like shape from some half-translucent glass like material which when progressing upwards has one common root which branches in two branches one of which branches in two again etc. In the upper part of the diagram I would have four terminal branches which are connected in a tree-like fashion as described above.
Here comes the catch. The branches should be 3D models and tube-like rather than just flat lines, and have a wall thickness greater than zero.
What I would like to create is an animation that lets me view the tree from one side as described above and then twist it 90 degrees towards me so that the result of this I would be looking at four ellipses (i.e. the tubular branches cut in an oblique angle) plus some information from the connections from below which result from the fact that the material should be translucent.
Hard to imagine? Have look at this, slightly more complicated tree, but it gives you an idea what I am talking about, at least roughly.
Problem 2) this problem needs an earth with a texture mapped onto it to begin with. I was amazed that this procedure seems to be so intuitive and easy in Cheetah (judging from the tutorial). The problem is, it does not work for me. It starts to go wrong when the tutorial says "Notice that we already get a preview of our material in the material browser."
The texture never shows up in preview and neither does dropping the newly created material onto the ball in the objects browser do anything. The path to the image is correct, but i am stumped.
My problem is more complicated than this but without being able to create a representation of the globe first there is no point in giving more instructions.
I would be very grateful if someone could help me out on this one, even if the answer were a resounding "no, it's not possible, go look elsewhere". The conference is soon-ish and I thought of the visualization just now.
Thanks for your help
Prion
PS: I am running Cheetah 3.4 on a Powerbook 1.67 G4 with 2GB of RAM if this helps
Dear all,
I apologize but I am really in need of doing one specific thing and I am afraid that without your help I will not have the time to find out if Cheetah is the appropriate tool for me. I am a researcher and would like to create two animations because they would really help getting my point across to a larger audience on a conference.
Problem 1)
I need to create an abstract tree-like shape from some half-translucent glass like material which when progressing upwards has one common root which branches in two branches one of which branches in two again etc. In the upper part of the diagram I would have four terminal branches which are connected in a tree-like fashion as described above.
Here comes the catch. The branches should be 3D models and tube-like rather than just flat lines, and have a wall thickness greater than zero.
What I would like to create is an animation that lets me view the tree from one side as described above and then twist it 90 degrees towards me so that the result of this I would be looking at four ellipses (i.e. the tubular branches cut in an oblique angle) plus some information from the connections from below which result from the fact that the material should be translucent.
Hard to imagine? Have look at this, slightly more complicated tree, but it gives you an idea what I am talking about, at least roughly.
Problem 2) this problem needs an earth with a texture mapped onto it to begin with. I was amazed that this procedure seems to be so intuitive and easy in Cheetah (judging from the tutorial). The problem is, it does not work for me. It starts to go wrong when the tutorial says "Notice that we already get a preview of our material in the material browser."
The texture never shows up in preview and neither does dropping the newly created material onto the ball in the objects browser do anything. The path to the image is correct, but i am stumped.
My problem is more complicated than this but without being able to create a representation of the globe first there is no point in giving more instructions.
I would be very grateful if someone could help me out on this one, even if the answer were a resounding "no, it's not possible, go look elsewhere". The conference is soon-ish and I thought of the visualization just now.
Thanks for your help
Prion
PS: I am running Cheetah 3.4 on a Powerbook 1.67 G4 with 2GB of RAM if this helps
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