Planet Rotation Question

Started by elipsis1, March 09, 2012, 08:42:06 PM

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elipsis1

I'm trying to rotate a planet in the sky in my scene.

I am entering values in the rotation field but when I render nothing seems to change. 

I was assuming that this would move the features on that planets surface that were created with the power fractal.

Does anyone know if this is possible?

I searched old threads, found one about rotating clouds, so I thought this would be possible, but I'm not sure why it isn't working?

Thanks!

elipsis1

Also, the three values I assume correspond to X Y Z coordinates.  What exactly is rotating  the Z? both X and Y at once? Like a diagonal?

elipsis1

I also tried the "rotate y" function as an input to the planet's power fractal, that does nothing as far as I can tell, tried 0 to 360, and it renders the same.

elipsis1

Ok, I give up.  I've been playing around with this for a long time tonight, and nothing I do can rotate the features of the planet in the sky.  Maybe I'm just missing something simple...

dandelO

Plug your power fractal/s into the 'shader' input of a transform shader, then plug the transform shader into the planet node and rotate around the Y axis(in the transform shader) to spin the fractal instead of the planet. I think it would probably be best to also set the translate coordinates to the same position as the planet you're using it on, so the shader spins around from the centre of the planet.

elipsis1

Quote from: dandelO on March 09, 2012, 09:23:23 PM
Plug your power fractal/s into the 'shader' input of a transform shader, then plug the transform shader into the planet node and rotate around the Y axis(in the transform shader) to spin the fractal instead of the planet. I think it would probably be best to also set the translate coordinates to the same position as the planet you're using it on, so the shader spins around from the centre of the planet.

Hmm that is interesting, so I am wondering why the planet has a "rotate" built in at all?  What exactly does the rotate portion of the planet do? rotate an empty sphere?

Thanks a lot for this dandelO!

Your translate coordinates comments just saved me a world of headache. Because I'd probably have been noticing how things still weren't working right :)

Thanks a ton!

;D

elipsis1

What seems weird, and maybe this is what you meant, but I am changing the center value (which I assume is Y) to move features on the planet surface from left to right... Is this correct? LOL What a mind warp!

dandelO

Yes, either translate/rotate/scale and the order of those boxes is xyz, yes.
Translate moves a shader in 3D space, it takes the x,y,z=0,0,0 coordinates of a shader and relocates them to whatever you enter into the xyz fields.
Rotate spins a shader around the centre point of the translate coordinates.
Scale stretches/shrinks a shader in any direction.

In TG the key is x=East/West, y=up/down and z=North/South.

Oshyan

Rotating geometry is different from rotating textures. When your planet features (textures, displacement) come from a procedural texture, you need to rotate the texture, not (or in addition to) the planet geometry. The same is true of *moving* the planet and textures - if you attempt  to move a planet object with procedural textures, the textures will change as the planet moves through the 3D texture space. In a future update we'll have an option to "rotate textures with planet" as well as "translate textures with planet" which will fix both of these issues when needed.

- Oshyan

elipsis1

Thanks for your reply Oshyan.

That would be a great feature in an update!

elipsis1

So, if I change the distance slider, most likely the planet face will change? What about a planet resize? Will both of these change the planet face?

Hetzen

I think the idea is that fractal textures will rotate around the origin of your planet, with the planet. Changing scale or position, will effect what part of the fractal touches the planet surface.

elipsis1

Quote from: elipsis1 on March 10, 2012, 06:14:36 PM
So, if I change the distance slider, most likely the planet face will change? What about a planet resize? Will both of these change the planet face?

I reread Oshyan's post.  I think I understand that indeed, moving the distance slider will change the planet face.  I will test this out.

dandelO

#13
Quote from: elipsis1 on March 10, 2012, 07:45:39 PM
Quote from: elipsis1 on March 10, 2012, 06:14:36 PM
So, if I change the distance slider, most likely the planet face will change? What about a planet resize? Will both of these change the planet face?

I reread Oshyan's post.  I think I understand that indeed, moving the distance slider will change the planet face.  I will test this out.

I don't think it will, because the fractal will take its coordinates from the position of the planet it is plugged into. It should move with the planet if you use the planet's distance slider, I think...

*EDIT* I remember a lot of hassle trying to stop fractals from using object space before for population colour variation, fractals weren't able to be stopped from using object space back then and the defaults nowadays are the same. So, your fractal should move with the planet, without the need to do anything to make it follow.