3dsmax Animation and Planet Curvature headache

Started by ragnoru, February 26, 2014, 11:57:32 AM

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ragnoru

The scene:
I have some animated airplanes (animated in 3dsmax) going at a really high speed (mach 2/4)
In the course of 300 frames this airplanes should barely be above the clouds (giving a sense of really high speed)
The Problem:
I cannot keep the distance from the cloud consistent due to the earth curvature and the speed of the airplanes
since obviously the animation did not keep in account the curvature of the planet
sometimes I end inside the clouds and some other times I am 100 meters above.
Is there a way to create a flat planet or do I need to go back in animation
and try to recreate the planet and ask the animator to try to keep a consistent distance with the surface
and if so how do I export the planet so I do not have to fiddle with size and the center position.

Thank you
Aldo

Kadri


I tried that aspect of Terragen not so much, but using a lower scale at import time(of the plane animation) comes first to my mind.
It is all relative in the end.Play with the scales basically.
The animation, the airplanes , the planet or the clouds etc. It shouldn't be so hard as it looks at first.

ragnoru

Scaling down makes everything really slow unfortunately.
Maybe animating the clouds in the opposite direction could be an option.

Aldo

Oshyan

You might be able to work around the issue in TG somehow, like perhaps using a reeeaallly huge planet, but you can't add an atmosphere to a plane and have it be flat, so that's out. I'd personally strongly suggest having the animator animate against a sphere, if possible. FBX export should be able to handle it.

- Oshyan

ragnoru

Animating airplane acrobatics while Orbiting around earth seems a little daunting
(keeping the same distance from the surface and aiming always straight could be pretty hard)
parenting to the center of the earth an using rotation for linear speed would be really messy.

What would be a great feature would be to have a check box that would just,
for lack of a better word, do a spherical transform to the animation with center the center of the earth.
Basically if my camera is 100 meters in y at 0,100,0 the ceheckbox would transform  0,100,30000
in the original animation to still be at 100 meters from the surface of the planet
just 30000 around the circumference of it.

Just an Idea.
For now scaling down on import and moving the clouds in the opposite direction seems to give the best results.

Thank you for your help

Aldo



Kadri

#5
Quote from: ragnoru on February 26, 2014, 04:21:35 PM
...
For now scaling down on import and moving the clouds in the opposite direction seems to give the best results.
...
Aldo

Nice workaround.
I don't know how the animation looks (could be much different of course) but if you think about
there isn't any need for any big forward or backward animation in the airplanes .
You could use some vertical-horizontal and small forward-backward animation with the camera or airplanes
and rotate-move only the ground and clouds too.