geometry transparency

rorozilla

Hi guys, I'm working on a more or less complex rig for a character, and it so happens that i need some aspects of his geometry to fade in and out at specific moments of his animation. I would like to do it with a custom attribute linked to one of his body parts that would combine all the sliders necessary to control every piece of geometry that i want to fade in and out of, with the possibility to completely hide some of it.

i know i could make a separate material for each piece and link the slider to the opacity of the material, but that would result in over 20 different materials just to hide some geometry....


so i was wondering if any of you guys had a solution to my problem?!

is there even such a thing as opacity that is liked to the geometry instead of the material?
BTW: each piece that would fad in and out are separated in individual objects, if it makes any difference.


Thank you so much in advance, i hope what I'm saying is making sens!

poopipe

Which app?

In max you have a visibility track that can fade. not 100% it works with mental ray though.

in maya i think visibility is a boolean so you're screwed from that angle

rorozilla

Thanks poopipe for your help!! hopefully, I'm working in Max, and I'm not using mental ray to render my character so it should all be fine, where can i find that visibility track exactly?


thank you so much for your help! I hope the solution is a lot easier then what i had in mind!

poopipe

You have to enable it per object in the dopesheet/curve editor. its in one of the menus.

You can access it like you would any other track once its enabled afaik

rorozilla

Ok! i activated the visibility track in the curve editor, and made a little test by linking it (using the wire parameter) to the X position of a random piece of geometry. now i can see it turns on and off, without any kind of smooth transition in between, when ever i move it across the X axis, it becomes invisible every time its in the negative values and turns back on in the positive ones.

but thing is, I'm looking for a blending method so it would ease in and out. And in addition, the visibility of the geometry seams to not update in my view port, the only way to see that it isn't visible, is by having my wire-frame on, only then can I see that the wires of that piece of geometry are faded away, but the texture is still there. Every thing is fine in the renders.

Its not life or death situation, but its a bit annoying and was wondering if you knew what what causing it. I am using 2010, so maybe later version update properly.


Thank you so much for you help!! I'm going to look about the wire parameter to see if its possible to transition trough it smoother. The wire parameter always scared me for some reason, it seams complex!

I cant thank you enough!

poopipe

I've not seen it work 100% in viewport since max2009, it sure as shit doesn't work right under nitrous. It should render fine though.

visibility is on a float controller expecting values between 0 and 1 - try wiring it into something like a slider or dividing the x position output by 100 or something so you get sensible numbers out of it.

rorozilla

Good news, every one!! i finally mastered Max script enough to be able to make my own little sliders and connect them, with the wire parameters, to the visibility of my geometry, thing is, it still snaps on and off without any kind of smooth blending in between.


if anybody has a clue of what i could do next, it would be pretty sweet. max scripting makes me wanna rip my eyes out, i can't believe i actually got something kinda working right now!

Thanks you so much Poopipe for all your help! you where really a life saver!