Re: animated extrusion

["Ajit Menon" <xsiajit(at)gmail.com>]

After effects' Particular is pretty good at creating  some really cool trail effects...  in fact, using mindthink.de's After effects script, u could export nulls from XSI and plug them via an _expression_ into the x,y,z of the particular plugin.
I tried using genie tail once for this but had a lot of trouble getting subsequent particles to interpolate correctly.

On 8/21/07, adrian < adrian.wyer(at)fluid-pictures.com> wrote:

my saying "boo to xsi's extrusion tools" was an aside to the main thrust of the post, which was to agree that

trapcodes plugin, for an app that he already owns, is a better solution for the task.....

 

....and it was intended as a 'semi' humourous dig, 'cos lets face it, the extrusion tools native in xsi leave a lot to be desired!

 

If there was a $300 dollar addon that fixed them to our satisfaction, im sure we'd all stump up the $ for a copy

 

a

Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
16-18 Beak Street
London
W1F 9RD
T: +44 (0) 20 7183 2160
www.fluid-pictures.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Andre DeAngelis

To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM

Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 5:13 PM

Subject: RE: animated extrusion

The point is that you're comparing apples to oranges. 

 

For a start, Trapcode is useless without AFX, in which case we are not talking about $300, but closer to $1000.

 

The effect was primarily 2D in nature.  Thus saying "boo to xsi's extrude tools" is like booing a Porsche GT because it isn't as well suited too all terrain motoring as a much cheaper RAV4.

 

AD

 

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From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of adrian
Sent: August 21, 2007 11:41 AM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: animated extrusion

 

not the point, the original thread was about an effect similar to the ipod nano ads, and the solution wasn't as easy to

achieve in xsi as it was in afterFX with a $300 plug-in....

 

a

Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
16-18 Beak Street
London
W1F 9RD
T: +44 (0) 20 7183 2160
www.fluid-pictures.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Andre DeAngelis

To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM

Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 4:21 PM

Subject: RE: animated extrusion

 

D you mean well featured or well suited to 2D effects?  It depends on what you are trying to do doesn't it?

 

Are you sure you really want to use Trapcode for particle instancing, dynamics and flocking?

 

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From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of adrian
Sent: August 21, 2007 11:02 AM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: animated extrusion

 

yeah i guess

 

 $299 for a really well featured particle system....?

 

bargain

 

a

Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
16-18 Beak Street
London
W1F 9RD
T: +44 (0) 20 7183 2160
www.fluid-pictures.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Andre DeAngelis

To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM

Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:46 PM

Subject: RE: animated extrusion

 

Don't you mean hooray for AfterFX plug-ins?

 

 

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From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of adrian
Sent: August 21, 2007 10:24 AM
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM
Subject: Re: animated extrusion

 

hooray for afterFX!

 

and boo to xsi's extrude tools

 

a

Adrian Wyer
Fluid Pictures
16-18 Beak Street
London
W1F 9RD
T: +44 (0) 20 7183 2160
www.fluid-pictures.com

----- Original Message -----

From: Kris Rivel

To: XSI(at)Softimage.COM

Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2007 3:05 PM

Subject: Re: animated extrusion

 

Well they work fine but the problem is I'm tracking someone's hand in a shot.  They are drawing in air so I want to draw on this tube like thing with their movement.  An animated extrusion works fine but I have to painfully key the end value to match the acceleration and speed of the subject's hand.  I actually resorted to doing it with the Particular plugin for After Effects.  Just tracked a null to the subjects hand and import null and camera to After Effects.  I use the null anim to generate a particle based tube which moves in z space nicely.  The particular plugin produces some great effects very much like the Ipod nano commercial.  In case anyone is interested, you can see the technique here:

http://ayrshire.creativecow.net/articles/kramer_andrew/nano/index.htm

Kris

On 8/21/07, kim aldis < xsi(at)kim-aldis.co.uk> wrote:

I'm going to sound stupid now. Why doesn't an extrude or a curve deform work?

 

From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto:owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Kris Rivel
Sent: 20 August 2007 19:09
To: XSI(at)Softimage.COMany
Subject: Re: animated extrusion

 

Gene, I can't animate the end value in extrude along curve because I basically need it in reverse.  The emission point needs to follow a subjects hand leaving an extruded tube behind.

Vincent, your method sounds like it might work but I have no idea how to implement these values into a script or _expression_.  I'm pretty beginner when it comes to anything involving scripting.

Kris

On 8/20/07, Vincent Fortin < vincent.fortin(at)ubisoft.com> wrote:

I was playing around with a few functions the other day that I found very useful…

Plot to curve the tip of your pen. To automate the extrusion length you can use GetClosestCurvePosition (from your tip obj) and GetPercentageFromU to drive the % parameter.

There might be an easier way but this ones' more fun J

 

Vincent

 

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From: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM [mailto: owner-xsi(at)Softimage.COM] On Behalf Of Kris Rivel
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 1:09 PM
To: XSI ListServer
Subject: animated extrusion

 

Looking to build some tubes that are being drawn on by someone's hand.  Any tips or trick how to go about doing this?

Kris