I am trying to figure out how to do a special effect. I want a thin line with lights pulsation (preferably randomly)...can anyone think of a way to do this? I want it to show data flow between locations. Is there a fairly easy way to do this? Does my request make sense? Its almost like an effect from the movie Tron...

Well, you could do this - Create your object, be it text, a cylinder, sphere, or whatever. Set Motion to "Motion Path." Advance a couple frames. Move said object to the target destination at the last frame of the animation, and and any points to your path. Make sure that the Distance Along Path attribute is set to its maximum value, so it is at the path's end point. Open up the sequencer, and click on the little diagonal line between the first frame and the triangle at the end [the keyframe]. The properties tray will now allow you to edit the tweener. Tweener's modify how Carrara interpolates the change between keyframes. Use the popup menu to change the tweener to "Oscillate." Choose a sawtooth type wave. Change the number of oscillations to however many you wish. Set the Up Phase to 100%. This means that the keyframe repeats itself the number of times you set in #Oscillations box. Up Phase means how fast it alternates between forward and back. Since we are on sawtooth, the loop always starts from the beginning, i.e. it doesnt go forwards, reverse, forwards, reverse, etc. Sawtooths go forward, wait, forward, wait. Up Phase determines how quickly it goes through the wait, or on the sine graph, the Going Up Phase. Setting it to 100% means the change is instantaneous; once it gets to the end point, it immeadaetly repeats. Experiment with other waves for different reates of change. Some trig knowledge will make this easier. To get the light to pulsate, you do roughly the same thing with a shader - At the begining, set Glow==0, at the end, Glow==100. Change the shaders tweener to Oscillate, Sine Wave. Set the #Oscilations==#Oscillations of the moving object/s. Set Up Phase to 50%. Now the objects will fly across its path, and it will flicker on and off while moving. Note - I messed around with this, but I couldn't get the flickering to sync up with the object motion...but playing around with it should get you suitable results. Let me know if this doesnt help. Nebula Supernova Studios

Here's an idea: I made the thin line between the two spheres out of a primitive cylinder. I built a shader with nothing but glow channel info. The glow channel was a mix of black and blue, using the spots pattern as the function. I played with the settings until I got something that looked like a blue, glowing cow. I applied the shader to the cylinder at frame 1. I clicked the "shuffle" button on the spots function, then applied the new shader at 1 second. I copied the key frame from frame 1 to 2 seconds, then copied the keyframe from 1 second to 3 seconds.... This is what I got. Hope this helps!

Nicely done AC! Brent, if you want to do the "tube thing", here's a couple helps: 1) If you haven't already, download Digital Carvers Guild tube light plug in to illuminate in a path. 2) The oscillate tweener function is good. But for true randomness, download Lost Horizons Software Power Pack. It has a Noise Tweener function with a multiple adjustments. Sorry for the cheesy gif but it's all I had time to knock out today.

It's fun to see how many solutions there is to one problem . So here is mine : i've used the water:waves function of 4elements, mixed with a tile function, to create the flow of lights on a simple plane . Don't know if it's really the effect you wanted to give . litst

AZ, Mark and litst...Very cool animations! Clint

Great job you'll!!! That sure beats the heck out of debateing the "future" & problems of C.

litst, how did you get your shader like that? I played with the mixer for quite a while, and couldn't get a result like that. Could you post a screenshot of your shader? Thanks. Nebula Supernova Studios

Wow! You guys have given me some serious options to try out..complete with illustrations :) I am going to have to play around with some of this stuff but its the exact type of info I am looking for. Its going to be for some internet company up here and the producer was insistant on an effect like this. Bunch of premadonnas :) This is going to be my biggest animation yet so everyone keep your eyes out for a server farm that takes Carrara...I dont want to lose my computer for a long time again :)

Man, I love this place! Litst, I tried your wave solution -- very cool! Mark -- the tube light suggestion led me off to an answer on another project I'm working on. Neb -- I rarely even think about the oscillator tweener; nice to be reminded of how powerful it is. And Brent -- thanks for asking this question! It's nice to have something come up that flexes the brain and gets stimulus from everyone else!

I totally agree, Chip ! :) Here is the shader tree . The anim is one second long . All i had to animate was the completion slider of the waves . One thing i've found important is that the angle of the waves must be very different of the angle of the lines . The waves function reacts weirdly : if you scale a single wave at 10%, it will be wider than 50% ! Strange ... I love Carrara, coz i always get surprised ! ;) Brenthomer, good luck for your animation, and please keep us updated . If you want the complete file of my little anim, just gimme your e-mail address . I don't know about render farms, but if there is one, Copernic should find it : http://www.copernic.com In general, if there is anything anywhere on the net, it will find it ! Very useful ! :) litst

Alright, I get it...I got confused because you said mixer, not subtractor...operators are powerful aren't they? (-: Someone else come up with a problem that's been buggin' them, cuz this was fun! Nebula Supernova Studios

OK, I stole Litst's idea. I used his texture settings to color the Poser 4 dog obj. Instead of the tile function, I used the texture map generated by UV mapper. This image could stand a lot of tweaking, but it seems one could use this technique to make an interesting cyborg (or cydorg, in this case) effect. --Terri

Excellent, Terri ! :) litst

Soooo cool. Clint

I am Fido of Borg. Your fire hydrants will be assimilated.