Attached Link: http://www.sparkyworld.co.uk/3d10own.htm

The Rollin' Road - Concept & Freebie The Rollin' Road is an attempt at modelling an animation concept. Primarily designed to replicate a visual effect as seen in many manga movies and part of the end title sequence in the original Inspector Gadget cartoons. It can also be used for "Little Planet Panoranmic" style images and animations. The idea is very simple, the scenery rolls 360 degrees around the X axis for the duration of the animation. Aka it rolls, while the figure doesn't. Plus theres an option for a rear plate to move upwards to give the impression of a rising horizon, like driving up a hill. As this approach seems more suited to cartoon style animations and images, the houses and trees have been modelled in a basic 'toon/child like style with a Beano comic like pastel colouring on the houses. While personally I think the idea hasn't quite translated from 2d to 3d as well as hoped, I figure in the right hands it can be improved. So I've released this as a freebie if anyone wants to give it a whirl. As per the poser thread, any ideas on making this better would be greatfully recived. Download from the link above. 5 second YouTube clip is here... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9zVg8B_1fw

Rough explanation of how it works...

Very nice!! :)

Great prop :-) my only critique would be, that in the YouTube clip, you've got the roller going the wrong way.

I suspect a rotation around Y tends to work better than Xrot.  This scene was made several years ago using a cylindrical hill and road.  Because you expect to see lines converging with distance, the *radial* convergence doesn't look out of place in the animation.

I accidentally left a couple of wrongly lighted frames in the loop, which spoiled the loopness, but the cylinder is the point here! :)

http://ockhamsbungalow.com/blog22/Ride-bike.swf

Looks fun - never had much luck with animation, but this makes me want to play with animated toonies. Thank you!

Ockham - I like your idea as well, Kona clip is very cute and quite believeable ^.^

Great idea, maybe if you make the central cylinder larger it would appear to be flatter When its rotating and the houses wouldnt appear to rise and fall so much. Anyways cool idea!

Good stuff. It's nice to see experimenting in here.

Thanks everyone! -------------------------------- gendragon - like your ideas as well - especially those on on your recent diorama. -------------------------------- jonthecelt - your're right that does! -------------------------------- vilian - if you do try playing with Dork, he takes the default P3/P4 walk animations which loop nicely. Plus it's low poly and can render fast. -------------------------------- Razor42 - I pondered the opposite :) What if someone made an undulating cylinder, obviously that would really increase the rise and fall effect, would that work or just induce a form of motion sickeness?

ockham - neat idea you have there, Certainly interesting, as you and jonthecelt both observed, how the choice of rotation angle makes a difference. A while back made a similar thing, 3 rings of differing speeds (to create parallax scrolling), and in that, your idea and also this weekend freebie, theres one annoying constant. Unless you really zoom in on a tight area, the scene background is always obviously circular. Which means if we wanted to get an effect like the repeating backgrounds seen in Tom & Jerry or the Simpsons wouldn't work. For that I think whats needed is some form of "belt" made up from 4 (or better still more) "plates". Much like the roll of paper used by some animators which sat underneath the animation cel and was controlled by 2 handles. Sorry I forget what this is actually called. But the idea - as per picture - is basically the same. The plates are all identical and have no visible gap twxit them moves from right to left and rotate around 2 pivot points. Eventually the 1st image returns back to the front. I've used a cylindrical 'rotate back' here, but it doesn't have to be like that in actuality. Thats because the scene camera is kept carefully to one plate you wouldn't see how it rotated. But a cube doesn't work because you'd see the edges as it rotates. Hence my feeling on a plate and belt approach, like a caterpillar track. Which could be possible with some form of ERC.

bobbystahr - totally agree with you. Indeed this isn't the only experimental thing I'm working on. As the sneaky peek here shows - don't want to show all of it yet, because it's not quite right, though if it works as I hope then it'll be another way of getting fully articulated organic style movement on hard objects. But without having to do tricky ERC and other complex stuff. BTW - Apols for the tease style piccy - just playing around a little here :) Though once we get it working we will be sharing the "how to" so other people can use similar approaches in their work.

Just thought I'd plop them over here too (they're already posted in the Poser forum in the similar thread, but in case someone missed them ;))

The idea of the rotating ground.. I used that, with simply the round ground plane in PP2014 and some displacement-grass:

 

And here's my test of the rotating cylinder toy:

A more belt-like shape of the road would probably look better, but this is still fun. A goode idea.

 

I used the Walk Designer for these two animations btw, and just chose "walk in place". The characters never move, only the ground below them :)

Thanks for reposting these here.. A more belt-like shape of the road would probably look better.. Totally agree, both for a background animation scroller and for a road like set. ..chose "walk in place". The characters never move Totally forgot about that command! I use an older version of poser when making stuff as it's less forgiving in some ways and ensures better compatibility.

I think the Walk In Place has been part of Walk Designer since its inception? I like Walk Designer because it's an easy way to both make the animation and it's tweakable. Sometimes it gives a little odd results (like the top ani, I think I selected a wrong "donor" for the walk but it came out funny so I kept it L)

I think all the native Poser figures are Walk Designer compatible. And for animations, they're also suitably low poly and easy to work with. And... I happen to like those natives, too ;)

I think the Walk In Place has been part of Walk Designer since its inception? Think you're right there - been so looong since I last used it! :) These days tend to use premade poses for speed.

You have a twisted mind Sparky.

Thanks for the cool freebie.