I am trying to do my first animation and I want to make objects appear and disappear, in my case letters in a graphic. I would like them to fade in and out. I changed the transparency to zero but was still left with a ghosted object. I then tried changing the material mode from surface to volume. That gave me the transparent look but it didn't animate. Or, at least it didn't behave like I expected with key frames.... my whole animation had the last setting I did.

Also is there a quick way to preview without waiting for the whole thing?

Thanks for any suggestions,

Michael

Not sure about animating the fade, but there is a preview option. However, this option lays out all the frames in rows, and they are pretty small. It can be hard to see what the animation looks like, at least for me. The Preview Animation command is at the bottom of the Objects menu. There's probably a shortcut for it somewhere too. Good luck with the fade. Lin

To make an object disappear you need to set it size in all three axis to 0. Set a keyframe the frame before you want it to disappear where it is fullsize then advance to the next frame, set object size to zero, set a new keyframe (assuming you aren't using auto-key, otherwise it should set a keyframe for you). If you wish it to appear again note it's size before you zero it out and repeat the steps above but instead of making it size zero you'd re-enter it's original size(or whatever size you wanted). Is that clear?

Thanks Aldaron, but if I understand what you are saying, it won't give me a fade over a period of time, but a blink-in blink-out. I was looking more for a transparency transition. Any ideas? Michael

Hi, Lin, I am looking for a way to preview or quick render a part of the animation... every time I use the feature you describe, it starts from the beginning. Do you know a way to just preview a section? Michael

One good way to preview, or quick-render a part of the scene Sir MWortman, is to set up the Animation to only render the duration you are looking to preview, then decrease the document size, maybe down to 300x200 or something small, and fast. Then turn your Rays down to 1, leave it on Regular AA, and go! Another thing I was hoping for in Bryce 5, which we didn't get, would be showing the "Hide" function in the Advanced Motion Lab, but alas... Maybe they'll figure it out in 6, so we can fade things from there? (shrugs)

mwortman, use the transparency as you have been but when you get to the point where you get the ghost instead of full transparency that is where you do the size change. Also do you have blend transparency set and no refraction. You can find the setting for blend transparency by clicking the little triangle at the top center of the material editor.

Thank you SirShadow and Aldaron. I will try your sugggestions this evening... Hopefully I can pull it all together by Valentine's day I am sure you are here Michael

I don't have the ability or patience for animating, but can't you animate textures over time? wouldn't you be able to fade in or out by keyframing the transparency of an object from 100 to 0, 0 to 100?

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tjohn, that's what he was doing but when it got to 100% transparent it still left a ghost image. That's why I asked if blend transparency was set which I thought of after I gave the sizing instructions.

Well, you could do the sizing on the very last step of the fade, to get rid of the ghost object. Lin

Did you check "Blend Transparency" in the materials presets? If you didn't your preview window in the material editor will appear with a ghost image as well. If you are using a transparency to make the space around your letters show through remember the transparency mask goes into the second window of your picture texture. It's also a good idea to make sure this mask is all white and black. Grays give you half transparencys. Walk through your keyframes from beginning to end to make your changes. clicking settings in the middle can affect the settings in the previous frame. You may go back to the final frame because you changed settings out of order and find the program somehow changed the transparency setting in the keyframe from 100 to 50%. This could be your "ghost". I just did three seperate animations for a star wars takeoff. Do you have anything behind the letters that has to show through? If not try this method. I used both 2D plains and terrains. I created blue text on a black background from an image and applied it with 100% diffusion and ambience. This filled the camera view. I created four keyframes of the text at 0, 40, 120, and 160 frames. I went to the 0 and 160 keyframes and set diffusion and ambience to zero. I rendered the whole thing regular normal AA because super fine anti alias kept chopping bits out of the letters no matter where I positioned the camera. The text fades in lingers between 40 and 120 and fades back out. This text doesn't actually turn transparent, the object just goes black on a black background. It takes 1/20th the render time as an actual transparerncy takes. Hope this helps:)