Attached Link: http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/150204/Action/FullPreview

I need a great piano model for my big animation project, a 9' Bosendorfer concert grand with morphing everything. However, I am now working up my next "incremental" animation, about 4-6 minutes, again in shadow as was my Lin animation, but an interior set featuring a piano, and have decided it can simply be an excellent but smaller grand.

I've found a model at Turbo Squid that will prob. be okay, attached link.

I wrote to Turbo asking for .obj export and some additional images. They wrote back right away and said yes on the format and sent a zip of images including mesh. Here are the images (2MB).

1. there are supposedly no textures with the model. In Poser, besides tripping black as the diffuse/ambient color, what will drive the other colors, and what will drive the "finish" on the model and the reflections? Node work, i'd bet.

2. can anyone say by looking at this section of the mesh

if morph targets could be built on each key, making them each independently animateable?

1. on props like this in general...they are always too perfect and sharp-edged. To get beveled edges I would have to do work in modelling software, right? I have trueSpace and can take it in there and back.

2. what would be the approach to texturing this model so I could build in dings and imperfections and perhaps dull spots in the finish to show age, etc. Would the easy thing to do be to make a texture for each plane and apply, somehow? While the sale page says no textures included, the next image seems to show a texture, so what's the deal i wonder:

Thanks all

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Attached Link: http://ockhamsbungalow.com/PPP/PlayerPiano.zip

I'm pretty sure my Player Piano package includes a separate bare keyboard with all keys posable. It doesn't have the extra "Bosendorfer keys" at the bottom, but they can be added. If the keyboard itself isn't in the ZIP, let me know and I can dig up the original stuff and add the Bosie bass.

GOT KEYBOARD! (emoticons insufficient to convey big smile.) Ockham, you are the bomb! Images a little later. I already figured out how to use y-trans to depress keys, now working with lights and nodes....this is tricky to light. ::::: Opera :::::

Ockham,

Naturally I am stunned and thrilled to find you have already worked out the difficulties of a morphable piano keyboard. I pulled out the really cool "yellowing old ivory" color built into the model, learned to y-trans the keys, and tried some renders. Here's what the model looks like in the display settings:

But I am having trouble with the renders. "Smooth polygons" is definately off. Also, I tried Firefly and P4 engine, tried shadow map and raytrace, cast shadow-don't cast shadow, tried one light and three, and quite a few different settings.

I don't know if I am doing something wrong, but I can't ge the render to respect the edges of the keys as you can see below.

Ockham, right after you posted I had to leave my studio and having just arrived back have really just begun experimenting, so I will probably figure out what is amiss, but any comment you have might help.

Thanks, and the offer to add the Bosendorfer deep bass is tremendous. Please don't do anything on my account yet on that score, I want to see if I can settle your keyboard into a grand piano first.

You know what Tori Amos calls the Bosendorfer deep bass? "My subwoofers."

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Message edited on: 02/17/2005 01:20