I am trying to animate a terrain and its materials in Vue 7.4 (latest build).

I am using the exact sequence detailed in the manual to animate materials:

• move the time slider to 3 seconds
• open the material summary panel
• double click my material to edit it
• load a new material to replace the former one
  At that point, I am supposed to get the warning message "you are modifying a material at a non zero time, do you want to animate it", but I get nothing at all. No way to create a material keyframe. It just replaces the old material with a new one.

I am using materials that contain dynamic ecosystems and noticed it does work when using simple non ecosystem materials.

Is there a workaround to animate ecosystems?
Is it a bug or is it simply impossible to animate ecosystems?

In your Options General Preferences tab click on Restore disabled messages. That should bring the dialog box back!

Mazak

Mazak

Sorry, I did not made myself clear in the last sentence of my message.

In fact what I want to animate is the terrain material itself, not the material used in the ecosystem objects.

I want to have a terrain change materials :
Jungle -> cut down trees -> eroded grassland

I made other tries with Infinite 7.4 and 7.5 PLE.
It is possible to have material animation, but not if the first two materials include ecosystems. .

What I could get is a transition of this type:
normal material -> normal material -> ecosystem material

With any other combination, there is no animation and no material keyframe created.
If I start with an ecosystem material, there is no material animation possible at all.

I tried to trick it by first creating an animation with standard materials and then replacing them with ecosystems. This destroys the existing keyframes.

Have you seen the animation example tutorial "Animated Eco-Population"? If I load the scene I can edit the underlying material flat gray and animate it. At last frame I change color to red and Vue asked for animation material and it did the correct color change.
You say you load a new material in editor, maybe here is the error?!? Change the material setting in existing material do not load a new material! A new material load break the animation process.

Mazak

It seems clear from what you've tried, that Vue won't let you change EcoSystems.

I suspect the only solution is to split the animation into two segments and use a seperate copy of the scene file for each segment so that you can apply the two different EcoSystems.

Quote - Have you seen the animation example tutorial "Animated Eco-Population"?

Where did you find it? I have looked in the animations tutorials files and it does not seem to be there.

I have tried to animate some of the ecosystem properties (density) but to no avail. If I start with an ecosystem material, it is impossible to create a material animation keyframe.

Mazak

I you want, you can PM me with your e-mail address. The file has only 3MB in size.

Mazak

Hi, Mazak. No need to send me the file. 

I have understood why it did not work for me. It is a 7.5 functionality as indicated on the product page, and it was not included in the 7.4 update (which is the one I use).

I will upgrade to 7.5 if need arises.

Thanks for your help.

OK, no problem

Mazak