iaga

I don't know if anyone's done this before, but I was wondering if it is possible to create a scrolling text on a screen (just as you'd see in some shopping centre's, at event stadiums etc.), and how would I go about about animating and applying it?

parker2740

There area few ways to do it. I always use After Effects to do it. It takes about two minutes. If you only have 3ds max however, I would create a texture map that has all the text on it. I would make sure that however much text is going to be on the screen at one time, the resolution for that section is 800x600 to make sure the text is crisp. For example, if you have three paragraphs and each one is going to be on the screen by itself at some time, then the map I would create would be 2400x600. Its still early so let me know if Im not being clear

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BillyElNino

Do you mean a Dot Matrix screen like with red or orange text? We did this with an animated texture in Cinema 4D. As it didn't matter what the text said I found images of Dot Matrix screens and created a texture from this and had it self-illuminating but it wouldn't be hard to russle one up in PhotoShop fit for purpose. The large screens in stadiums or shopping centres are usually either dot matrices or very pixellated so its an idea to keep this in mind for realism...

iaga

Yes that's it the Dot Matrix one with red text. So, my next questionis how would I animate in max/ viz with the text scrolling horizontaly?

Thank's for both your replies btw.

BillyElNino

Keyframe the textures position or offset in which ever axis you want it to end and at what frame you want. You'll need a 3DS Max user to tell you where in Max these functions are I'm afraid but I'm sure the method is similar. Remember you want linear interpolation between keyframe rather than spline other wise you'll get eases in and off which won't give constant speed to the movement. The other option is to use an animated texture so you go film a screen you want and stick that in....

Of course, you could model and set up a functioning Dot Matrix screen with light dots that go on and off under your command at the right time but I think time wouldn't be on your side in creating that!

iaga

I could I guess animate the text so's it just scrolls horizontal, but my question is how would I mask the texture once it's off the screen? i.e. when the texture is scrolled accross the screen, it would effectively leave the screen and it would show up as an unwanted texture off the screen.

I hope this all makes sense, sorry.

RobNJ73

If you animate either the UV mapping gizmo, or the cropping/placement of the scrolling text texture map, you shouldn't need to mask it.

BillyElNino

What I mean is animate the texture rather than the object that the texture is applied to.

You are keyframing the textures mapping coordinates so that the image used as a material will move across your objects surface at the speed and moment that you choose.

Peter M. Gruhn

The part that bothers me is that with the coarser of those signs you can see that the bulbs are still in the same place while only the data moves. With a scrolling texture you see the texture move. We need to mask the texture, that's probably easy. Ideally we also need get each exposed "bulb" to be a single color and it might be nice if it were from a slightly limited set. I have an idea that only has one bug. Let me muss with it, I'll get back to you.

Aside: I've often wanted some kind of texture switch "single sample lookup". Don't map all of this texture to the object, just sample a point in the middle and set the whole object to that color. Guess I'm going to have to start scripting ;-)

Peter M. Gruhn

All of this won't apply in all situations. I'm worrying about the individual light element visibility; the fact that the bulbs are static and the picture steps across them. If your application is happy just scrolling an image you'll be fine with that and can ignore much of this.

First I made the image for the sign. There is still some antialiasing showing from the source image which I'd rather not have. Blame Photoshop Elements. I think PShop full has a "don't anti-alias button. Or do your text in Word with font smoothing (system setting somewhere) turned off, then copy paste (screen grab, perhaps) to your image software.

The trick is to get a source image with one pixel per bulb. My image is 320 pixels across, my sign is 320" across and my bulb is 1".

I applied two UVW maps to the sign. Channel 1 for the image, Channel 2 for the bulb mask. Then I moved the gizmos for each to the upper left corner of the sign. Maybe not necessary, but it made me feel better.

The bulb mask is a gradient ramp set to radial; tucked in a bit from the edge and given a little softness. Use real world coordinates, 1" x 1"; Map Channel 2.

Copied that and renamed to use as a self illumination map. Punchy center, high body and fade out. I like the look (and I'd like to try it as a displacement map too).

The sign picture goes in to the diffuse channel of the material. Make sure the bitmap is set to Map Channel 1. And turn off filtering for it.

To scroll the image, go back to the plane and the UVW map for channel 1. Select the map's gizmo and move it in the correct direction. BUT make sure you move it so you won't get half pixels across a bulb. I went to frame 50 and moved the gizmo up 100". With my sign and all my maps and everything in full inches, I know that any movement by full inches will be by full pixels so no worries.

It sounds like that might be the part you are concerned with.

The picture won't show off the sign if you move the gizmo. Textures only appear on the objects they are applied to. If the sign is four feet long and the picture of the text is 20 feet long only four feet of it will appear at a time on the sign. There are two ways to scroll the image, one is to move the UVW gizmo over time (I think I like this way best). The other is to change the offset of the map in the material editor. With the map set to Tile you can move the UVW gizmo to the moon and the sign image will just keep repeating. I'd rather set up an animation loop where it moves over 20' then pops back and the process repeats. It's possible, but I'd have to look it up.

Notice that there are aliasing issues in a bulb type sign if you back of a little bit. You can set the filtering on the transparency mask to something higher. That helps a little

Attached Images

	scrollsign01.jpg (38.6 KB, 6 views)
	scrollsign02.jpg (32.8 KB, 7 views)
	scrollsign03.jpg (66.0 KB, 4 views)