Large Tree Research Underway.

Fully Animated Canopy

Tests are underway on a variety of tree canopies where the variance of movement can be controlled by writing an IFL list file. The initial leaf and branch cluster movements are made in the DOS program, Autodesk Animator Pro and augmented by the POCO Script language.

Anipro Development.

(On-screen Menu system in development)

Magnified leaf defining area

(bottom left of Anipro screen.)

The user, after having defined the leaf shapes with graded colours, then runs a POCO Script program which allows the user to name a tree data file with the leaf cluster number selected then the leaves simply sprayed into the central area with the coordinates of each leaf being saved to a datafile.

Using another POCO Script program within Animator Pro, various mathematical processes are used on the stored leaf data to simulate the various stages of individual leaf and leaf cluster movement, from still to gale. These changes are written over increasing frame numbers. Using a final POCO Script program, after frame trimming and replication, the various copies are made of the animation for opacity and bump animations, then saved as incrementally numbered frames.

Making IFL Animations

IFL Writer II Main Screen:

The lower numbered frames are taken as being the less animated part of the sequence and the higher the vertical level on the screen is the more animated section of the leaf and branch cluster for the tree.

To save time in manually drawing the animation, a secondary screen can be invoked to allow the user to select upto four waveform generators and three random waveform generators to build a timed animation.

IFL Writer II Convolution Screen:

At this time, the Animator Pro on-screen menu system (with save and load function) is being written into the whole process to save productivity time. Also, improvements are being made to the branch cluster process for added realism over the lighting effects on the branch cluster with Bounding Polygon processes.

Notices