Page 636 - Kitab3DsMax

Part V: Animation and Rendering Basics

Tutorial: What’s on TV?
Animated files such as AVI and MOV can be opened and mapped to an object to animate the texture, but
you can also use IFL files.
To create an IFL file that will be mapped on the front of a television model, follow these steps:
1. Open the Windows standard Notepad text editor, and type the following:
; these frames will be positioned on a television screen.
static.tif 20
Exploding planet - frame 10.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 15.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 20.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 25.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 30.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 35.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 40.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 45.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 50.tif 2
Exploding planet - frame 55.tif 2
static.tif 60
Note
The first line of text is referred to as a comment line. You enter comments into the IFL file by starting the line with
a semicolon (;) character. n
2. Save the file as tv.ifl. Make sure that your text editor doesn’t add the extension .txt on the end of
the file.
You can check your file with the one I created, which you can find in the Chap 21 directory on
the DVD.

Note
The IFL file, as described earlier, looks for the image files in the same directory as the IFL file. Make sure that the
images are included in this directory. n
3. Open the Television—IFL File.max file from the Chap 21 directory on the DVD.
This file includes a television model created by Zygote Media.
4. Select the television front screen object, open the Material Editor, and double-click on the Standard
material in the Material/Map Browser. Name the material Television Screen. Then create a Bitmap
map node and connect it to the Diffuse color swatch. In the File dialog box, locate the tv.ifl file and
click OK. Then click the Assign Material to Selection button to apply the material to the screen.
Tip
To see the map in the viewport, click the Show Map in Viewport button. This button makes the frames of the IFL
file visible in the viewport. n

5. Because the screen object is a mesh object, you need to use the UVW Map modifier to create
some mapping coordinates for the map. Open the Modify panel, and select the UVW Map modi-
fier. Set the mapping option to Planar. Then select the Gizmo subobject mode and transform the
planar gizmo until it covers the screen.
6. Click the Play button (/) to see the final animation.

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