Follow Path and Bitmaps

[Greenlaw]

Hi,

Does Follow Path with the 'Bend' (Alt-click) option work with Image layers?

When I tried that today, the image layer only 'attaches' to the path but doesn't not 'bend' to the path. Just wondering if this is broken or if it never worked that way.

As an alternative approach, I tried filling a segmented box (in a vector layer) with my bitmap texture. The box deformed correctly along the path but Follow Path made a mess of the texture fill.

Does anybody have a good suggestion for this effect in ASP?

Thanks in advance for any help.

G.

[Greenlaw]

Ah, it actually works in render but now I have a new problem...where it crosses over, the transparent background becomes solid.

[Greenlaw]

Okay, I think I know why. It's probably because the path is crossing on a flat plane and ASP doesn't know which section should be in front. Hmm...this is trickier than I thought it would be.

[Greenlaw]

Aha! Found a workaround. I used Sketch Bones to draw a chain through the element I wanted to deform, used Sketch Bones again to draw my 'path' shape, and then simply transformed the image layer through the bones. The transparency in the 'crossover' section looks fine.

I'm not sure how ASP determines which bone is in front by default but since, unlike a path, the bones have z-position available, I guess you can stack overlapping sections to your preferred order. Still tricky but at least the option is there.

[slowtiger]

What about the old bone bending trick? Have a straight line of bones in frame 0, bend that line in frame 1, move the image layer along.

I used this to bend this subway, made the looping to check transparency: it's OK here.
View My Video

[Greenlaw]

Thanks SlowTiger. Great example and I wound up doing exactly that using the Sketch Bones tool.

[slowtiger]

I always like to mention that AS is the only program (i know of) able to do this nifty little trick, with images and video ...

[Greenlaw]

Ugh...it's turning out to be a lot more difficult to edit than just using the drawn path though, with or without Sketch Bones. I have a fairly complex shape for a bone chain and it's looking like it's not practical to use bones for this in ASP (need to create way too many tiny bones to get it smooth enough.)

Might have to go back to the using the path and breaking the deforming element in layered sections, or use an external program for this effect.

[Greenlaw]

Sigh! I just made it work with bones. The deformation isn't as smooth and precise as the path version but I decided I really didn't want to deal with the transparency issue either.

I guess this just illustrates that we need a real spline deformer in ASP that works with the existing bones system in 3D space.

[Greenlaw]

I have another question: What determines the resolution of the mesh used to deform an image layer when using bones? I have a fairly high resolution image (about 6k in length) and even when I use very tiny bones, the image bends in huge chunky sections as if the bone chain only has a fraction of the number of bones in actually has. My guess is that the resolution of the unseen mesh just isn't getting high enough.

In any case, I can't seem to bend the image smoothly with bones. It bends very smoothly with Follow Path but then there's that pesky transparency problem with Follow Path. Do I have to make the bone rig for this effect oversized and then scale it down?

[slowtiger]

How about rendering it in two parts and the superimpose those parts on top of each other again? This way you could use follow path.

[synthsin75]

What determines the resolution of the mesh used to deform an image layer when using bones?

Bone strength and binding mode. It may seem backwards, but the more bone strength regions overlap, the smoother the warping.

[Greenlaw]

Thanks guys, I'll try to revisit this later. What I have now is working well enough for my current assignment but I do want to see if I can make this better when I have some extra time.

TBH though, I wasn't seeing any change in the apparent density of the mesh triangulation when I adjusted the Bone Strength or binding methods, only in how the bones affected the mesh--meaning it still looked pretty chunky, just differently chunky.

It seems like when you import the image, the generated mesh is fixed and there isn't a way up or down rez it. (Like you can with, say, Puppet in AE.) Usually, I find the density is acceptable but in this particular case it seems to be really low-quality for some reason.

[Greenlaw]

This has already been requested but I really wish we had the option to see the mesh like with AE's Puppet. That would really help in troubleshooting problems like this one. It would give us a clearer picture of what ASP is doing 'under the hood'.

[synthsin75]

That's odd. I can get very smooth bone warping, using images, vectors, or image texture dragged through the path of bones. The bones in my chain have a 0.10 length and an 8 strength, with region binding mode.