The image below is a frame capture from a simple procedural animation of a gradient mapped texture field generated using the Texture Synthesizer. This post will show how the animation was generated. In tomorrow’s post we’ll show the relationship between this kind of Texture Synthesizer effect, and how you could configure the same style of effect using MSG processors.
Working with Depth Offset modulation over time is a great way to self-animate a texture field generated by the Texture Synthesizer over time. You can use keyframe animation in the paint action sequence (PASeq timeline to interpolate any Texture Synthesizer parameter over time in an animation.
Interpolating some Texture Synthesizer parameters can lead to radical changes associated with the generated texture field, especially any parameters associated with popup controls. But interpolating Depth Offset provides a very nature way for any given texture field to slowly evolve or self-animate over time while still keeping the same overall visual appearance.
The PASeq shown in the first 2 gallery images below was what we used to generate out procedural animation. Each of the 2 Texture Synthesizer action steps are identical. So we’re incorporating some recursive modulation (as discussed in our post 2 days ago) to generate some increased visual complexity in the generated texture field.
Note that the 2 Texture Synthesizer action steps have initial keyframes recorded at frame time 1, and additional keyframes recorded at frame time 200 (the last frame of our 200 frame animation). The keyframe interpolation over time is what creates the animation of the generated texture field based effect over time.
The particular Effect Type I used for this animation example is shown in the 3rd gallery image above of the Effect control panel. Note that the Effect Type is set to Gradient Map – Save Gradient. This Effect Type option color maps the generated texture field through the Source Color Gradient. You can see that I manually edited the Source Color Gradient to be based on 3 different colors, going from black to a color to white. This previous post discusses how to build and edit a Source Color Gradient.
The 4th and 5th gallery images above show the start and end keyframe values for the Spatial control panel, and the start and end Source Color Gradients used for the animation. Note that the initial Depth Offset at frame time 1 is set to 0, while it is set to 200 at frame time 200. And the middle color in the Source Gradient starts with a blue coloring and then moves to a more purple coloring at frame time 200.
So, the Depth Offset and the Source Color Gradient are smoothly interpolated over the course of the animation. This is what creates the texture field evolution over time, as well as it’s coloring change. The finished animation example can be seen here. Note how the procedural texture field evolves over time, while still maintaining it’s overall visual appearance.
A different experiment would be to interpolate the Angle parameter over time and then you would see the texture field rotate over time. You can experiment with keyframe animating different parameter values over time to build different kinds of evolving texture fields and associated visual effects.
In tomorrow’s post, we’ll explore the relationship between this particular Texture Synthesizer effect, and how you could duplicate it using MSG processors.
