Studio switch event

[TGS808]

I saw Marco mention a studio switch event here:

https://www.keyshot.com/forum/index.php?topic=22721.0

How is this done? I can find nothing else on it.

[INNEO_MWo]

And what exactly do you wanna know?
You create two studios. And like a camera switch event, you can do the same with the studios. You'll find that feature in RMB menue.


Do you have a specific scene in mind to use this to solve a problem like Dirk (designgestalt) did?


Cheers
Marco

[TGS808]

Hi Marco

Yes, I need to animate the beam angle of a spotlight from say 30º to 70º and then have it reverse and go from 70º back to 30º. I did find the switch studio command in the RMB menu (thanks) but I can't get it to work to do what I want. It just plays studio one over and over and never jumps over to studio two. I must be doing something wrong. Studio switch may not actually even be the way to go for this but nothing else I've tried has worked. Any idea how to get it done?

[INNEO_MWo]

I did some tests with studios and switch event. But didn't get it work.
There might be some issues with the studio switch event, when multi material are applied.


So maybe some physical blend blades would do the job?
Or a texture could help?


Or you do it in post.


I wish to have the time to work on it.

[TGS808]

I'm going to keep working on it today. If I find a way to solve it I'll let you know. What I can't understand is why Luxion didn't include the mirror option for this type of animation like they did for some of the others. Having that would make this work with a single click.

[INNEO_MWo]

Only number and color fade animation can't be mirrored. But with color fade connected to a color to number node, you can animate values from different materials and textures. But the angle value from a spotlight can't be driven by any node.
KeyShot 9 (as mentioned in the what's new webinar) can define complex parameters.
Perhaps the next version would help a bit.

Cheers
Marco

[TGS808]

Only number and color fade animation can't be mirrored.

Yes, a strange omission. Why not just have them be able to be mirrored like the others?

But with color fade connected to a color to number node, you can animate values from different materials and textures. But the angle value from a spotlight can't be driven by any node.

I can animate the beam angle value with the number fade node but it only goes in one direction. From X to Y. There's no going backwards from Y back to X. Color fade doesn't seem to help out in this situation either.

KeyShot 9 (as mentioned in the what's new webinar) can define complex parameters.
Perhaps the next version would help a bit.

Perhaps. Sadly, I need to do this now. If I can't do it within KeyShot I'll find another way. Thanks for the input!

[INNEO_MWo]

You can't mirror material animation, cause you can only apply one animation to a material. And mirrored animations are obviously two animations, right?


I would use a spotlight with an angle of >70^ and add some kind of blades around the source. This blend blades would get a rotation animation to close them to 30^. The pivot might be the light source.


Hope that helps.


Cheers
Marco


PS: written on a mobile in short form

[TGS808]

You can't mirror material animation, cause you can only apply one animation to a material.

I guess that's the part I'd to see change. Rather than having just one from X to Y option, the ability to have another. It seems logical (at least to me) that if someone wants to animate specific values (like that of a beam angle) that they may want to do it in more than one direction. It's cool that KeyShot allows you to animate between specific beam angle degrees but being able to change (as in my example) from 30 to 70 and not being able to go back from 70 to 30 seems like the node is only doing half the job.

[INNEO_MWo]

Here is a misunderstanding. You can't control the angle value with a node. Otherwise with a fade animation it would be possible to do the entire job.

[TGS808]

Here is a misunderstanding. You can't control the angle value with a node. Otherwise with a fade animation it would be possible to do the entire job.

Sure you can. Unless we are using the term "node" differently. With the set up in the attached screen shot, I can use the Number Fade animation node to take the beam angle of the spotlight from 30 to 70. That works. What you can't do (as far as I can see) is to then make it do the reverse, from 70 back to 30.

[INNEO_MWo]

OK - my misunderstanding - you can't control the beam angle with every node. I tried to use the color-to-number-node to adapt from a color fade animation to the beam angle. But color-to-number can only drive the color of the spotlight (0 = black and 1 = white like in the preview).

So I used the number animation to animate "the half job" and created a multi material with a second instand for the "other half of the job".
And a studio switch event was used to switch between both animations.

Attached you'll find a simple example rendered in a low sample rate. Your screenshot pointed me to this solution.


Hope that helps

Cheers
Marco

PS: makes me always happy to learn something new in KeyShot (even after 5 years of experiences) - Thank you!!!

[TGS808]

As I was uploading that screen shot, I thought, I probably should have done this in my first post. It could have cleared things up earlier. 

I'm going to download your attached file to see how you put it together. Thanks for that and for all the input. I worked out a way to do this effect in After Effects (so I also learned something new) that's actually really easy but it's good to see that there was a way to do it in KeyShot after all. Whichever one ends up looking better (and is easier to pull off) is probably the one I'll go with.

Thanks again!!

[TGS808]

Just took a look at your file. So it was really the multi-material that was the key to the whole thing. No need for model sets or anything else. Pretty clever, Marco. Nicely done. I'm a little annoyed I didn't see this myself. 

[INNEO_MWo]

Now curve animation in KeyShot 9 makes it easy and the studio switch event useless for this scene.
And also the denoise does a pretty good job on this related to my previous post.

Cheers
Marco