Ground plane in my animation

[steve339294]

Hello - I am new to 3DS max, so this is probably a simple question. I have set up a simple animation of my scene; everything renders and animates well, except my ground plane. I have inserted a simple ground plane, given it a grass material, which it renders fine. However, when I run an animation, everything else renders well, except the ground plane, which remains white. Why does it render with a material/color, but that does not show up in the animation? Is there a checkbox that I am missing for this? Thanks for any help!

starr

[loydg]

Hmm. I know this may sound dumb, but make sure the material is applied to the object. I occasionally get my panties in a bunch when something doesn't render only to find out I hadn't applied the material to the object yet. A few other things come to mind:

1) What type of plane is it? In other words, is it a simple primative or an Infinite object similar to a VRay plane? The mapping scale may be relative to the size of the object.
2) How is the material (bitmap) set up? It is using a Real-World Scale? Make sure ther Material and the UV coordinates correspond to each other.
3) What type of mapping are you using on the plane? Default "Generate Mapping Coordinates" or is the a UVW applied?

Keep us posted if all that checks ofut and you are still having issues.

[steve339294]

Thanks for the reply. . . I have been able to show the ground plane now with a material in my animation. I fiddled with some of the settings in its "Object Properties" - unfortunately, I've been trying to fix some other things in the model, and now I'm not sure exactly how I got it to show correctly . . . . another question that has stumped me, if you have the time. I set up a spline path for my camera to pan around the model for my animation, and then adjusted the camera and it target to best show the animation. Now I would like to extend the spline path that the camera runs along, without changing the current camera (and target) setups along the existing path. Is there a way to add to the path without changing what I've done? If I add vertices to the path to extend it, it messes up the existing camera settings. If I add a second spline, and connect it to the existing spline path, how can I get the camera to add the new spline path? I found where you can tell the camera to use both splines in its path, but again, that also changes the existing camera shots. Any help would be appreciated!

starr

[loydg]

Glad the ground plane issue worked out.

Okay, so the answer is yes and no to the camera path. Once you add to the path it will change the length and the camera animates from A to B in the length of the set timeline (default is 100).

Here's a solution (others may chime in with some better ideas):

Clone the path that you are currently using and like. Add the length you need to cover the rest of the shot by either adding other vertex or attaching a newly drawn spline and welding the joining vertex. Next, clone the camera (since you have anmation on the target) and add it to the new path and remove th old. It will now be offset from the original since the new path is longer. To fix that, first extend the timeframe of the entire animation (open up the Time Configuration down in the lower right of the UI and add for time based. Then open up the Curve Editor and use the points to match the new camera to the old. You'll most likely grab the end frame one and move it up.

Give that a shot and see if it works for you. I can try to explain in more detail if that would help.

Good luck!