Shockwave Effect

[Woody929]

I'm using the shockwave effect, and am noticing that for some reason it skips some nodes. In one part of my model, I have a sting of 26 nodes, and 6 of the 26 nodes don't get the effect.  During plaback it looks odd when most of the string shows the effect, but then there are holes.  Am I doing something wrong, or is this working as designed?

[Gilrock]

That's not enough info to give you any help.  That effect has an inside and an outside radius so it depends on what settings you are using because there can be holes since it's an expanding donut.  We need to know more about this model.  Your description seems strange to say one part of the model has a string of 26 nodes.  Is this a model group?

[Woody929]

Sorry,
I have a vertical string going up the side of my house made up of 26 nodes, so yes it is part of the whole house model/grouping.   Typically the holes show up on the far extents of the wave, but it looks odd when most of the pixels light, but then there are gaps.  I can change the radius/width/x/y to different values, but there are always some pixels that get skipped.  It just feels like it should be a smooth transition.

Here is another shot of the preview at the very end of the effect

[Gilrock]

Well the effect works perfect on a single model so I think it must have something to do with that being a model group.  Do all the pixels light up with other effects?

[Woody929]

Well the effect works perfect on a single model so I think it must have something to do with that being a model group.  Do all the pixels light up with other effects?

Thanks Gil.  Yes, I use Morph, Wave, Curtain, Color Wash, On etc and those all work as l would expect.  I'll share my show if that would help.

[Gilrock]

Ok I can reproduce it.  It only happens on really big models like the entire house.  It's because I'm stepping around the circle in 0.5 degree increments.  The further out you get the chance for holes appears.  I experimented with 0.1 degrees and the holes went away for the size model group I tested with.  It makes rendering that effect take 5 times longer.  The holes your are seeing form what is called a "moire" pattern.  No matter what angle step you use it will always occur it just moves the effect further out when you use smaller angles.

[Woody929]

Thanks Gil.  I'm assuming you can you only adjust the angle in the code.  I would sacrifice the rendering time if it would fill in a portion of the holes.

[CaptainMurdoch]

Could the code look at the size of the model and use a smaller increment for larger models?

[Gilrock]

Could the code look at the size of the model and use a smaller increment for larger models?

Yeah we do know the width and height.  Now if I can figure out the formula to calculate the minimum required angle.

[Woody929]

Ok I can reproduce it.  It only happens on really big models like the entire house.  It's because I'm stepping around the circle in 0.5 degree increments.  The further out you get the chance for holes appears.  I experimented with 0.1 degrees and the holes went away for the size model group I tested with.  It makes rendering that effect take 5 times longer.  The holes your are seeing form what is called a "moire" pattern.  No matter what angle step you use it will always occur it just moves the effect further out when you use smaller angles.

I downloaded the source tonight and gave the  0.1 a shot.  That filled all of my gaps, but like you said it took the rendering time up from 8 seconds to 50.  I think I'll be ok with that though :-)   A slider or some pre calculation way to adjust it could be a good add.

[Woody929]

Another thought, since the stepping is applied to the effect in a global manner, what if there was an overall application option to "Fast Render", or "Detailed Render", the difference for this effect would be the 0.5 vs 0.1.  I could see while building a show & rendering every time I save or want to see everything, it could be a beating to wait 5x longer (especially as I make it further into a song).  However if the option was there to create the detail when I was completely finished with the sequence, waiting wouldn't be near as painful.

[JonB256]

Woody, you may be rendering more often than you need to. Nutcracker does a pretty good real-time representation without rendering a lot.

[Woody929]

Sometimes it does, but for me it needs to be refreshed pretty often.  Some effects will only partially show until I re-render.   I do have render on save turned on,  and could turn that off.

For now though, I'll finish the show with the latest production build, then use the one I modified last night to do the final file.

[Gilrock]

I don't want the calculation step angle to be a user parameter.  Why don't you just calculate the formula for the required angle based on the size of the model so I won't have to?

[Woody929]

I see Galaxy has the same step angle :-)