LW_Serpent Problem in 6.5

[bmurphy28]

Hi,

I'm getting a render problem using the LW_Serpent object displacement plug-in. My scene is has a globe and I have text objects flying around the globe. I added the LW_Serpent plugin so the text would wrap to the path around the globe. This works great when there are only 1-2 objects using the Serpent plugin. After I had around 3-4 then all the objects are deformed funny and none of them look good. Is there a problem using the Serpent plugin on several objects in the same scene? Maybe there's a better way to align textual words to a path of motion?

Any help is greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
Barry

[txbob]

Are all of the words seperate objects, using a seperate instance of the plug in? If not, the longer the object the more distorted it will become. On an object such as... a serpent, this isn't a big deal, but with text you have obvious paralell and perpendicular lines, so the effect of the distortion is much more obvious.

Hope this helps.

[papou]

i think Serpent is tooo slow. I never use it.
Prefer to use the great Fi's Bezier_Bend plugin from ichikawa.
Use Nulls as direction coord, and scale them like bezier to wrap along the globe.
Maybe u have to subdivide or knife your mesh to get better deformation.

A plugin like that is inside LW7.5c too but i never used it.
Have Fun.

[bmurphy28]

Thanks for the response folks!

Papou, where can I find this Bezier_Bend plugin?


Barry

[papou]

you can find BezierBend here:
http://www.infoseek.livedoor.com/~f_ichikawa/plugin-page.html
have fun!

[bmurphy28]

Great! I downloaded the Bezier_Bend plugin and I can definitely find good use for it, after I figure it out (the documentation is in Japanese :-)

I did get my scene to work correctly afterwards. I removed the Serpent plugin from the first object in the scene and added it again. Now everything deforms okay. I guess the scene got a little messed up after adding the plugin to 6 objects and just needed to be refreshed.

Happy Rendering!
Barry