Animating a texture

[Bean]

Hello :(

Not sure if this should be in the "Animation" forum or in here, as it's animating a Texture. Sorry if it's the wrong place, but here's my problem...

I want to make a Tube "grow" (in length), but since it is a Curve I do not appear to be able to Animate the points of the Curve to let the tube itself grow (maybe you can help point me in the right direction for this).

An alternative solution I'm working on is to use the ColourBand feature in the Texture to have only a small percentage of the beginning of the Tube visible (and the rest mapped to Alpha using the Blend texture). This is all fine, and so I can now Render only the beginning of the Tube, and adjust the Blend Texture ColourBand to increase the percentage of visible tube.

My problem however is that I cannot find any way to Animate the changes in the ColourBand. There is no IPO (that I can find) to do this.

Is it even possible !?? Can you advise of ANY method I could use to make the Tube appear to grow (or actually grow) to give the effect I am after??

Many thanks in advance for your help. And if you know anything about lattices please see my other post here (http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=65848)

Thanks again!
Matt

[Fligh]

Textures are mapped across the Texture Space (T-Key) which is the same as the Bounding Box by default. So unless your hose is in a straight line it will map along all coils as you move it along X.

You can animate the Curve with RVK's, see IamInnocent's tuts here:

http://membres.lycos.fr/bobois/index_anglais.html

%<

[CD38]

To make the tube "grow" using textures, use your Blend texture with the colorband. Set up an Empty to path-follow your curve. In the Map Input tab for the blend texture, select Object and type the Empty's name in the adjacent field. Your colorband will "grow" along the tube as the Empty follows the path. As with any Alpha shenanigans, there may be some problems with shadows and spec, but it's a start.

Edit: I see this method has the texture space problem Fligh % describes. If the curve loops around on itself, multiple parts get textured and parts of the tube appear before they are supposed to. I will look into it some more.

[Bean]

thanks SO much guys!!!! this has been driving me absolutely crazy! i'll give it a shot tonight and let you know how i get on :D

[LW3D_Convert]

actually if you used hooks i think you could animate the points. Just food for thought.

[Bean]

many thanks - the mapping to an object worked a treat :D

using an Empty however wasn't quite suitable as the Alpha "half" of the Blend Texture was bound by all three axis', ie. there was only 90 degrees of freedom to translate the Empty.

I found it much better to create a Plane so that anything on 1 side of Place was Alpha'd (180 degrees of freedom) :)

Out of interest LW (or anybody) how would one go about using "hooks" to animate the points ??? I don't even know what a Hook is.. but it sounds like it might be a good thing to know !

[CD38]

You use hook objects to animate single vertices or control points in Object mode. Select the vertex in edit mode, Ctrl-H, add Hook. You can create an Empty, or use an existing object as a Hook. For your curve a single hook would be good for extending the end of the tube straight out. More degrees of motion = more hooks.

Edit: Cool, you can even drag Bezier handles with Hooks to control curvature.

[Bean]

and yet ANOTHER new command... Ctrl+H !!!

Thanks once again CD, I'll have a play with this :)