NEON SIGN ANIMATED QUESTION

[Celena Galli]

hello i wanted to ask you scripters how its possible to make a logo animated mesh with neon like the neon signs that are lately appeared on secondlife fashion stores that are animated ( i will not place examples to not make an advertisment ) i just wanted to know if there is a specific script or a program for that

[Fenix Eldritch]

You're going to need to be more specific. What effect are you trying to achieve? Just describing it as "animated" doesn't really tell us much.

[Wulfie Reanimator]

1 hour ago, Celena Galli said:

make a logo animated mesh

There's a thing called Animesh. It's quite literally animated mesh.

It gives an object its own skeleton, and the object can then use animations made for avatars, assuming the object is also rigged for the SL skeleton.

[Rachel1206]

Or simple texture animations combined with parts shown and hidden, which bends lights into complex vibrant figures.

 

 

[VirtualKitten]

or there is a neon tube maker on MP that creates mesh NEON for you.

[Qie Niangao]

10 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

Or simple texture animations combined with parts shown and hidden, which bends lights into complex vibrant figures.

That's my guess too. Done right, it's not even necessary to retain a script in the object once the animation is started.

[Kyrah Abattoir]

3 hours ago, Qie Niangao said:

That's my guess too. Done right, it's not even necessary to retain a script in the object once the animation is started.

Yeah but you've ever seen anyone bother with doing it the right that way?

Edited July 14, 2020 by Kyrah Abattoir

[Lucia Nightfire]

Using "UV Fixed" mesh, you can slide a specially crafted texture over key faces with llSetLinkTextureAnim() to make an animated effect.

https://gyazo.com/0e03824afdc7141d39dde66ad0ddd47e

The only gripe is that textures applied to animated faces take significantly longer to load versus textures of the same size/resolution on non-animated faces for some reason.

[Celena Galli]

like this 

 

[Rolig Loon]

Those are very tricky visual effects.  I can't see being able to do anything like that except with texture animation -- very careful, professional work.

[Fenix Eldritch]

That's pretty much using llSetLinkTextureAnim() as Lucia and Rolig mentioned. But also careful mesh design, particularly with the UV mapping and splitting up of multiple material slots.

Most of the signs in that video seem to share some common design element in that each letter (assuming they are separate links) likely has at least two material slots: one for the outline, and another for the solid fill. Take the third sign, "Sarah's Technic Corner" for example. The effect of snaking the light around the letter's outline could be done by unwrapping the outline material slot to be a contiguous linear strip on the UV map and then simply panning the texture from left to right. Making the texture at least half lit/unlit gives the appearance of it "filling up" as it slides across. Indeed, since these neon lights are generally a solid color, a very small texture can be used, as all you need is the color and necessary offsets working in tandem with the UV.

Edited July 20, 2020 by Fenix Eldritch
slight clarification

[Rachel1206]

Very professional, but I wonder if the video only shows signs made with the Unreal engine combined with DirectX, with which incredible lighting effects can be made. The creator is very skilled and talented.

 

[Wulfie Reanimator]

3 hours ago, Rachel1206 said:

Very professional, but I wonder if the video only shows signs made with the Unreal engine combined with DirectX, with which incredible lighting effects can be made. The creator is very skilled and talented.

 

The description does say they're made for "Second Life, Unity" etc.. a lot of the effects seen would be pretty simple to do with shaders, but since we don't have those in SL, you'd need duplicate layers of mesh to overlay different texture animations, which might then be vulnerable to alpha glitches.

How different the signs would look in SL, I don't know. Maybe @Lindsey Warwick wants to come talk about it if they use the forum. 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Wulfie Reanimator

[XanderRutan]

There is not just one method.
It depends on the mesh, the number of prims and the number of faces.
You can change the color, the transparency and the glow for the prims or for the faces with a timer, and make very complex animations.
More simply, you can use textures (but the possibilities will be limited)