How can I create an X-ray machine effect. I wanted to an object to pass through a flat Square and as it does have the apperance of being scanned like the effect in Total Recall when Arnold is running through the airport.

Off the top of my head...

Animate your character object using bones...once you have the walking motion you want, copy the character object and used Replace Object to load in an skeletal structure...this skeleton will now follow the same walking motion as the "skin" of you character, but should be inside of the skin.

Now, just apply a Planar Image mapped Clip Map to the original character object (which is serving as the skin)...turn on World Coordinates and use a simple black image with a small white square (or whatever shape you want the x-ray area to be) painted onto it. You'll have to fiddle with the size and position of this image...and watch out when LightWave tiles the image all throughout your world.

Since this Clip Map image is stationary, it will not affect your character's skin until he/she walks through the area being affected by the clip map....this will make the skin disappear and reveal the skeletal structure underneath.

Advantages to this technique:

* You have precise control over which objects will be affected by the clip map, so if you wanted a "concealed" weapon to be seen (like in Total Recall) when the character walks through the x-ray, just don't apply the clip map to it.

* Body parts outside of the Clip Mapped area will not be x-rayed, so you can have the character's head and shoulders still bobbing up and down above the x-ray screen, if you wanted.

That's about all I can come up with at 3am...hope it makes sense!

David Warner

Here's an idea. How about rendering a frame of the object, then take that frame into Photoshop or something and convert it to grayscale. Then import it into layout, map it onto a plane, and turn on negative image. Pump up the luminosity and dissolve to that image when it passes behind the X-ray screen. Should look pretty neat. . .

Jim Phillips

Here's yet another possibility:

Move the camera into place so the X-Ray panel fills the camera view. This will also fill the camera view with the appropriate area of your object that will be "scanned." Dissolve the panel out 100%, and use the Negative filter plug-in that comes with LW to render out a negative image-sequence of your object (or possibly a replacement skeleton as Dave suggests) passing by the panel. Also turn down the Color Saturation in the Effects panel to 0, which will render the sequence as B&W instead of color. Apply this image-sequence to the panel, and you've got it! The movement will match perfectly. Plus, this will allow you to put your camera at any angle you want, whereas Dave's clip-mapping would limit you to pretty much a head-on view of the X-ray machine.

Sorry, Dave....3 a.m. does have its disadvantages. :)