On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:08:30 -0800 (PST), FishyThoughts wrote:
Think of Spinning a coin 360,
only having scanned in 2 sides,
as a gif &/or flash.
Including 3 sides, & making it look like a 2 sided coin would even be more fun….
Not a problem – just add the odd face as an animation after the head and tail faces.
What programs will fit the bill (Winders/Linux/Mac)?
For stunning results, use a rendering program, such as POV-Ray, which is free and multi platform, and can simulate a 3D coin, in perspective, with a bump-mapped metallic texture that reflects light in a realistic way. Photoshop Extended may have features that I don’t know about that could accomplish this. Bryce is a popular, fun (commercial) program that can do a good job in this regard.
If you’re not ready to tackle rendering yet, here’s a simpler way. Photoshop can do a decent job quickly, using the transform tool in the horizontal direction only to create an animated gif. This will simulate a two dimensional surface rotating.
Here’s how you would scale a 12 frame animation of a spinning coin, where H is the coin’s heads image and T is tails.
Frame 1 (30 degrees): T * 50% (image T, scaled by sine(30) horizontally) Frame 2 (60 degrees): T * 86%
Frame 3 (90 degrees): T * 100%
Frame 4 (120 degrees): same as frame 2
Frame 5 (150 degrees): same as frame 1
Frame 6 (180 degrees): H * 0% (edge of coin)
Frame 7 (210 degrees): H * 50%
Frame 8 (240 degrees): H * 86%
Frame 9 (270 degrees): H * 100%
Frame 10 (300 degrees): same as frame 8
Frame 11 (330 degrees): same as frame 7
Frame 12 (360 degrees): same as frame 6
(loop)
If you change the number of frames, the percentage is calculated as the sine of the angle the coin makes with the viewer for that frame. So for example, if you want 30 frames, you would use sine(12), sine(24), … sine(360) as your percentage values.
With a little more work, you can also add a reflection, or a shadow in Photoshop.
—
Mike Russell –
http://www.curvemeister.com