Using Cellular Maps In 3D Animations

The cellular map comes in as a close second to the noise map as a great one to use for random effects. You can animate the cellular map for such effects as moving skin on a snake That is crawling around. The primary difference between cellular and the other maps is that it does not have a phase value.

This means that you will have to animate it through offset, tiling, angle, and maps. Although this is not necessarily a problem, it can prove to be a bit of a hindrance when you just need a quick, random, animated surface.

When animating cellular, follow these guidelines to get the best results:
Use maps. The best part about maps is that you can throw an easily animated value into one of the colors of the cellular map-even noise. Remember that the map affects only that particular color slot of the cellular map-such as the cell color.

Animate the offset values: By changing offset over time, you are able to move the cells around the material. Although they move in unison, you can use the previous technique to at least vary the components of the cellular map to get a more random-looking translation along a surface.

Use and animate fractal cells. The fractal option gives your cells a more "rough around the edges look." by altering the number of iterations or amount of roughness over time, you can easily add some random animation to the cell's characteristics. The Planet map works differently than most of the other maps.

Rather than applying some sort of math to two colors to produce a random effect, Planet creates something that looks like a topographical map. Instead of two colors, you have eight. Planet works well when used as a map within other maps. It is not as effective as a standalone map. The most obvious way to animate the Planet map is to animate the colors, but this is almost the most inefficient way to animate. If you have ever tried to control colors animating over time, you know exactly how things can get complicated quickly.

Each color actually has its own track and each track can be broken into three different animated parameters. That is a total of 24 individual animated parameters for one map, which can get unmanageable, even for seasoned animators. If you are going to use the Planet map in an animation, try animating the Offset and Angle values. Either one produces a great effect. This is mainly because the planet effect morphs as it moves over the surface of the object. (Note that this works only with the Offset field.

Angle does not produce this morphing effect.) On the other hand, if you animate the Continent Size value, you can create some interesting fractal patterns. The default value of 40 is good for stills, but if you animate anywhere between 15 and 60, you will get good results.