Landmass morphing realistic animation

Geology and Terrain
1

Hi everyone!

I have on my hand this project where I need to morph the landmass of some continent into present day. It has to be nearly accurate as scene dynamics depends on it. What I have currently after 2 months of work is:

A. Present day material

  1. Landmass heightmap
  2. Landmass alpha and water alpha derived from the heightmap.
  3. Texture created from nasa’s blue marble 46k map. Landmass only.
  4. Ice cover alpha image sequence for morphing ice cover to present day.

B. From past

  1. Just a 5 frame storyboard in jpeg format.

I have no idea how to approach this problem. Please, I need some suggestions quick. If I can animate just the landmass alpha, I can derive other elements from it as well. I have access to these tools:

Vue 9.5 xstream
Maya
Terragen 3 pro animation (which I bought just a few weeks back and have no experience using yet)
Blender 3D (beginner’s experience)

Please I need some educated suggestions on this quick.

2

Sorry, I can not help you - but I try it - maybe you can take this as a start and I am sure, there is something similar in Maya, too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWXOwQ3J2dI

This is a short vid about “morph-maps” in modo. Maybe 8really just maybe) it helps.

Kind regards and good luck with your project!

3

Thanks for helping paul! I finally did the morph in vue. A bit tricky but with auto key everything made sense. Waiting for client’s reply before rendering full res. Thanks again for the help friend!

4

ikefhozif@fdfdf.namnerbca.com

5

etaraq@fdfdf.namnerbca.com