I am working on a photography project that relies on a rather tricky usage of forced perspective, and am hoping that the usage of a 3d modeling application such as Maya could help me complete it. I need to set up three cubes next to each other, from left to right, and the put one smaller cube centered two feet in front of those three cubes. I then want to wrap a grid pattern around the cubes in such a way that from one vantage point, diagonally looking at all four cubes, the pattern appears to look 2demensional, instead of appearing skewed as it wraps around the cubes and by the distance of the cube from the vantage point. The end effect would be like I took a picture of the cubes from a specific vantage point, brought it into Photoshop, created another layer with the grid pattern, and applied a multiply layer effect on the grid layer so that it appeared to be applied over the cube layer.
Is there a way to have Maya or another program compensate for perspective/depth rather than emphasize it when wrapping a pattern? If there is, once the effect was applied I could rotate the cubes and printout the grid pattern for each visible panel of the cubes as they were warped to create that effect from the specific vantage point. This would allow me to create the same effect in real life with cubes constructed out of wood/foam core.
I realize my question may have been poorly stated, so please ask if it has confused you.
Looks like a camera projection would a way to start, look on the net for camera projection technics, I've never had to do
one yet but they use a lot in film for a background cheat.
Basically a texture would be strategically projected from a camera into a low polygon object or objects.
You would be able to animate camera move slightly only until the cheat becomes apparent.
Good luck.