200 Frames Per Second Torrential Outpour Blues

So, I wanted to make a slow motion (200fps) shatter effect and mix it with a fluid simulation.... ahoy, is that a steep learning curve that I see ahead?

Things I learned along the way....
1: It's not as straight forward as it would first appear to use DMM simulations in Realflow.
2: PCF doesn't seem to work so well at high speeds.
3: My computer is Murtaugh from Lethal Weapon (too old for this sh*t).

 

 

Originally I had three glasses all rendered nice, refractions, raytrace shadows, photon emission etc.. (see still image below) but I felt that 16 minutes per frame was a little excessive for a technical excercise so I reigned it in to my usual plasticine style render, that's another thing to add to the list of stuff I learned...

4: Don't bother making things all shiny if it's just a technical exercise!*

* unless the technical exercise is rendering shiny stuff!

Balls to the Wall...

Further developing my understanding of the DMM plugin I built a cavity wall to destroy. The idea here was to work with multiple objects and different materials so I have two layers of brick, iron wall ties, wooden planks and a plaster render.

I've used nParticle instancing again and this time have two emitters, the front wall and the plaster layers. I need to spend a bit more time refining the particle motion and my understanding will likely develop the more I use it.
My workflow is definitely improving and I have found that I am able to "sculpt" a simulation rather than just apply the plugin and go with the default outcome. I feel that I need to spend more time working on the applied DMM materials and perhaps push my processor a bit harder to create smaller chunks.

Note to self: get some dust debris going and address the sinking blocks in future simulations.

This is Cracking Me Up!

I've spent some of my free time over the past couple of weeks investigating, experimenting and getting o know the DMM plugin for Maya and I have to say, it's great!

The plugin is intuitive and, once a basic understanding is developed, easy to use. One thing that appears to be missing from DMM is the ability to create debris but this has been dealt with by Olivier over at Pixleux who has writen a handy Python script that will emit particles from the faces that are created by the fracture.... handy!

 

 

I found a really nice video by Sylvain Nouveaux on Vimeo ( Click To View ) that I thought would be a good piece to replicate in order to best develop my understanding of DMM. I feel that my attempt is pretty successful, there are areas that could be developed further but for an early learning exercise it's not too bad.
I still didn't get my head around the SOuP plugin and had to resort to using the standard radial field to affect the particles so this is something that I can further investigate another time.

Having a Smashing Time

After finding those old Bullet tests I thought I would have a play with the DMM (Digital Molecular Matter) Cinematic plug-in that is included in Maya 2012 before I get my hands on Maya 2013 with it's integrated Bullet plug-in, in the least it will give me opportunity to compare and contrast the two engines that appear to be very similar.
There are a host of dynamic engines currently available in Maya including the original Maya dynamics, the Nucleus system, PhysX, DMM and Bullet and each one has it's own qualities that are beneficial to specific areas of games or visual effects, this can be confusing to say the least but I suppose that Autodesk, in having so many choices, have got a very flexible tool in Maya which can only be a good thing in industry.
Anyway, ramble over, here's my first test using the DMM Cinematic plug-in from Maya 2012. Hopefully I will have time this weekend to continue my investigation of it....

A Bullet in the Head

I was cleaning out my computer (something which I should probably do more often!!) and in the process of freeing up 80GB of space I ran across a couple physics tests I made around 2009-2010 using Maya and a cobbled together Bullet plug-in.

Although the exercise was really interesting, I remember the hassle it was getting the plug in installed and working, so it is very nice to see that Autodesk have included Bullet along with some other shiny goodies in the latest version of Maya, check the Area page with info on all updates in 2013..... http://area.autodesk.com/maya2012

As soon as I get my hands on Maya 2013, I'll make some comparison.... hopefully it will be a little more user friendly now that it is fully integrated!

Sounds of the City

Two posts in two days... I should probably slow down before I overtake myself!!

I've been playing with my camera again and have made this short as another exercise in understanding my camera, compositing and audio driven animation.

Mat :)

Mega Bloks EQ

So, no posts since January 25th.... I must try harder to maintain this blog!!

Here's a clip to get things going again, I made this to test out my new camera, investigate another method of audio driven animation and brush up on some compositing techniques.

The music is Cavatina... you may recognise it as the Deer Hunter theme music.

Enjoy :)