I finally get thinking particles!

[Guest Chinaski]

Well, I have been working really hard on learning xpresso to produce the following little test. It took a long time to figure out a technique that would work, but, I think it is finally ready.

 

Hair - driven by particles

 

This is theoretical, not meant to look great right now - but the technique works, which is what I was after. I've got hair particles emitting from one object (a cynlinder). They do their thing, reacting to forces or whatever particle scripts I throw at them, them reform into a different object (in this case, a cone). I could have it keep going, reforming into more and more objects...

 

I think there are a lot of possibilities here...

[Guest WE_DELIVER]

Not to take any attention from the TP discussion,

but have any of you guys used RealFlow for particle simulations?

 

I know, were going through all the other particle systems here...but I thought I should ask.

[Guest Chinaski]

Back to the particles driving geometry from earlier in the thread:

 

I now can get them to reform into a new shape, provided that shape has the same # of points as the original shape (which is standard for morphs). There's a point where they change direction that needs to be figured out so the transition appears completely smooth. Hopefully next go-around...

 

TP drives geometry and reforms into new shape

 

 

- and WE DELIVER, I have not used realflow. I've used Glu3D in 3DS Max for fluid simulations, though.

Edited July 7, 2006 by Chinaski

[Guest govinda]

but have any of you guys used RealFlow for particle simulations?

Do a forum search. There are some examples from 18 months ago of realflow put to good use. But there's no other thread that goes into detail about particles like this one.

 

That hair example is scary cool.

[Guest palmer]

Not to take any attention from the TP discussion,

but have any of you guys used RealFlow for particle simulations?

 

I know, were going through all the other particle systems here...but I thought I should ask.

 

 

 

Yes, I have. Realflow gives you amazing results if you have the time and budget to harness it. It's great obviously for realism and once you know how to control it through all the work-arounds it can yield some awesome results. The time table for working with realflow is pretty slow though and doesn't lend itself well to mograph deadlines unless you are doing something tried and true. Testing can take a long time and then running your sim and processing your mesh can take hours if not days depending on the scene.

 

Version 3 is pretty fucking unstable and realflow project files are very susceptible to corruption.... in my experience anyway. I'm using it right now actually for a personal project. I had toyed with the idea of using pflow, thinking particles, and the usual suspects for it, but in the end I want the realism that I can't seem to achieve with metaballs of any sort. For liquid simulations I think its probably the best that is commercially available right now. Version 4 just came out and I'm not going to be upgrading unless the price drops substantially, or I'm blown away by the demo that I'm installing right now. I haven't done much reading on it but I can only hope they fixed a lot of the issues in v3.

 

In the end I'd say its great for realism that I feel you can't achieve with anything else but its unstable and can be a huge pain the ass.

 

 

Check this out if you haven't seen it yet:

http://www.flowlines.info/rndreel01.html

 

Pretty dope looking.

[Guest igorschmigor]

 

Check this out if you haven't seen it yet:

http://www.flowlines.info/rndreel01.html

 

Pretty dope looking.

 

They don't sell the software though. Not that i could afford that type of software anyway.

[Guest BillD222]

F'N Sweet!!

 

 

Well, I have been working really hard on learning xpresso to produce the following little test. It took a long time to figure out a technique that would work, but, I think it is finally ready.

 

Hair - driven by particles

 

This is theoretical, not meant to look great right now - but the technique works, which is what I was after. I've got hair particles emitting from one object (a cynlinder). They do their thing, reacting to forces or whatever particle scripts I throw at them, them reform into a different object (in this case, a cone). I could have it keep going, reforming into more and more objects...

 

I think there are a lot of possibilities here...

[Guest palmer]

They don't sell the software though. Not that i could afford that type of software anyway.

Yeah..... its unfortunate too. From what I've heard they are hard pressed to even sell licenses to the big dogs. If it was me developing something like that I'd want to share it with the community.

[Guest boywonder]

You guys are unreal! I just learned how to turn my pyroclusters blue...so...yeah.

 

Thanks for the steaming hot info thread...it rocks!

 

BOY:1:DER

[mauves 0]

The random dots are not a problem at all. That's just a texture thing. The way the system is built, you can use any kind of "brush" you want, just like photoshop. I'm just using a circular gradient with a little noise in it for these tests. I'm going to program in random effects, too, like jitter, so a really natural look can be achieved. My goal is to be able to get something that can look just like photoshop brushes animated. I'm also going to be doing some watercolor type brushes, too, where the paint disperses in a turbulent fashion, like watercolor.

 

What do you mean about the angle? Do you mean the angle at which the spray painter is to the surface it is painting on? So the paint paths would get larger at an off angle?

 

By the way, I forgot to mention that this can interactively paint on 3D geometry.

 

Example

 

The weird specular highlight on the spray paint is because I'm not rendering with antialiasing.

 

 

Hi, first post here!

 

Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm trying to recreate the effect you made in C4D. Could you give some tips on how you achieved this?

 

Did you use sprites with a bitmap texture on? What kind of emitter did you use? Did you use a texture to define where the sprites would stick on the object?

 

Sorry for these all questions, it's just too long I didn't got my hands dirty with TP.

[Chinaski 0]

Hi, first post here!

 

Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm trying to recreate the effect you made in C4D. Could you give some tips on how you achieved this?

 

Did you use sprites with a bitmap texture on? What kind of emitter did you use? Did you use a texture to define where the sprites would stick on the object?

 

Sorry for these all questions, it's just too long I didn't got my hands dirty with TP.

 

 

Hi there, Mauves. Welcome to the board. First thing I'd say, is that if you're looking to do a spraypaint on geometry thing you're probably much better off creating a custom UV set for your objects and using an animated texture map. This was more of a theoretical exercise than anything I would use in production. Anyway, with that said, here's as much info as I can remember right now for putting this together in Cinema 4D.

 

There's a pstorm emitter that is attached via xpresso to a null. That null is animated with the cappucino tool in a front viewport. With the emitter/null, you need to attach position to global position, emitter alignment to global matrix, and velocity to velocity. You'll probably want to set emitter type to rate to make sure you get a steady stream of particles.

 

Use a pdeflector node on your geometry to get collision detection. When the main particles hit the object, they transfer to a second group that has a pshape node (you're correct about sprites) that are aligned to the normal of the object they just hit and remain stationary at that exact location.

 

One problem you're going to have with the sprites is that they don't sit flush on the surface of the object because they can't deform to match the curvature. So, it's definitely not perfect.

 

You can also look into the proximal shader, which can shade objects based on the proximity of other objects in the scene. Useful for certain effects, although I haven't tried doing write-ons with it. I think somebody put an example of proximal together awhile ago that looked really useful. Maybe JeremyW on CGtalk? Anyone know?