So I am stuck off college with Pneumonia! So I have been continuing with some Fume FX Tests. I am planning to re do my Black Hawk Down shot and add more layers of detail and Debris. In the mean time this was a little half a day project I did.
I lit the simulation with 4 Target Spotlights also I used multiple Particle Systems to give the explosion more shape. The Final Sim used about 5GB's of RAM and took nearly 3 hours to render.
I also have decided on a new way to set my videos out by using a Frame Counter so when I get feedback people can say which frames I need to work on ect!
I started by animating the helicopter and blades to fly forward then I used Thinking Particles and Demolition Master to shatter the back tail then once I was happy I baked out the animation, scaled down the simulation so I could use fume fx to create the explosion. I emitted the Fire and Smoke off the Debris for a few frames to create the blast/fireball effect I also used a short burst of turbulence to create more realism as it would be very windy in the sky as well as the rotor blades effecting the smoke.
The Destruction Using Demolition Master:
I then went to rendering. I used V-Ray for the Chopper and Fume FX Global Illumination and Scanline for the Fume FX Render. I then Comp'd in After Effects, added all the usual glows and blurs in and Wella!!
Final Shot:
Overall I am not mega happy with the animation/Fume FX simulation so I plan to revisit this shot in the near future!
This RnD was done in Realflow 2013 to simulate a Wax Teapot melting. I have seen a lot of videos of people saying they have created a melting object and all you see is a fill object and a gravity field added and it looks pretty rubbish! For mine I used a Bounded Gravity field key-frame to move over the teapot so its gives more of a progressive melting effect. I rendered the Shot in V-Ray using Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) for the "Wax Look".
I slowed the render down by another 70 Percent with Twixtor in After Effects so it looks a lot slower and more like wax, this saves me sim'n and rendering over 500 frames.
This was a little Shot I worked on last night and then comp'd this morning. Its based on them food commercials on TV where you see the product been doused with chocolate!!
Method:
I used 3DS Max to set up the scene I created 4 Tours's and added some large scale noise on them to deform the shape up a bit.
I then exported them to Realflow 2013 and ran a Soft Body Simulation on them to make the collide like dough would (very little stiffness and no elasticity). I then created a basic circle emitter with higher viscosity to create the chocolate flow on the Doughnuts. It took a few sims to get it looking right. After the sim was done I Meshed the Particles with Realflows new Legacy Mesh, the mesh came to about 800,000 Polys over 150 Frames. I should have upped my Filters Relaxation as you can see the Metaballs in the Mesh in some frames.
I Then brought the Mesh's back into 3DS Max and Rendered with Mental Ray. I did not add a Shader to the Doughnuts as the main focus was the chocolate Simulation. For the Chocolate Shader it's actually just a Mental Ray Ceramic Shader with a dark brown colour on and I have always found that it makes great looking CG chocolate.
Render Time was Around: 2.3 Hours
I then Slowed the whole sim down using Twixtor in After Effects to make it look like and Ultra High Speed shot, this saves me having to do a 450 Frame simulation and render. Twixtor handled the render really well and there was no visible warping. This is probably because of the white backdrop. Twixtor is an awesome tool for making fast shots look slow motion.
This is the second image I have made for a college brief. This one is based on a B-29 Bomber been shot down by a German Fighter.
This image was a lot less work and somehow I feel the result is a lot better than my Red Coat Soldiers Image.
I started last night by setting up the scene in 3DS Max. I detached part of the wing to look like it was falling off the plane. I then added a Pflow system to emit Debris of the wing which I fractured with Rayfire. The Explosion was done in Fume FX at a pretty low res but i knew it was going to be blurred out.
I also set up some Global Illumination with V-Ray to make the fire from the explosion illuminate the plane (it looks so much better with GI, Fume and GI together look super amazing!).
I then did comp in AE getting the explosion to look nice and have a cool glow.Also making sure all the motion blurs look realistic and consistent. The Clouds are just 2D layers with some Turbulent Noise on and lower opacity. I added several layers of 2D Fog to create depth to the scene as well as trying to make it look more real.
The Final Output was a 2K Resolution. Turnaround was: 3.3 Hours. The Image is currently showcasing on 3D Aritst's Magazines website.
It was great fun to create this image. It was a blast!!!
After been given my Project Briefs for college I have tried to bend them so I can do some 3D For my Final Output. Thanks to my awesome teachers (Andy and John).
For one Image I want to some Red Coats that are been blown back by a Cannon Explosion.
I decided to bite the bullet and Model all the Assets myself with no external help as well as texture,fx,lighting,rendering will all be done by me in the coming days. FX is my main interest but all aspects of VFX I find amazing so I was very excited all the way through!
I looked at a lot of Reference, I knew this was not going to be Digic Pictures Assassins Creed 3 Cinematic Quality but I wanted it to look good. I started by modelling the Body and all the Clothes. I faked the cloth look by using Noise Modifiers and the Mesh smoothing the Noisy Mesh to create the look of creases. Once the Clothing was complete I modelled the Musket, Again I looked at reference but Its not mega realistic but it looks good enough and I don't have the time to waist detailing as I have 2-3 other Digital images to make!
I then went into Mudbox to create the face of the solider screaming and then texture paint his face. That only took like 20 mins. Back into Max to assemble the Model Then I exported It out as a Final FBX file.
I then have started to do the scene setup for the final Image using a simple Pflow system to create the rocks explosion which will emit Fume FX eventually but for now its more like Previz.
I created Both The Models and The Scene Set-up/Previz in Around 6 Hours.
Also Here is a test animation using a Mixamo Rig. I plan to try and rig it myself in the near future.
Update** 15 September 2013
An amazing animation company called Image Metric's have released a Free Ware Facial Animation rig. I quickly did a pose and put it on my Red Coat Model. I am soon to experiment with this for more realsim in the face. (Thanks To Image Metrics).
I got the idea for this shot after watching the Hawken Live action trailer. Here are the steps of how I made it:
First I set up a scene in 3DS Max and blocked out the timings and camera animation. Once that was locked I brought in Demolition Master (A Plugin that works with Thinking Particles) to do the destruction simulation of the Mech getting blown up. Once I was happy with the sim I exported the Mesh out and then started working out the Fume FX Simulation (The Explosion). I used 3 Emitters, The first is the missile trail that hits the mech, another 1 that emits Fire,Smoke off the robot when it gets destroyed. And another that shoots Smoke Tendrils to the right of Frame. I used a lot of Turbulence (Maybe too much) to get some nice smoke and fire movement. I then ran a high res sim that took around 2 hours. Rendering was done in V-Ray and Scanline. I then did some comp in After Effects getting the fire to look nice with glows ect. Also I used RSMB to get the motion blur.
