JC Studio - Maya, Houdini, 3dsMax and Fx. Learning and researching. 流體分子特效研究教學

Houdini FLIP and Maya nCloth RnD.

2011-11-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

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另外秀一個無關的是將流體做deform!!很酷!!

Lock Particles On Emitter In Maya. (deforming object also works!))

2011-10-24T21:21:00.000-07:00

Max的PF可以很輕易的做到Lock Particles On Emitter, 但是很可惜maya本身目前並沒有這麼輕便的功能! 但是也並非做不到! 且對於有變形或是動作的模型一樣可行!

Step1: 創造一個sphere作為發射器(surface.), 接著對產生出來的particle對sphere做goal, 你會看到particle貼著圓球, 但是卻是黏在vertex上, 這並非我們想要的效果.

Step2: 加入 goalUV and parentUV attributes, 到發射器欄位打勾 needParentUV attribute, 如此一來物件在產生的當下 particle誕生的UV位置會被記錄! 之後我們將會用這個位置讓Goal去追隨!

Step3: 到runtime after dynamic加入以下expression:
假設你particle名稱是particleShape1!
particleShape1.goalU = particleShape1.parentU;
particleShape1.goalV = particleShape1.parentV;
如此一來Goal追隨的位置將會變成我們之前所記錄的parentUV位置!

Step4: 調調看Goal下面的參數, 很好玩的!

進階版:
設定碰撞之後才黏上! 先讓particle和某個物件碰撞, 確定有了之後加入以下expression!
if (particleShape1.event0 >= 1)
particleShape1.goalPP = 0;
else
particleShape1.goalPP = 1;

Reference:
原討論串

Facebook粉絲頁成立啦!!!

2011-09-16T21:27:00.000-07:00

首先, 我想要先道個歉! 這一年實在太忙了, 對於定期追蹤本部落格的人我感到非常愧疚...

一直想成立一個Facebook粉絲頁面來發表一些資訊, 畢竟如果使用blogspot實在太麻煩了, 我不希望一直發一些無意義的教學或是訊息來讓一些核心文章失焦. 所以, 粉絲頁將會是最好的選擇!

未來一些有的沒的教學, 或是一些業界領先技術或是高手的reel/ RnD, 都會優先發表在Facebook粉絲頁面, 當然部落格也是會繼續營運啦... 有新文章也會發表在粉絲頁內, 其實很好追蹤的!

再次感謝大家的支持! 非常謝謝各位! 粉絲頁加入的辦法就在右邊區塊內, 有連結可以進入Facebook粉絲頁唷! 請多多按LIKE!

3dsMax轉檔到Maya內 101

2011-08-13T03:33:00.000-07:00

1.
全選maya的動作然後combine

2.
到animation內選geometry cache 存到某個路徑

3.
把combine物件輸出成一個OBJ

4.
到MAX內import OBJ (import as single mesh)然後到modify選pointcache 不要選有(WSM)的
然後在point cache內選load
讀取剛剛輸出的路徑內有XML檔案

5.
因為MAX和MAYA軸向的問題
請把讀好PC的物件之X軸旋轉90度
就完成了

佛心來的問與答 001

2011-07-16T06:18:00.000-07:00

JC: ok 我的obj叫進max內我選了convert to centimeters. 然後就正常了. 但是我呼叫point cache他又變成inch的大小... 有辦法把他切換回centimeters嗎?

堡神:link給一個node,在依照你要的比例縮放那個node.比較快

JC: 哇靠...轉inch是0.3937008耶... scale不能39.37008 只能39.39 有辦法讓他小數點以下多幾位嗎? FULL HD還是會有一點點差...

Sai神:你要10位都行 :D

堡神:有時候東西太小了~~ 可能會對其他的東西有影響~(例如風力等等的~) 再反向的把其他東西放大～有時候會比較好控制~

悍馬陳:感謝密技分享

Maya Fluid: Vortex Smoke.

2011-07-12T09:41:00.000-07:00

Bonus! Click me for download scene file!

Simply set some attributes up, and now I am trying to fixed some odd force problems.

Inspiration from JJ's work

FumeFX Post Process Retime Test.

2011-07-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

掌握特效的timing並使他成為一種表演才是最高境界!

How to use 3DElight in Houdini.

2011-06-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

HOUDINI_V11.0.658 与 3delight9.0.84

1资料来源：
HOUDINI_V11.0.658 从http://www.sidefx.com/下载
3delight9.0.84 从http://www.3delight.com/en/下载

2系统环境挂接：
安装好两个软件后 win7x64中手工增加两个用户环境变量
HOUDINI_DEFAULT_RIB_RENDERER 3delight9.0
HOUDINI_VIEW_RMAN renderdl
Path系统环境变量中增加 %DELIGHT%\bin;

3接入Mplay
运行 C:\Program Files\Side Effects Software\Houdini 11.0.658\bin\proto_install.exe
选择 RManDisplay.inst 安装一般将配置装于标准文档路劲

4启用
houdini11默认的渲染程序为mantra11
->Edit->Preferences->Rendering 设置渲染程序为3Delight 9.0

5导入3Delight自带的renderman shader
->File->Install Digital Asset Library...
C:/Program Files/3Delight/shaders/shaders.otl

6建立输出网络
network view -> rop network ->render ->rendrman
自动建立3delight9.0渲染输出接点

7使用3delight自带renderman shader
network view -> shop network ->Surface->...
network view -> shop network ->Displacement->...
network view -> shop network ->Light->...
network view -> shop network ->Atmosphere->...

8使用Rsl Shader Builder 自定义
network view -> shop network ->Surface->RSL Surface Shader Builder
network view -> shop network ->Displacement->RSL Displacement Shader Builder
network view -> shop network ->Light->RSL Light Shader Builder
network view -> shop network ->Atmosphere->RSL Volume Shader Builder

9测试渲染一下。即使是快乐的自由版本只能使用2线程。速度也是很快啊。比mantra使用全部线程要快很多啊

做這個行業，好還不夠，還要無可取代。

2011-06-13T06:59:00.000-07:00

FumeFX和krakatoa效果都非常好, 而且太容易上手了, 有經驗的老手都能做得不差, 甚至看起來也差不多的特效... 超越這些東西而能做出具有原創性, 而且技術入門門檻高的東西似乎是下一個階段必須思考的課題。

反觀史克威爾內的特效人員, 雖然對於新的技術不是每個都很熟或是很在行, 但是在製作上都很具有原創性... 所以可以很容易看到expression內動輒數十行甚至近百行的code, script如python更不用說, 光是看懂就起碼要花2個小時以上。

所以合理的推斷, 在computer上要搞創作對程式能力的要求絕對是必須的, 不然你做的東西, 誰都可以改得出來...

PhotoSyth: Gokokuji.

2011-06-05T04:08:00.000-07:00

Naiad, 流體的未來之星.

2011-05-16T09:46:00.001-07:00

最近公司也要開始測Naiad了，這真是Linux的優勢啊，可以先玩Naiad...哈哈。

對於這個新的流體可能大家都還不熟悉，據我目前所知，他跟Houdini和Maya真的是好朋友，東西都可以互相轉換。

速度快，結點式，可與主流軟體互動，這樣就夠強了。

How to load animated Multibodies to interact with fluids. 將多個有動作的物件導入Realflow並與流體互動的教學影片

2011-05-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

How to load animated Multibodies to interact with fluids. 將多個有動作的物件導入Realflow並與流體互動的教學影片. 以3dsMax為例.

如何製作DemoReel之將模型線稿render出來

2011-05-03T07:27:00.000-07:00

在製作自己的模型作品時，將模型的線稿秀出來是一個很常見的方式，也很清楚讓人知道你的布線能力，一目了然。

首先，給一個surface shader給你要表現線稿的模型，再串給他一個mib amb occlusion，大略地調整成自己想要的樣子。

照著做的話應該算出來會長這樣子.

現在要加入線稿了.
到surface Shader後面的SG去編輯,

在 mental ray > Contours > Enable contour render做以下動作!

Contours > 打勾 Contour rendering.
Draw By property Difference > 打勾 Around all ply faces.

最後的樣子就和下面的圖示一樣，非常方便的做法，而且品質很不錯... 不要在拿UVmap貼著算了... 那個很不專業也很醜!!!

Khnum

每次開啟3dsMax時跳出FumeFX.ini的警告視窗(WIN7)

2011-05-01T21:04:00.000-07:00

相信許多朋友每次在開3dsMax的時候都遇到一個問題

那就是會跳出FumeFX的警告視窗，這如果在BackBurner使用的時候真的非常麻煩，你要每算一個新工作就要跑去該電腦按一次，將視窗關閉。

之前一個朋友分享一個辦法給我，那就是對3dsMax選右鍵，以系統管理員身分執行，但是這方法一樣，每到一個新工作的時候，你必須到該電腦前面按下是否允許該程式變更電腦，非常麻煩。但是我又不想取消這個安全性的機制，我該如何做好呢？

很簡單，到3dsMax安裝目錄下面plugins內AfterWorks搜尋一個檔案叫FumeFX.ini，右鍵選他，將你的帳戶權限設定為完全控制，就搞定了。

以後再也不會出現任何該死的視窗了。

P.S. 在使用之前，記得要先創一個FumeFX.ini的文件，可以先進去3dsMax內打開FumeFX UI在preference內隨便設定一下，就會產生這個文件檔了。

讓透空貼圖也能被ambient occlusion計算

2011-05-01T02:29:00.000-07:00

1.這是一個maya場景，中間的物件是一個帶有Alpha貼圖的東西。

2.先試算一張，可以看見他的效果。

但是如果使用AO，就會看起來像這樣。

這個問題主要的原因是AO計算的原理，並不包含計算透空貼圖。
為了解決這個問題，我們要使用 mib_fg_occlusion node 。可以在Hypershade裡面找到，記住是mentalray選項。

注意: mib_fg_occlusion node 需要將 Final Gather打開.

創造一個 surface Shader 然後 assign 給 mib_fg_occlusion，注意是out color。

創造另一個surface Shader然後assign給有透明的物件。

進入剛剛創的新材質內的SG node, 在 mental ray下的 custom shader 增加一個 mib_transparency (可以在mental ray Sample Compositing內找到這個節點)
為了讓AO可以被顯示, 我們只需要增加一個一樣的mib_fg_occlusion結點給 mib_transparency.

最後增加貼圖的Mask給 mib_transparency的Trnsp slot. 大功告成.

增加AO的細節可以到FG下面設定。

這是最後串好的樣子。

增加Playblast編碼選項的好東西

2011-04-05T08:52:00.000-07:00

每次Playblast的時候, 總是沒有好的編碼選項可以選嗎?

介紹你好東西

http://ffdshow.faireal.net/mirror/ffdshow/ffdshow_rev1328_20070706_x64.exe

安裝之後就會發現多了新的選項可以選擇編碼啦!

Zbrush實用資訊製作55隻龍的Alpha筆刷

2011-03-27T03:45:00.000-07:00

原文

筆刷載點

Pyro Fire Thrower WIP 01.

2011-03-21T08:40:00.000-07:00

---1st version---

Still try to fix the frame jump suddenly problem.

I make fluid inherit velocity by Pops, this idea was inspirited from particle src of FumeFX.

---2nd version---

Add a ground plane for collision, and trying to find the jumping problem. I will try to oversampling more.

---3rd version---
Version A:

Version B:

The jumping problem actually is not a big deal, it is all fine when I render it. Thanks to my friend luoqiulin.

jcTraining102_ParticlesDrivenByFluid. 教你如何讓分子繼承流體的速度

2011-03-18T22:58:00.000-07:00

如果覺得不錯，可以用實際行動支持本部落格。

Cell Division made by Maya, 使用Maya製作細胞分裂!

2011-03-07T05:38:00.000-08:00

因為同事需要用Maya製作細胞分裂，就簡單的做了一個範例給他，順便分享給大家。是中文版!
Enjoy it!

如果覺得不錯，可以用實際行動支持本部落格。

Houdini Pyro RnD - Flame.

2011-03-06T08:36:00.000-08:00

Lowrez

Uprez

這個例子我有使用AutoresizeFluid, lowrez的情況下是正確無誤的。但是在lowrez輸出uprez的時候不管怎麼樣都會吃到Fluid container的邊緣，這點我還需要研究一下怎麼有效的避免這個問題發生。

Physx for 3ds Max 2011 Unofficial released!

2011-03-05T07:48:00.000-08:00

Max 2011在使用Rayfire或是TP4等外掛時，有一個討厭的地方，那就是Physx外掛裝不了...

這邊有好心的網友發布了for Max 2011的版本，請享用!

Download

Houdini進階篇: Peter Claes的論文

2011-02-14T05:53:00.000-08:00

想成為大師並非一蹴可及，一步一步打好基礎是必要的。

如果你願意，而且具有耐心。那你一定要拜讀這篇論文。Pyro可以說是最強悍的流體系統，因為他每一個項目都可以客製化且容易被導入pipeline中，對於相同特效卡做大量生產非常方便。而且細節不輸FumeFX和Maya Fluid。

花時間投資Pyro絕對是值得而且報酬率高的!

小祕技:把黑漆漆的maya2011顏色改回過去的樣子

2011-02-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

其實這也沒什麼, 相當簡單.

首先你應該先創一個maya2011.exe的捷徑

右鍵選內容!

in the target filed, add -style

在最後面的地方加入 -style <樣式代碼>

樣式代碼的種類和樣子

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style plastique

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style cde

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style motif

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style cleanlooks

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style windows

“C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Maya2011\bin\maya.exe” -style monolith

蘋果用戶的話可以用這個 -style macintosh
/Applications/Autodesk/maya2011/Maya.app/Contents/MacOS/maya -style macintosh

利用Maya Hair製作彈性Rig在Maya2011的新玩法.

2011-01-28T07:48:00.000-08:00

不是什麼新技術，在業界也很常見的技巧。在maya2011的新玩法。

因為有朋友最近從3dsMax轉戰maya，就特別幫他貼一下這個影片。

Houdini入門學習篇

2011-01-16T06:04:00.000-08:00

最近好多朋友問我學習Houdini有什麼方法或途徑，因為實在被問太多次了，所以我乾脆一次把他說明清楚比較快。其實也沒有什麼特別的，學習這個東西，不外乎就是要踏實，穩扎穩打，把每一個字都看懂，把每個段落的意涵都釐清。

在入門之前，如果過去你有任何其他軟體的基礎，例如Maya, 3daMax或XSI，建議都先暫時放一邊，因為Houdini是很不一樣的。但是也不要想任何事情都在Houdini內做，有時候我建議動畫在Maya做一做會比較快。

SideFX這家公司在推Houdini說實話也是不遺餘力的，第一個要先看的教學就是他的官方教學。

看完官方教學之後，相信大家也對Node Base有了一點了解。但是說真的，使用Houdini看看一些教學對自己工作實質幫助是很小的，最最重要的，應該是Case Study。所以這個時候，我推薦看英國大神Peter Quint的教學頻道。這個教學頻道實在太棒了，如果各位有點小錢，不仿以實際行動支持Peter大神，網頁內有捐獻的方法。當然如果想要捐獻本部落格，那是更棒，捐獻連結在此。

談來談去，最重要的還是學習研究的心，祝各位學運昌隆!

SquareEnix歡迎會

2011-01-12T06:42:00.000-08:00

來到日本之後的第一場歡迎會，真不錯啊。最近都在忙工作的事情，但是學到了很多新奇的做法，收穫良多!

Happy new year!

2010-12-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

新年快樂! 謝謝各位支持這個部落格至今,非常感謝! 2010年是對我來說一個很重要的一年,許多重要的事情都發生在今年,包含我的結婚典禮,當然各位肯賞臉偶爾逛逛這個部落格也是很讓我開心的!

2010大事紀
一月訂婚.
二月首次krakatoa實做與Shave實作.
三月 JFK專案製作(李昌鈺物證教育基金會).
四月結婚.
五月遷居到台北公館,學習使用Rayfire.
六月學習Realflow5 Hybrido, AfterBurn和ThinkingParticles.
七月接觸Cheer和NMA, 離開中華網龍.
八月加入Cheer.
九月第一個組員孝敏哥加入VFX戰隊, 首次擔任專案特效負責人.
十月學習Fumefx2, 重新學習ThinkingParticles4.
十一月參與電影專案,參與製作毛髮和模型,學習使用Mari.
十二月前往日本SquareEnix協助製作VFX, 第二個組員大瑋哥終於脫離燈光組正式加入VFX了.

明年新的希望:
1.希望老婆和女兒可以平安健康!
2.希望工作順利!
3.世界和平!(老梗我知道)

Happy New Year!

來自日本的好東西

2010-12-26T07:56:00.000-08:00

MEL Tips

http://www.not-enough.org/abe/manual/maya/mel-tips.html

Python Tips

http://www.not-enough.org/abe/manual/maya/python-tips.html#activeProject

來到SquareEnix已經邁入第三個禮拜了，這邊MEL和Python用得很多。同事介紹學習的好站給我，所以也分享給大家!

Maya Fluid導入wavelet計算公式的解決方案- SOuP.

2010-11-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

Maya Fluid是我最早接觸的流體，非常的強大且易於使用。但是隨著工作的需求升高，Maya Fluid已經漸漸不被1k以上規格的影片所接受了。

Fumefx也是一套相當強大的流體系統，在針對更多細節的需求上，他可以根據原本的cache加入更多細節。而這套公式就是wavelet。謝謝老外朋友peter寫了可以導入的外掛，讓我們也能在maya中使用wavelet。

以下是解說與教學。

簡單的說，peter將過去他使用houdini的經驗，將一些關鍵的node也打包起來成為maya新的node來使用。也就誕生了在製作剛體破碎和一些群組區分需求上，非常強大的SOuP。

Volcano test WIP.

2010-11-20T00:50:00.000-08:00

一些煙霧的WIP, 但是煙霧的部分似乎Vorticity開太高了(我通常都開到1)...網路上的朋友Barış Can Öztürk給了我一些建議...未來有類似的案子應該會採用新製作方法，只是目前我們還在討論試驗階段，未來有更棒的版本再分享給大家。

之前做過一些Houdini的流體測試，下次應該會以houdini嘗試製作一些非主要的煙霧，以熟悉他的操作或是製作流程。謝謝Igor兄的大力支持，提供了我很多新的思路和做法。

Linux系統的Naiad也是很夯，也許巨量的岩漿也是一個值得思考的製作方式。

羽毛系統 Feather System.

2010-11-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

廢話不多說直接看影片比較快影片下面有範例檔可以下載當然還有mel可以抓! 佛心老外!

但是老外也有很商業的...死也不分享...

偏偏他的工具又可以結合nCloth...讓我想起之前做的蝴蝶...

是不是激發起了大家的靈感了呢? :P

最後還是要不落俗套的秀一下自己最近的WIP!

Transfer A Single PointCache File to Maya with Multi-object. 3dsMax為多個物件輸出單一point cache檔案給Maya使用!

2010-11-01T00:32:00.000-07:00

3dsMax和Maya都是3D界很強大的武器，在做角色動畫和布料模擬時我喜歡使用Maya，而火焰、煙霧和剛體解算，我喜歡使用max。所以我經常遇到兩者之間必須要轉換五件或是攝影機的問題。

這是一個簡單的教學影片。教你如何把max和maya之間的物件無誤差的交互轉移，不需要使用任何外掛。

無論是Max to Maya或是Maya to Max，都可以使用。

Maya Muscle, 方便快速的架設肌肉系統.

2010-10-20T22:47:00.000-07:00

最近製作的案子需要用到大量的肌肉在Rig當中，應老闆要求，研究了肌肉系統。

網路上有很多資料，我特別選了幾個影片分享給大家。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TA3mxfup7uQ
這個作者停用崁入所以自己點進去連結內觀看吧!

這個暴龍範例是個經典

大腿設定

有些細節還是用deformer做比較好，例如血管和爆筋效果。

Cgtalk有一個經典範利M2，如果在製作人形骨架的時候可以下載來參考看看，他架設得非常完整。

M2作者官網

下載M2

如果你覺得M2不錯，可以考慮贊助作者，做這個也是很辛苦的，有贊助才有更多動力。

"M2" is a donationware.

It is getting harder and harder for me to continue the developments about "M2" since I have even no income to maintain my daily life. There will be no rejoyce above your support by donation. Thanks in advance.

Matte Painting Studio - Interview_Vulkan

2010-09-21T00:43:00.000-07:00

Matte Painting Studio - Interview_Vulkan

“The Volcano“ describes the scenario of a volcanic eruption in the Eifel and the damages for the people in the disaster area: A drama of a logistical and social emergency situation in the middle of Germany.
Both parts of the film have been a crowd-pleaser for over 10 million spectators.

Pixomondo has been responsible for circa two-thirds of the visual effects of the production. The focus was laid on the task of creating a huge water vortex, a disastrous volcanic eruption and an explosion as well as full digital landscapes.
On the whole, we came up to 65 shots for the two-parter.
The particularity of this production was a phase of pre-production of two months in which the look of the volcano catastrophe has been intensively developed. That was particular because there is usually only very seldom any time disposable for visual developments in contemporary productions.

CG today:
What exactly is visual development?

Sven Martin:
This is a tool which is laid before the proper post-production. Visual development is the phase in that you set the optical stylistic elements. Concept arts and 3D-pre-visualisation are a few items. Visual Development is the visual translation of the script. This process forms a sort of style-guide with the function of scrutinizing all eventual possibilities already in the run-up to the post-production. Thereby, the creative coordination with the director matters as well as the technical feasibility. You have an aim in view and you can work out concrete ways to achieve it. These style-frames emphasize quite quickly which solutions function for the sceneries. The artists (TDs, 3D-modeler etc.) get that style-guide as soon as it is formed – Finally, the whole design seems as from a single source. That procedure becomes even more important, the more artists or studios are involved.

Sven Sauer:
Visual development takes somewhat of the role as “crash test dummies”. We try to walk in every imaginable trap which might appear during the production in order to reduce mistakes and one-ways.
We test which colorings adapt to the single scenes, which light-changes happen and which elements reflect in the landscape. Proceeding this way, the look of the film becomes more controllable. We request the items systematically at the outset in order to prevent protracted phases of adjustments during the proper production, so the producer can be able to plan precisely what is required for the shots: plates, camera projection, matte paintings…

Sven Martin:
In case of “The Volcano”, there were four persons who all had a certain workspace involved in the first step of development: a 3D-artist who made camera-tests of the single shots, a 2D-artist who defined the look, a composer who constructed a technical pipeline for the later production and a person who coordinated all this.
CG today:
Which guidelines did you have to embody the atmosphere of the volcano and its surrounding? Which techniques did you use therefore?

Sven Martin:
Although the film is just made for entertainment, overdoing reality, the facts about what there happens with the volcano are true anyway. A lot of these eruptions are patterned on Mount Saint Helen – that is material which we found in documentary reports.
All the information required about volcanic eruptions had to be exact. We spent a lot of time on pursuing inquiries about eruptions which had once threatened inhabited areas. Soon we noticed that the real facts about volcanic eruptions were absolutely enough to produce a threatening scenario. An exaggeration wasn’t necessary to create impressive pictures…

Sven Sauer:
We have realized what a huge repertory a volcanic eruption provides and how varied and diversified the single phases can be.
The mountain alone did a lot on which we were able to work. At the first moment you think of a volcano, you just connect that with lava-flows turning down hills. But several more natural disasters happen parallely: earthquakes – ash clouds – ardent shots – mudslides – forest fires. Lots of “funny“ things.
For example, in the third part of the eruption we had clear thunderbolts flashing between the black columns of smoke: they came up through the charge of catapulted little parts of soot in high velocity. Such a huge ash-cloud forms tremendous electric potential which is even able to give rise to a thunderstorm. A cockaigne of catastrophes.

We played through a lot of scenarios to see how the volcano would look like in its eruption phases. How would it look from a distance? Would it look threatening enough? Our visitors shouldn’t have any time to rest, that was our aim. The whole scenery shouldn’t rest. We developed a roadmap on how the entire landscape would become increasingly dark and misanthropic step by step.

Sven Martin:
The hardest part of the shots was to create a visual enhancement. The whole film was designed for this growing enhancement…
The first explosion destroyed the whole city. Nothing stood there anymore. Absolute chaos – just ruins. At this scene, the spectator thinks: - Oh, that’s it – there’s nothing more left to break down… The end of the world is completed…
Curiously, our actual work went up from that date… We tinkered a very long time on the visual drama of the eruptions.

CG today:
Which reference-material did you use regarding vegetation and geography to create the volcano in the Eifel? The volcano or the “Maar”, as it is called in the Eifel, did it already exist there or did you completely create it?

Sven Sauer:
One issue that puzzled us was the flat countryside of the Eifel. We had to show a volcanic cone, although the flat area of the Eifel does not geologically allow such a mountain; and it wouldn’t have been authentic to show anything like a massive volcano as the cone in Ecuador placed in the middle of Germany…
When we captured the basic form of the Eifel-Maar in our first drafts, we noticed that our volcano wasn’t recognizable as such. The crater lake (Maar) is just 72 meters deep. The chain of hills is hardly visible from a distance.
A Maar (lat. “mare“ means ◊sea“) is a bowl-shaped volcano which is sunk into the earth's surface. Unlike calderas, Maars aren’t caused by collapses of the magma chamber but by gas explosions which let the earth’s surface sink. That’s why remnants of volcanic cones or other volcanic structures are not to see in that case.
However, we needed a vivid dimension to be able to speak optically of a volcano. This has been a tightrope walk: to create an impressive picture, still maintaining the Eifel… In particular, the first shots of the emptied crater lake looked like a small soup bowl: they had been taken with the original measures by flying over it. The crater was too hard to recognize. Later, in the final painting, the dimensions were essentially deeper.

Sven Martin:
Even before the first "outbreak" of an explosive vaporization of the entire lake, a foreboding earthquake razed the Eifel-village to the ground. Everything was covered with ashes and remnants. The long shot is just a scarce second to see in the film. Paradoxically, it was just this short time which has made the shot so complicated: We had to make sure that the spectator would be able to understand in such a short time that the entire city had been destroyed.

Sven Sauer:
In the first attempts to develop the shot, we began uncovering the roofs and tumbling down the facades… Then, in the test we noticed that the picture would be too hard to decipher. All you could recognize was just a patchwork of single frames – but the effect of destruction just didn’t come up. Therefore we left the typical earthquake pictures and started to look for aerial photographs of cities from the Second World War. Bombs tear large holes in the cityscape: In these sorts of gaps we finally found the impression of destruction... We thought that such an image would be better to get captured by the viewer.

Sven Martin:
A volcano makes its own weather, darkens its own surroundings and makes its own daytime: A world in which it never gets light again. We wanted to show how the sun hardly soaks through the whirled ashes. The volcanic ash is a strong feature for the construction of visual language. These and similar elements are like a train – they transport danger into the scene. We needed a lot of time to find the right texture...

CG today:
You have created big parts of the area and the volcano in 3D. What software and techniques did you use? (Could you please show a special picture to work out what was special about the shot and what it took to create the image that way?)

Sven Martin:
We worked on the lava for over four months, in order to make it look real. The implementation of the lava-shots puzzled us from the start. Therefore it must be understood that the approach of simulation, which is the physical calculation of the flow properties, would have blown up the computational power of our computers for the required mass and on the other hand, it would have been just too difficult to control.

Therefore we soon had divided the various lava-shots in different categories: There was the fast-flowing lava, for example, which penetrated from the cave ceiling, there were the larger and slower lava-flows and the so-called lava-lake in which these flows flew into the rivers over small cascades as "lava-falls".

I decided to use various simulation techniques for these various situations and to keep the percentage of simulation as low as possible. For the lava spurting over several rocks in the cave, no other approach was possible: we had to use fluid simulations for that part. The lava flows have been formed as a combination of manually animated geometry and painted textures, refined with twisted and colored water. This technique has worked remarkably well and has allowed us to control the lava specifically in its movement and to achieve a level of detail, which would have been very difficult to get otherwise.

In the long shots, even all of the techniques have been used. We ranged painted lava-veins for distance-related views; in the foreground you see manually animated lava-flows with water-texture which run over a simulated waterfall into the geometrically warped and matte-painted lava-lake. The combination of these different techniques reinforces the illusion perfectly. Basically it is a projected image which has been slightly distorted to simulate the motion.

Sven Sauer:
What we see for only a few seconds, have been weeks and weeks of hard work.  A lot of things came together: How fluid may our lava be? How bright could it light up without losing its dangerous character? The boundary between a threatening and a coloreful (kitschy) picture was often blurred...

CG today:
How many layers does a complete picture consist of, in average?

Sven Sauer:
Here we have superimposed 60 layers – just for the composing. The matte painting consists of hundreds of single elements. We had version numbers between 24 and 30 with the major shots.

CG today:
How long did you need for all the shots? Have you already been involved in the project while shooting for the film?
Could you exert any influence on the shots?

Sven Martin:
We have been briefed by the producers with the first script version: We were told that there wouldn’t be any prototype for the film-shooting and it would have to look better than “Dante's Peak” and “Volcano”. Even before the shooting we had already developed animatics and concept paintings for the most scenes by reference to the storyboard. So these became patterns for the real shooting, whereby we have partly been on set next to the production supervisor in order to ensure the implementation.

The pure production period took approximately 3,5 months with a team of about 36 artists who have really done a very good job. You could see that everyone was having fun at work!

Sven Sauer:
Disaster movies always are a rewarding medium for impressive pictures. You meet in the morning drinking coffee and wonder what you could destroy next ... Daniel Stern (Technical Director of “The Volcano”) told me that the film gave him the opportunity to act out two of three things he had always wanted to implement in his life. Big explosions always just make fun...

傑出中的傑出:BlurStudio

2010-08-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

In 3dsMax, anything is possible.

厲害的日本人，Kei Yoneoka！

2010-07-28T02:25:00.000-07:00

最近和一個很厲害的日本人Kei Yoneoka交流！收穫良多！

對於FumeFx運用在實務上有了更深入的了解了，尤其是在大尺寸的Grid下，參數的設定變得很重要，差一點點就會差很多。

目前正在忙著處理一個煙霧和爆破的特效，等完成之後再和大家發表感想。

先來看看Kei的東西吧！

Python 101

2010-07-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

最近站長要轉換跑道，離開遊戲公司。因為新工作需求是要會寫程式...所以我就請教了大神Spin，到底要學Mel, python還是Maxscript呢？我們兩個很早之前就在討論python這個三維軟件利器。誰知道，又這麼的恰巧，light stage鏡頭控制也是python。

於是就被他嗆，八百年前就說要學的我，到現在敲了三行過嗎？

好難過，好傷心，好慚愧。我決定要學python。這禮拜的習題是九九乘法表。

http://ez2learn.com/index.php

TheFoundryChannel：Avatar

2010-07-02T07:00:00.000-07:00

Part1.

Part2.

Eclipse - Tippet Studios VFX

2010-07-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

Watch more Moviefone videos on AOL Video

這家工作室很早之前就聽Andy Chen說過了，威得要命啊。

ThinkingParticles練習。

2010-06-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

最近看了Vele的教學影片，學習到很多。

順便做了一些簡單的變化，希望之後可以更熟練tp的操作。

官方介紹
http://www.cebas.com/?pid=hot_news&nid=364

購買教學DVD/Download
http://eat3d.com/tp4_intro

相當便宜啊...趕快去買！

音樂控制詩篇

2010-06-27T20:11:00.000-07:00

運用音樂轉出和時間軸相應的數據，來控制動畫的時機和變化，常用在移動、縮放、旋轉、分子噴射量和顏色變化上。mv應該非常適合使用。

初級應用。

進階應用。

複雜高階應用。

強悍的分子系統 : Thinking Particles.

2010-06-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

最近在學習TP這套分子系統，發現跟houdini好相似啊...但是用久了就會發現houdini還是強很多。

但是為什麼不直接用houdini開發呢？

主要的原因還是fumefx和physx的關係...因為fumefx的流體太威了，還能繼承很多數據。而且3dsmax的rayfire太過無腦...不用他也難！

要成為大師之前，一定要熟悉他的快速鍵。哈哈...

Alt+Shift+P呼叫TP.
Alt+Shift+C關閉TP.

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D Trailer 惡靈古堡最新電影版預告

2010-06-20T20:23:00.000-07:00

中間一段根本是駭客任務嘛!

好酷...

StarCraft 2 review.

2010-06-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

做的質感只有棒而已。

順便來回顧一下暴風雪的魔獸爭霸CG動畫Behind the scene.

星際大戰 E3 2010

2010-06-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

The Force Unleashed2.

The Old Republic.

UDK Mass physics 兩萬五千個桶子即時運算...

2010-06-17T01:19:00.000-07:00

太猛了...PhysX果然威啊!!!

隨便畫都好看的神奇工具

2010-06-11T07:35:00.000-07:00

http://www.zefrank.com/scribbler/scribblertoo/

工具在此

請先看DEMO影片

非常厲害啊!

RealFlow 5 Hybrido 練習

2010-06-10T23:04:00.000-07:00

花時間摸了一下，速度好快啊！

等等錄製製作方法影片來分享！

RealFlow 5 new feature: Hybrido.

2010-06-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

這是來自伊朗的朋友yuval，功力強如鬼神一般的高手，他所製作的hybrido測試。

很可怕的新功能，現在realflow5介面和以前也差好多，之後做海浪應該是比較容易了。

以前做海浪其實realwave並不那麼討喜，通常要做簡單的有maya fluid，輕鬆方便。如果要做高檔一點的，也會選擇houdini ocean toolkit，但是hybrido的出現似乎讓局勢有點變化了。

立刻來k使用手冊...

Houdini 11

2010-06-04T02:43:00.000-07:00

Awesome!

Productivity is Key.

Krakatoa製做奔跑的熊.

2010-06-01T02:38:00.000-07:00

原本的樣子是一個Lowpoly的熊。模型是網路上下載的，骨架在maya調整，動畫參考Animals in motion照著圖片key就很自然了，最後輸出到max使用vray渲染。

版本一。

版本二。

cigarsmoke in two ways. 香煙效果製作

2010-05-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

香煙效果是流體一個入門的好例子，可以很難，也可以很簡單。

在Maya中製作的方式有二：

一、使用Fluid：例子在visor內有。
二、使用nParticle：使用duncan介紹的方法製作。

根據碰撞產生分子 in Maya Example.

2010-05-24T19:37:00.000-07:00

上一篇試做之後的結果，感覺很多地方都能應用到。

詳細的作法可以參考前一篇。

根據碰撞產生分子 in Maya.

2010-05-24T00:13:00.000-07:00

A commonly needed effect is the emission of particles at the exact location of object collision. For example, as a sword scrapes along a wall we may need sparks; As a boulder rolls down a mountainside we may need smaller instanced rocks and pebbles to appear; As a character walks along a dirtroad we would expect dust to appear at his feet.

Such effects require the ability to specifically determine particle emission at certain UV coordinates of the surfaces. This can be accomplished in a couple of ways: easy and involved. The involved technique requires us to use rigid body collisions, where the Rigid Solver has Contact Data turned on. This attribute allows some 'read-only' attributes to be accessible on the rigid body, such as 'contactCount' and 'contactPosition'. We could then query these attributes and use them with the 'emit' mel command to determine particle creation. But for those who prefer to avoid expressions, we are going to discuss a much simpler method using Softbodies.

Say we have a boulder which needs to roll down a hill creating dust clouds as it rolls. The boulder could be an active rigid body falling with a gravity field, while the ground is a passive rigid body. With this already set-up in the scene, select the rigid body boulder and turn it into a softbody. In the dialog box for 'create softbody', choose 'Duplicate, make copy soft', turn off 'hide original', turn on 'make non soft a goal' and set the goal weight to something greater than '.5'. At this point, what will be created in the scene, if you look in the Outliner, will be a duplicate of your boulder which has an associated Particle Object with particles at the location of each of the boulder's vertices. At this point select the 'shape node' of the duplicate 'soft' boulder and hide it. We only want to see the particles of the 'soft boulder', not the geometry. (we are not trying to make a jello boulder). If you play back your dynamic simulation, you will see the particles of the soft boulder trailing the original a bit due to the softbody goal weight value. When the boulder bounces off the ground, you should notice the softbody particles moving through the ground a little.

What we are now going to do is have the softbody particles collide with the ground plane. Select the ground and choose Particles/Make Collide. In the dialog box set the resilience and friction to zero. Then open the Dynamic Relationships editor and connect the softbody particle's collision to the ground plane. Playing back the simulation will now show the particles no longer going through the ground.

The next step is to select the softbody particle object and open the dialog box for Particles/Particle Collision Events. As you may now understand, by using collision events, we will have the softbody particles emit particles as they collide with the ground. So in the Collision events window, use the following settings: collisions should be set to 'all'. We want particles to 'emit', not 'split'. Then turn on 'random # particles' and set the max number to about 10. (you will raise or decrease this value later based on the desired effect). Set spread to about .7, Inherit Velocity to '0', and original particle dies to 'off'. Then hit 'create event'. If you now look in the Outliner, a new particle object will be there. This is the new particle object which particles are emitted into by the softbody particles when they collide with the ground. If you playback the simulation, you should now see particles appearing on the ground where the boulder collides. At this point on it becomes of matter of designing the look of the particles as well as their motion using fields, etc. Remember that you can also set these particles to collide with the ground, as well as the boulder (but you would also need to select the boulder and choose Particles/MakeCollide). The two main things you will be tweaking at this point will be the number of particles created by the collision event, as well as the goal weight of the softbody particles, based on the speed that the boulder is moving.

Our example uses two rigid bodies... but our scene could have as many objects as we like, where the above steps are applied to each. Remember that the collision events window allows multiple collision events to emit into the same particle object (the 'target particle' field in the collision events window).

If you are going to be hardware rendering your particles, by the way, you will notice that the softbody particles will be rendering as grey points. Just add an opacity attribute to them set to a value of '0', so that they will not be visible.

As a final note, this technique does not require us to use rigid bodies. In an example where a character's feet are creating dust, the ground would have 'make collide' applied, but it doesn't necessarily need to be a rigid body. Also, the foot itself doesn't need to be the object turned into a softbody... you could just skin a simpler object to the foot joints which is converted to a softbody. (and this object wouldn't be rendered, of course). So I hope you were able to follow along... its a relatively simple technique with a wide range of applications.

*****
I have a fast and a long way.

The fast one would be to let the geometry emit invisible particles with a short livetime, and an inherit velocity, which means that they will go the same way the geometry does on creating. The short livetime will let them pass through the rocks on collision, so you can let those particles create 2ndary particles on collision with the rocks, and make them look like dust and wooden chips by sprites or something.

The long way would be to query the collision data and use it to create particles using the emit function.
The very first thing you´ll have to do is to locate the rigidSolver in the Channel Box and set the "contactData" attribute to ON.

After that, you can start creating an expression for your barge.

I can´t give you the complete script, but I have one somewhere, so I´ll search for it. What I remember so dar is thet you can query the contact position, and the contact velocity:

rigid Body -q -vel WoodBarge;

>> will give you the speed of the Object on collision. You will need that later to controll the amount and direction of your particles. A fast collision will make a large amount of dust, a slow one less.

You should write it in a string:

float $vel[] = `rigidBody -q -vel WoodBarge`;

and than read out the magnitude (beceause vel is a vector) you can use later for the emit function:

float $speed = mag(<<$vel[0], $vel[1],$vel[2]>>);

This will query the contact Position:

$cPos = "`rigidBody -q -cp WoodBarge`;

Beceause this position gives you a single point in space, you have to add a random function like rand or gauss to the emmit command to spread the created particles in a volume.
You can use an Creation or Lifetime Expression to controll the speed and direction, or maybe connect it to $vel.

I´ll search for the full script, maybe It´ll help you more than this.

*****
Here's another way to do it that gasp uses MEL a lot less.

The idea is to use particle collision events to emit more particles (for dust and for instancing wood chunks.)

Select the ship's geometry pieces and choose "Emit from Object," opening the option box. Set the emitter type to "surface," set the emission speed attributes to Speed: 1, Speed Random: 0, Tangent Speed: 0, and Normal Speed: 0.010. Also, set the emission rate to maybe 10,000 particles per second or more.

Now, play back the animation. You should see a ton of particles slowly expanding outward from the boat's surface.

When there are enough to cover the surface reasonably densely (you may have to tweak the rate to do this), and when they're forming a cloud that closely conforms to the boat's shape, stop the playback. Open the outliner and delete the emitter you just created, and BEFORE touching the timeline, select the particle object and choose Solvers > Initial State > Set for Selected.

Now, those particles are fixed in space in a cloud around the ship. Hide this particle object and parent it to the ship.

Now, choose the particle object in the outliner and also pick the dock geometry, choosing Make Collide under the Particles menu.

Finally, open the Particle Collision Events window under the Particles menu. You can use this to make a second particle object whose particles are emitted on collisions between the hidden particle cloud on the ship and the dock. You'll probably want to do this twice, once for dust and once for chunks of wood.

Now, set up your rigid body dynamics on the ship and the dock without regard to the particles, and use particle expressions to manage stuff like how wood chunks get instanced, initial velocity per particle, and so on.

The advantage of doing this over some complicated MEL arrangement involving rigid bodies is that it will run a lot faster.

-- Mark

Physx測試

2010-05-21T00:49:00.000-07:00

滿好玩的，現在64位元也可以製作Physx的特效了。nVidia官方釋出的工具就超級好用的了，喜歡製作崩碎效果的一定要玩玩看！

跟Pzman的胡言亂語

2010-04-27T02:08:00.000-07:00

Jacys 說:
maya不能玩krakatoa你有沒有覺得很討厭

Pzman 說:
非常....

Jacys 說:
maya不需要krakatoa那種廢物...因為partman已經...
http://tessendorf.org/particles/index.html
http://odforce.net/wiki/index.php/HoudiniOceanToolkit
作者應該很眼熟因為他就是製作Tessendorf海浪的同一個人...
http://tessendorf.org/reports.html
看到這個我已經不想活了現在只想回家睡覺

3dsMax to FumeFX to Krakatoa, by Miguel A. Salek

2010-04-26T23:53:00.000-07:00

http://www.msalek.com/fxguide/ink/

有興趣的就看看吧，下面有個欄位可以以實際行動支持他喔！

如何製作生動的表情動畫

2010-04-26T23:44:00.000-07:00

其實很多人都是這樣做的...

Trail Tornado. 分子尾跡為基礎的龍捲風

2010-04-20T20:32:00.000-07:00

先前製作過Trail Embers之後，對於Trail有了新的想法，於是就用分子做了龍捲風的動態。

動態完成之後，效果還算可以。但是我想想，這種類型的演出，好像只適合廣告片或是mv。

於是我就把分子數目增加到100萬顆，然後使用Krakatoa渲染，因為專案的需要，這影片是Loop過的。

最終效果還算令人滿意。

Making of Maya particle+nParticle waterfall. Maya製作震撼的分子瀑布。

2010-04-11T21:05:00.000-07:00

製作瀑布對許多新手來說可能是相當陌生的一件事情，其實瀑布做得好，基本上對分子的掌控就有到一定的水平了。今天就來介紹各位如何在maya內製作一個相當水準的瀑布。這個瀑布內交互運用了maya的新舊分子系統、碰撞、expression撰寫以及以分子發射分子的基礎概念。

首先先創造一個簡單的被碰撞物，像是一個巨大的斷層。另外使用nparticle置入一個volume emitter。

使用預設的就行了，如圖。

加入基本的碰撞之後，可以看到大概的樣子。emitter發射先設定100，不然會很lag。

切換到Dynamics內的舊分子系統，選著nParticle然後Emit from object。

這時候不要發射太多，Rate:12就可以了。

狀況會如圖。

各位可能會發現碰撞怎麼一直有問題，其實這是有技巧的。先選擇要被碰撞的懸崖，然後到舊分子系統內選擇particles>Make Collide。千萬不要先設定nParticle，不然你會不能使用這個選項。

設定完畢之後，依然不會看到碰撞的效果。請到動態關連內，將particle內的collisions的懸崖名稱選起來。這樣舊分子的碰撞就設定完畢，再play一次你應該可以看到除了nparticle之外都有碰撞到了。

接著到nDynamics內，選擇懸崖，再點擊nMesh>create Passive collider。如此一來就將nparticle也設定進入碰撞了。

分子動態部分，對舊分子加入gravity field和turbulence field，對於turbulence的phase請加入以下exression來讓他絮亂程度變得更好看。
turbulenceField1.phaseX = noise(time)*20;
turbulenceField1.phaseY = noise(time*0.6)*40;
turbulenceField1.phaseZ = noise(time)*20;

接著對velovity下expression，在creation和runtime before dynamics都要。
新分子系統
nParticleShape1.velocity -= <<0,abs(noise(nparticleshape1.position*0.09)*10),0>>;
舊分子系統
particleShape1.velocity -= <<0,abs(noise(particleshape1.position*0.2)*.5),0>>;

nuleus相當好用，直接拉一拉bar就可以了。

記得也要設定生命值給新舊分子系統。

當然要設定conserve，不然分子會跑很遠，我們希望他有一種發射之後速度減緩的效果。

最終效果。

低畫質影片（rate 100）

只要把rate調整到500以上，不要太近距離觀看基本上很逼真。

之後有時間再補上高畫質影片教學。

瀑布的基礎是來是印度的大師Vikas，各位要謝謝他。

Trail embers, WIP.

2010-04-10T12:06:00.000-07:00

玩到覺得好好玩...有點欲罷不能...才試了一個下午就想到好多新點子!

這是使用流體驅動分子，然後以分子發射poly...因為我想要很平順所以我就division開很高...不過後來有做相當程度的優化。貼圖會正確的貼上去，這我很意外，不用特別apply內建的texture，直接貼圖硬貼就行啦。

Bing Map

2010-04-06T21:45:00.001-07:00

Map大戰現在才開始?

烈火燃箭 Fire Arrow WIP.

2010-04-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

燒吧~燒吧~哇哈哈哈哈哈哈~~~~~

要是要做萬箭齊發我電腦應該會狂當機吧!

Houdini Ocean Toolkit : 大海無量!!!

2010-03-31T23:08:00.000-07:00

twist起來還不是很漂亮，之後會加入一些splash在peak的位置，就請各位拭目以待囉。

NUKE大車拼

2010-03-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

這次的FXWAR沒參加到真的是很可惜的一件事情!

Shave and hair cut: Deer WIP06

2010-03-27T09:14:00.000-07:00

最近一直忙著趕case，導致最近完全沒時間更新部落格。對於支持部落格的朋友我感到相當愧咎。

我放上一個我今年二月初製作的一隻鹿的過程，包含Pass的拆解。

使用shave hair cut製作野生動物最重要的我認為有二：
一、貼圖盡量找真實接近的材質做毛髮顏色的根據，然後根部是依據貼圖，尖部顏色要帶低飽和度咖啡色。
二、根部要粗，尖部要細。segment不要太多，不然很像是陰毛。重點是要扭轉他，扭轉值我認為至少要開2以上，才有野生動物的感覺。

未來我會盡量都採用Houdini製作，只是這次模型股價都是用maya做的，也懶得轉去houdini做fur，下次有遇到類似的case應該就會採用houdini pipeline了。

下個case會做火焰人和煙霧人，到時候再和各位分享我製作的過程和心得。估計會使用FumeFx+krakatoa製作，但是說真的我想用Pyro...不過這是賺錢的case不是研究的case啊..................。

犯罪現場還原WIP01

2010-03-19T23:15:00.000-07:00

好久沒發文了...最近都在忙著做Case，給大家看看最近的東西。

建模和動畫使用maya，貼圖用Uvlayout+BodyPaint3D，燈光使用Vray。樹木是直接使用Maya內建的PaintFx，只能說PaintFx實在太強了...。

Vray練習

2010-02-21T02:06:00.001-08:00

嗯...事實上我什麼都沒做，我只是打了兩盞燈，創了一個地面和茶壺，材質全部都是default的。

另外，我也開了photon。

真好看...

專業mentalray材質庫 mrmaterials.com

2010-02-20T10:14:00.000-08:00

由此進入

真的很不錯喔！

雪景測試 WIP03

2010-02-15T23:35:00.000-08:00

最近都在玩Max的Shader，學到了不少啊！貼圖一直comp上去就對了！

以上兩顆球的原形：
使用Shader的威力真是強大！

Nuit Blanche

2010-02-07T01:11:00.000-08:00

好讚...

Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.

Making Of Nuit Blanche from Spy Films on Vimeo.

Maya Fluid Study. by Don Wong

2010-02-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

最近愈來愈多高手都轉戰Vimeo啦！這個也是之前在論壇上很活躍的傢伙！

雪景 WIP02

2010-02-04T22:16:00.000-08:00

OK，完成了雪景的shader之後，我發現我的岩石貼圖有點問題，可以看到茶壺有明顯的接縫。

改貼冰塊的材質之後好像稍微好了一點。

製作岩石的材質隨便上網抓一張高解析的下來。但是我們知道他左右上下都不對秤，所以必然有接縫。

到photoshop內改一下，複製一個一樣的圖層然後上下翻轉，再把一邊擦掉。這樣上下就會一樣，左右也是一樣的作法。記得最後要合併圖層喔。

利用nVidia的DDS外掛，直接把貼圖轉成normal map。

然後把原來的圖轉灰階，再轉負片效果，最後加強對比調低亮度，這就是假的displacement。

灰階+加強對比亮度兩次，就是假的bump。

這樣一來，岩石的貼圖接縫就會完全除去。

雪景製作 WIP01

2010-02-04T08:36:00.000-08:00

之前看到了網路上一個強者做的雪景shader，真是讓我敬佩，做得實在太棒了。最近剛好工作上有需要，我也做了類似的shader。

之後會讓他用在這個場景上，鹿毛上的雪我打算將Fur轉polygon之後附著particle在上面，隨風飄逝。

到時候鹿腳下的會替換成這塊我今天在Zbrush雕的斷崖，同事笑稱這是獅子王的榮耀石嗎？哈哈。

液體的玩意兒。

2010-02-04T04:05:00.000-08:00

這人應該是和Miguel大神同一家公司的沒錯，其實RealFlow玩得很強就可以找到不錯的工作了。用Python可以在Realflow中製造泡沫Foam，效果還不賴，請看下面由mike製作的範例。如果大家有興趣想學，可以到http://www.rf-magazine.com/這邊來購買雜誌，一本內容非常多...才賣50歐元，便宜又大碗！

Mike以前沒那麼厲害，想不到最近開始變得很猛了，哈哈，這是玩笑話。不過溶解動畫之前還看過一個很離譜的，使用Houdini製作的泥巴球。多數的剛接觸3D的朋友比較少聽過Houdini的名號，先看看他的reel再看看泥巴球。

嚴格說來這個影片只是Houdini9的Reel，Houdini10大有突破！新增了很多功能，包含我最喜歡的PyroFluidSystem.

http://www.aearon.de/2008/12/13/demoreel/

這個泥巴球的高手，主要是使用Houdini開發，Mantra渲染，Python製作工具，過去他也是先從Rigging TD開始做起，和以前我的一個前輩一樣，了解了RIG之後再做特效會變得非常猛。他1983年出生，已經這麼厲害了...我1984年出生能在明年此時此刻趕上他嗎...只有加倍努力一途了...XD.

Miguel A. Salek 有如鬼神一般的強者

2010-02-03T08:59:00.000-08:00

http://www.msalek.com/

這是他的官方網站，主要是使用max和houdini做開發，好厲害的狠角色。

廢話不多說！

直接看reel吧！

Houdini 中文教學下載

2010-02-03T08:04:00.000-08:00

有興趣的自己看看吧。

http://rapidshare.com/files/344080817/houdini_chinese.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/344212738/houdini_chinese.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/344502767/houdini_chinese.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/344658929/houdini_chinese.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/345191595/houdini_chinese.part5.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/345256095/houdini_chinese.part6.rar

密碼請回應並留下信箱索取。

Dave大師對於Maya Fluid Turbulence的解釋

2010-01-31T08:21:00.001-08:00

http://vimeo.com/9083137

Fur WIP01. 毛髮測試01.

2010-01-21T02:45:00.000-08:00

最近的測試，這是一隻很神奇的鹿...耳朵有點像是電影：大魔域裡面的飛天狗，然後有一個很誇張的巨大鹿角。從設計到建模的過程之後我大概花了兩天，就是這禮拜一到禮拜三，之後再發文分享。

要謝謝google圖片，讓我收集到很多鹿的相關資料。廢話不多說，有圖有真相！以下的圖，點擊之後都可以放大喔！

1.這是第一個版本，其實我覺得毛的效果已經不錯了。也大概刷了一下，這邊我的fur是直接scale的，目前沒發現什麼問題，但是後面才發現scale最好不要亂動...

2.這是第二個版本的開始...可以看到鹿沒有毛的樣子。因為rig的需要，我不得不先讓大耳朵和大鹿角穿插，等之後做好了我再讓他下垂。因為耳朵我打算使用之前學的Dynamics Riggin來製作。

3.拿掉鹿角之後順眼多了，也許你也覺得耳朵很大很詭異，但是我是有用意的。

4.生長毛髮後，先開一個『天光』來試試看。不知道為什麼出現奇怪的陰影。

5.開愈大，陰影愈詭異。不知道是怎麼了，來查看看原因。

6.毛髮縮短，陰影也跟著縮短。這時候發現毛和模型怎麼沒有對齊? 原來是我按到了數字鍵『3』，變成了Subdiv模式。

7. 因為陰影實在太詭異，我就把地板先刪除了。但是毛色還是很詭異，我明明預設是乳白色，繼續查明原因。

8.直接刪除天光，就正常了。果然和天光有關係。

9.把『天光』Physical sun and sky disconnect掉。

10.加入動力學，但是背部的毛髮因為沒有碰撞的關係...都陷入身體內了。

11.加強根部支撐力，看起來好一點了。

12.我要試著讓毛髮的顏色根據貼圖變化，先根部變化，好像沒什麼效果。

13.我讓毛髮尖端部，也上了一樣的貼圖。但是還是看起來不正確。

14. 我讓specular也上了一樣的貼圖，這總算是好多了。

15.再微調一翻，毛色幾乎已經是照著貼圖變化了。

16.將毛量增加雙倍。

17.再雙倍。有點泰迪熊的味道。

18.讓毛的硬度和捲曲度調高，愈來愈像泰迪熊了，哈哈。

19.背部的感覺很怪，嘗試看看縮小segment。

20.應該是要調高segment才對.........

21.詭異泰迪鹿，完成。

22.如果把毛拉很長，竟然完全不像是泰迪熊...鹿。好像是某種狗...博美犬。

23.然後把他的捲曲調高...這是...雜草嗎？

24. 把捲曲調低，segment開超高，博美犬完成。

25.把扭曲開高。

26.再把毛縮短。效果不錯。順便先來測試一下場景的鏡位，看不到的地方就不用花時間去搞了。

27.看看整體，耳朵很大，所以我打算要讓他的耳朵有波斯貓的感覺，接近耳洞的周圍，毛要特別長。

28.轉過來看看，有些地方的毛很僵硬。

29.加入動力學，效果不錯。但是毛需要修，光是刷毛就花了一個下午...

30.胸前的毛修順，後腿凸出部分增加了一撮毛。

31.幫一些不該有毛的地方使用刮鬍刀...

32.沒加入動力學看起來還頗像是狼。

33.順過一次之就好很多了！

34.加入動力學。

35.正面。還好前面看不到...既然看不到就懶得修了。

36.要是頭部和腳掌修一下還真像是一頭狼...

真想像不到這是一天之內玩出來的東西，持續研究！

超級強大的 Rayfire 教學

2010-01-18T02:40:00.000-08:00

here.

Fx LOGO WIP02

2010-01-15T20:48:00.000-08:00

最近的測試...等完成之後再補上完整的內容吧! 電腦一直處於模擬的LAG地獄中...

Translation Tool Updated. 更新了翻譯工具

2010-01-11T19:49:00.000-08:00

最近朋友跟我說我部落格上的翻譯工具出了問題，檢查之後發現真有此事。翻譯之後的部落格整個大錯亂，覺得很對不起國外的朋友，上個月最高瀏覽數除了台灣之外，就是北美地區的朋友。所以我更新了翻譯工具列。各位可以在網頁上方看見翻譯列工具，盡情享受瀏覽樂趣吧！

火焰測試 WIP01

2010-01-10T23:42:00.000-08:00

LOGO FX WIP01 from dim1984kimo on Vimeo.

最近的火焰測試，製作的過程我也將一些數值設定記錄下來。一方面和大家分享，二來我也要替『未來的自己』做一個備份，因為通常一個月沒碰，就全部忘光光...

Shave and Haircut的Passes比較

2010-01-07T18:29:00.000-08:00

Shave and Haircut是一個著名的毛髮插件，過去知名的好萊塢大片都經常使用到他。他的快速和直覺處理功能非常強大，廣為人所使用。過去我在電影公司服務期間，特效總監就要求使用這套插件來進行毛髮模擬，使用之後真的效果非常棒。

以下是幾個passes的測試：

1.passes=1

2.passes=2

3.passes=5

4.passes=10

5.passes=20

即使開到20，速度也不會慢多少。但是效果要稍微好一點，至少要開到2。如果只開1，感覺和nurbs太相似，比較適合做『草』的模擬。但是如果真的要做草的模擬，建議還是...使用instance吧！

運用動力學原理進行骨架設定 Dynamic Riggin with Chain/Rope/Cable.

2010-01-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

首先先來看作者的demoreel，他專做這方面的骨架設定，非常厲害的人物。記得過去也有一份教學是介紹相關的dynamic rig，是由3dbuzz出品的。各位有興趣可以去購買3dbuzz的教學，印象中是master class。當然，這邊我提供的都是由網路上收集而來的免費資訊，請各位盡情享用。

使用骨架設定來控制你的爆破 Explosion Rig

2010-01-04T02:10:00.000-08:00

Super Awesome Ultimate sprite Rig

by Mike Rhone

This tutorial has been written so that the novice artist can create a working particle rig. It is assumed you are comfortable with the basic concepts of 3d and Maya. Before I made the career move to effects, I was a character rigger. I have found that many of the skills I learnt in the rigging department have helped me to make fast, re-useable particle rigs that are easy to animate. This tutorial will prepare you to approach an effects setup like a rigger would. Not only does this make the animation process much simpler, it allows the effects to be done by animators without having to train them in the deeper parts of Maya dynamics.

Set the project

Set up a new project, and name it ‘explosion_rig’. When you are working with particles, it is essential that you set up a project, as your scene will be uploading, downloading and referencing information from/to these folders.

Setting up your preferences to work with particles

When working with particles, you need to set your preferences to ‘play every frame’. Go into Window a Settings and preferences a play every frame. This is necessary to have Maya evaluate the particle system correctly. You will no longer be able to playback your scene in ‘real time’, so any timing and animation will have to be done either via a playblast the scene or rendering it out. This is generally good practice anyway's.

You should never rely on Maya when it comes to timing out animations. Slow networks and computers can all throw off your frame rate. With that in mind it is also a good idea to turn on ‘frame rate’ in your heads up display. To do this, go into Display a heads up display a Frame Rate.

Emission surface

We could start off this rig with a basic omni or directional emitter and work from there, but I prefer to use a half of a polygon sphere to emit our particles from. This gives us exact control of the overall shape of particle emission. For example; it would be difficult to create a ring of smoke with a regular emitter, but a sphere can be easily edited to give us that exact result Using a polygonal object also allows for advanced control over particles via the particleShapes inherit factor.

A majority of effects elements I create all start off with this half polygon sphere. Create a polygonal sphere with divisions U = 16, V = 16. Delete the lower half of the faces on the object. Name this sphere emissionObject. This is a great shape to work with, and the pivot point is in the perfect location for what we will need later.

Dust Puff emission

Now we are going to get Maya to emit particles from the surface of this object. Select emissionObject, go into particles a emit from object (options). In the dialog box, change the emitter type to ‘surface’. Name the emitter dustEmitter. Name the particle dust.

** NOTE: ‘Scale rate by Object Size’ is a handy feature. It automatically emits more or less particles depending on the scale of the object. I have found this to be a little difficult to control, so I prefer to control rate all by hand.For this lesson leave this feature turned OFF.

Play the scene. You should see the particle being emitted outward from the sphere. The default settings on the emitter are fine for what we need at this point. In the outliner select the particle object dust.

Standard Particle Attributes

In the shapes section of the channel box you will see a ton of attributes in the dustShape attributes list. The ones worth covering are:

Conserve: How much the motion the each particle retains their motion (momentum). This is calculated by Maya on a frame by frame basis. It is similar but is not to be confused with drag. Conserve is a finicky attribute. A conserve of 1 means the particles will maintain momentum infinitely. A conserve of .9 means that the particle will keep 90% of its forward momentum every frame. I usually use values of between .9 - .99.

Inherit factor: How much velocity is transferred to the particle from the emission object. For this to have any effect, the emitter needs to have some animation applied to it.

Start Frame: This is an attribute that many people overlook. It tells Maya what frame to start calculating the particle object. If you only need to see your particle system after frame 200, set the start frame to 200 so Maya knows to ignore the particle until that point. This saves a lot of CPU time. In cases where you have your time slider set to higher than one, this will prevent Maya from calculating run-up before that point. A great time saver.

Max Count: If you need to limit the number of particles, set this number to what you want the max to be, otherwise Maya will just keep emitting particles until you tell it to stop or Maya crashes. ** Note: a value of -1 means infinite number of particles, a value of 0 means 0 particles. Default is -1.

Lifespan Mode: 99 times out of 100 you will want to set this to lifespanPP. This is the same control as is available in the particleShape attribute editor.

Particle attributes and expressions: Creation vs Runtime vs Array mappers

This is the single most important distinction you need to learn before you can work with particle expressions. All perParticle attributes are accessible to runtime or creation expressions.

Creation expression: Calculated on each particles birth frame only. (age = 0). This is where you usually tell maya how long a particles lifespan should be, what its mass is etc.

Runtime expression: Calculated on every frame except the particles birth frame. This is where you input variables that control how a particle fades out over time, how fast a particle spins over its lifetime, what colors it changes over the course of its life etc.

Array Mapper/Ramp: The other option for controlling per particle attributes is to map a ramp to the attribute. Instead of working with confusing math and variables, Maya will allow you to use a ramp that will control anything from a particles color, scale, size etc… This is done through Maya by comparing the particles’ age to the ramp.

**Note: No matter how many lines that you add to an expression, Maya only has one expression for each of: creation, runtime before dynamics, runtime after dynamics. It is for this reason that when you make your first expression you need to create an expression, and then everything added after that is an edit to the main expression

LifespanPP creation expression

Select dust and open the attribute editor. Change the lifespan mode to lifespanPP. Set Particle render type to sprites. Turn on depth sort.

Lets start off by adding a creation expression for lifespanPP. Right-click on lifespanPP in the per particle Array attributes tab. Choose creation expression, and add this line of code:

dustShape.lifespanPP = rand(1.0,2.0);

This will give each particle a random lifespan of between 1 and 2 seconds. ‘rand’ is one of many operations you can apply in an expression. Note that this is an operation and not a command like in MEL.

What is age? What is ageNormalized? What is LifespanPP?

lifespanPP is the length of time in seconds that a particle will live for.

age is the length of time in seconds that a particle has lived for.

ageNormalized is how long the particle has lived for along its lifespan as a percentage.

The ageNormalized attribute is a good concept to understand. This is the attribute Maya uses to determine where on the PP ramp each particle gets its info from. Maya will compare each particles ageNormailzed to the V value on the ramp, and will return the corresponding RGB value back to the particle system,

**Note: Maya doesn't’t give you access to the ageNormalized attribute readily. I “encourage” Maya to allow access to this attribute by connecting a particle attribute to a ramp, then deleting the connection I just made. This forces Maya to create the ageNormalized attribute. It’s a total hack, but it works perfectly.

Adding custom particle attributes

If you take a look at the per particle array attributes, you will see only a few of the attributes listed of the total attributes that we need in our particle system. Click on Add Dynamic Attributes a general. Click on the particle tab, highlight spriteScaleYPP, spriteScaleXPP and spriteTwistPP. Click on the add button. You should now see all of these attributes added to the list of PP array attributes.

Right click on spriteScaleXPP and choose create ramp. You should now see a line that says arrayMapper1.outValuePP. Right click on this and click edit ramp.

When you map perParticle attribute ramps, the bottom of the ramp is the value outputted for the particles birth, and the top of the ramp is the value at its death. For spriteScaleXPP we are mapping a ramp to control the particles scale. Press play and you will see the sprites are born with a scale of 1, and die at a scale of 0. Not quite what we are looking for. In this dust rig you will want the particles to start small, and grow up and fade out as the particle ages. Set the ramps bottom color to black, and the top color to white.

Rename the ramp to scaleRamp. Click on the output connection button to get to the array mapper. Rename the array mapper to scaleXArrayMap. The array mapper is an extra node that Maya uses to convert the data from the ramp into usable date. The min Value tells Maya what black values in the ramp are to be calculates as, and the Max Value tells maya what the white values are. In English, think of this as a multiplier of sorts.

Press play. You will see that the scale is only working on one axis for the scale. We COULD just do the same process we did above to control the spriteScaleYPP, but that would be awkward to have to edit 2 ramps every time you wanted to make an adjustment. Go back into the perParticle array attributes. Right click on spriteScaleYPP and choose create ramp-->Options. Change the “map to” tab to scaleRamp. Hit OK.

Select the dustShape and right click on the arrayMapper.outValuePP-->Edit Array Mapper. Rename the arraymapper to scaleXArrayMap.

Texturing the sprites

Ok, so far things are looking as they should but it is not a very impressive system just yet. Lets apply a texture to the dust. I have supplied you with a single .tif image we will use for the sprite. I prefer .tifs because Maya never seems to have a problem with the image format. Tif’s also have an alpha channel imbedded in the texture, so when you assign the file to the color channel, the alpha get applied automatically.

Create a new lambert texture and name it dustLambert. Assign the dust.tif to the color channel. Select dust and assign the lambert to it. You can now see the particle system with its new image applied. (Make sure you are in ‘textured mode’. (Press 6 on your keyboard).

dust.tif can be downloaded from here

**Special thanks to Miles Van Ypren for creating the dust sprite a few years back.

Working with spriteTwist

Right now all of the sprites look the exact same because, well, they are the exact same. Let’s apply some randomization in the sprite twist. If we were to assign a ramp to spriteTwistPP right now, all of the particles would spin at the same rate, in the same direction. That isn't’t what we want, so we need to add a few attributes of our own to get things working the way we like.

In the add dynamic attributes of the dustShape, click on general. Click on the New tab. Click on the per particle (array) dialog box, and add an attribute named spriteTwistStart. Click ok. Add another one called spriteTwistRamp, and another one called spriteTwistDirection.

Add this to the creation Expression for dustShape:

spriteTwistStart = rand(360);

This will output a random value between 0 and 360, and we will use that as the starting point for the sprite twist. Note that this has NO effect on the twist of the sprite yet. The only attribute that controls twist is the spriteTwistPP attribute.

Create a ramp for spriteTwistRamp. Name the ramp twistRamp. Set the interpolation to ‘linear’. Rename the arraymapper to twistArrayMap. Set the twistArrayMap’s max value to 180. This will cause each particle to spin twice over the course of its life. (180 degrees from birth to death)

Now tie these 2 attributes together in the spriteTwistPP attribute. Add this line to the creation expression:

spriteTwistPP = spriteTwistStart;

Add this line to the runtime before dynamics expression:

spriteTwistPP = spriteTwistStart + twistArrayMap.outValuePP;

You can see how powerful particle expressions can be now that we have combined the output from a perParticle ramp with a creation attribute. To use the values from a ramp, you need to specify the outValuePP of the arraymapper.

Press play. It ALMOST is what we are looking for, but all of the particles are spinning in the same direction. To have 50% of the particle spin clockwise and the other half spin counterclockwise, add this line to the creation expression:

spriteTwistDirection = rand(-1,1);

Now we need to edit the spriteTwistPP runtime expression. Change it so it reads

dustShape.spriteTwistPP = dustShape.spriteTwistStart + (twistArrayMap.outValuePP * dustShape.spriteTwistDirection);

Now when you press play, we should have ourselves a working dust element. This is a good time to save.

We are moving along pretty well, but we still need to set up the sprites so it fades off as it dies. You should be comfortable adding ramps to the particle system now. Add an opacityPP attribute to the particle system. Assign a ramp to opacityPP. Name the ramp opacityRamp. Name the arraymapper opacityArrayMap.

A key to a good smoke or dust element is to have the particles quickly fade on in the beginning of its life, and slowly fade off as it dies. Set opacityRamp to look similar to what I have here:

**If you like you can add an RGB particle attribute to the system. (If you do, be sure to stick to the naming convention: rgbRamp and rgbArrayMap)

Rigging the dust system

Rigging rant

Whew. By this point you have a sprite rig that can be dropped into a scene and rendered. This is fine, but as far as a rig goes, its very un-intuitive. If you want to scale the particles up, make then twist a little bit faster and increase the lifespan you have to dig through arrayMappers, Particle expressions, Ramps… Boring and slow. There is no way this system can be handed over to your typical low-IQ animator. What we need to do is set this system up so all of the controls are easy to get to, and don’t take a degree in physics to adjust. This is where some basic rigging knowledge comes into play. When it comes to setting up a character rig, there is such a thing as having too much control. Many rigging TD’s haven’t worked in an animation dept before, so they get tempted to give too much control to a rig. The key is to make sure the ones who will be animating the rig are happy. It’s a good idea to talk to the animators and find out how much control to give them.

For the main controller, use the CV curve tool and draw an icon to represent the explosion rig. Name it control.

Select control, dust, and emissionObject. Group them together and name the group dust_top. Deselect the objects and create and empty group (CTRL + G). This will create a node named null1. parent null1 to dustTop, and rename it to TD_NODE.

Open your outliner to make sure you have the same hierarchy as I have set up here. You can move nodes around and reorganize the outliner by middle-mouse dragging nodes into position.

Setting up the control object

I have separated the controls into 2 different levels. Commonly used ones will be on the control, and the advanced ones will be on the TD_NODE. (Special credit to Dan Weir for suggesting this separation)

control (Common controls) TD_NODE (Advanced controls)

rate conserve

speed inheritFactor

speedRandom twistSpeed

scaleMin lifespanMin

scaleMax lifespanMax

Before we can start tying the particle attributes to the controls, we need to add these attributes the control and TD_NODE nodes. Select the control and add all of the attributes listed above for control. Now do the same for the TD_NODE and the advanced controls. You can also hide the translate, rotate and scale attributes on both the control and TD_NODE by selecting those attributes in the channel box, right click --> Hide.

**Note: it is extremely important you type these names in exactly as I have written above. Maya is case sensitive. I have named these nodes in the typical MEL format: lowercaseUppercaseUppercase. Maya will automatically display spaces in the channel box to make things easier to read. If you neglect to do this, you will get errors when you edit the particle expressions. This is the area that everyone struggles with in this tutorial, so let me type it in a way you wont forget….

Maya is case-sensitive!

Add these attributes exactly as I have typed above or your rig will not work correctly!

Set these values before we start:

Control TD_NODE

Rate = 200

Speed = 3 conserve = .95

speedRandom = 2 inheritFactor = .3

scaleMin = 0 twistSpeed = 180

scaleMax = 3 lifespanMin = 1

lifespanMax = 2

Using nodes to drive particle attributes

Lets start tying these items all together. Open the connection editor by going into window-->GeneralEditors-->ConnectionEditor.

Select the control. Now in the channel box click reload left. This sets control ready to drive other objects attributes. Now select dustEmitter. Click reload right. Now we are ready to have control drive attributes on dustEmitter. Click on rate in both columns. You will see that the 2 attributes get highlighted and italicized. This shows they are connected.

Using this, connect the following attributes:

control

control.speed to dustEmitter.speed

control.speedRandom to dustEmitter.speedRandom

control.scaleMin to scaleArrayMap.minValue

control.scaleMax to scaleArrayMap.maxValue

TD_NODE

TD_NODE.conserve to dustShape.conserve

TD_NODE.inheritFactor to dustShape.inheritFactor

TD_NODE.twistSpeed to twistArrayMap.maxValue

The final connection we need to make is to tie the lifespan controls to the lifespanPP creation expression. This involves editing our creation expression slightly. Right now our creation expression looks like this:

//creation expression

dustShape.lifespanPP = rand(1.0,2.0);

dustShape.spriteTwistStart = rand(360);

dustShape.spriteTwistPP = dustShape.spriteTwistStart;

dustShape.spriteTwistDirection = rand(-1,1);

Now edit the creation expression to read:

dustShape.lifespanPP = rand(TD_NODE.lifespanMin,TD_NODE.lifespanMax);

dustShape.spriteTwistStart = rand(360);

dustShape.spriteTwistPP = dustShape.spriteTwistStart;

dustShape.spriteTwistDirection = rand(-1,1);

Click edit. Now your lifespanPP expression is controlled by the TD_NODE. Controlling lifespan via a controller is a great advantage because you can actually keyframe lifespan per particle. It’s a much more powerful way to control particle rate/emission, especially in cases like fire.

That is it. Now save your rig somewhere you can access it again. Re-creating rigs is a waste of time, so get in the habit of building re-usable systems whenever possible. This exact rig can be modified by changing the emissionSurface, sprite texture, and the attributes to create rain, snow, fire, lasers, mist, fog, smoke…

以音樂控制Maya動畫 Maya Animation Driven by Music.

2009-12-31T10:00:00.000-08:00

這份教學是教各位如何使用maya來製作音樂驅動的動畫。之前有介紹過使用houdini利用chops製作動畫了，但是鑑於maya依然是市場內的主流，於是我又找了maya的相關視訊教學，請各位笑納。

http://rapidshare.com/files/328744206/AnimateAMusicalMotionGraphicWithMayaAndAfterEFX.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/328772479/AnimateAMusicalMotionGraphicWithMayaAndAfterEFX.part2.rar

RS載點如上

密碼請由此入

Goodbye to 2009. Good morning to 2010.

2009-12-31T01:39:00.000-08:00

2009重點回顧。

一月、遷居到饒河夜市（台北市三大夜市之一）。
二月、加入特效組學習houdini。
三月、離開Digimax。並購買人生第一台工作站，dell490 8core 2.99g 8gRAM。
四月、加入台北影業。
五月、製作刺陵沙塵暴特效。開始學習使用Pyro。
六月、離開台北影業。
七月、加入中華網龍。
八月、學習max製作遊戲（從model、texture、rig、animation、render到fx全都包）。
九月、參與遊戲過場動畫之製作。
十月、學習使用max的fumefx和krakatoa。成功研究出HOT編譯方法。
十一月、接觸並成為李昌鈺物證教育基金會的動畫顧問與指導，並開始尋找外包進行製作。同月，進行台科大動畫實驗室之籌辦，尋找行業內資深並有意願之夥伴。
十二月、確定將會轉移到CG組製作CG動畫。學習在PhysX Bullet環境下，根據Voronoi diagram製作破碎模擬（Fracture）。

Voroni Fracture Test. from jacys lin on Vimeo.

houdini pyro with 300rez from jacys lin on Vimeo.

Houdini Ocean Toolkit Test from jacys lin on Vimeo.

realflow particle with fumefx test from jacys lin on Vimeo.

G.I. JOE FX Test from jacys lin on Vimeo.

explosion_02 RnD from jacys lin on Vimeo.

Fire Tornado.

2009-12-28T01:46:00.000-08:00

每次看到這個短片都有一種衝動想要開軟體開始做，但是最後都很喪氣的關掉軟體。

囧。

Jacys ToolBar V 1.1

2009-12-25T21:12:00.000-08:00

分享一下我個人使用的ToolBar給各位看看。點擊上圖可以看見完整尺寸喔！

其實我對於小Icon是很有感情的。哈哈哈...

使用PFlow製作龍捲風

2009-12-24T19:25:00.000-08:00

Picture 1. Animated 3D tornado

In this tutorial I cover the creation of a simple tornado in 3D Studio MAX. The tornado is created by forcing particles to follow a path and adding motion blur to them. You need some experience with 3DS MAX to be able to follow this tutorial.

Helix Path

Picture 2. The helix is the path that particles will follow.

First create a path for the particles to follow. Create a Helix Shape in the Top view (Create > Shapes > Helix). Use the following settings in the Helix:

Radius 1: 20
Radius 2: 5
Height: 300
Turns: 22

Rotate the Helix 180 degrees so that the first vertex of the helix is on top (picture 2).

Snow Particle System

Picture 3. Create a Snow particle system.

Next you need some particles. Create a Snow particle system (Create > Particles > Snow) with the following settings (picture 3):

Particles: Render Count: 10000
Particles: Flake Size 8,0
Particles: Ticks
Render: Triangle
Timing: Start: 0
Timing: Life: 91
Emitter: Width: 40
Emitter: Length: 40

The speed of the particles won't have any effect in the final system and orientation of the Snow emitter has only a very little effect.

Path Follow Space Warp

Picture 4. Create a Path Follow space warp and bind the Snow particle system to it.

A Path Follow space warp is used to force the particles to follow the path. Create a Path Follow space warp (Create > Space Warps > Forces > Path Follow) with the following settings:

Current Path: Object: Helix01
Motion Timing: Travel Time: 100
Motion Timing: Variation: 10
Motion Timing: Last Frame: 400
Particle Motion: Stream Swirl: 0,02
Particle Motion: Stream Swirl: Variation: 100
Particle Motion: Stream Swirl: Bidirectional

(The Particle Motion parameters add some chaos to the flow of the particles.)

Bind the Snow particle system to the Path Follow space warp (picture 4).

Test the Animation

Picture 5. Particles are following the path.

Test the animation. The particles should now roughly follow the helix shape (picture 5). It takes 100 frames (Travel time) for the particles to go through the path.

Wave modifier to the Tornado

Picture 6. A wave modifier makes the tornado more alive.

At the moment the tornado is boring. Add a Wave modifier to the helix to make the tornado more interesting. Use the following settings in the Wave modifier (you probably have to also rotate the Gizmo of the Wave modifier 90 degrees):

Amplitude 1: 80
Amplitude 2: 80
Wave Length: 300
Phase: (Animate from 0 to 2 during 400 frames)

The tornado should now look like in picture 6. At the moment the tornado does wave motion only along one axis which means that it looks good only when looked at from certain angles. If you are going to render an animation I suggest you to animate two Wave modifiers with 90 degree separation to make the wave motion appear from any view angle.

Tornado Material

Picture 7. Basic parameters of the tornado material.

Picture 8. Gradient Ramp parameters.

Create a material for the tornado with the following settings:

Basic parameters (picture 7):

2-Sided
Ambient & Diffuse: Light gray
Self-illumination: 50
Specular Level: 0
Glossiness: 0
Opacity: Gradient Ramp

Gradient Ramp Parameters (picture 8):

U Tiling: 2,0
V Tiling: 2,0
U Tile: Off
V Tile: Off
Gradient Type: Radial
Gradient color according to picture 8

Render an Test Image

Picture 9. First rendering of the tornado.

Render an image to test the material of the tornado. The rendered image should look like in picture 9. (For my rendering I added a plane object with Matte/Shadow material under the tornado and an Omni light with shadows on top of the tornado.) It doesn't look much of a tornado yet. Next you'll add motion blur to enhance the realism of the rendering.

Motion Blur to the Tornado

Picture 10. The final rendering of the tornado in 3DS MAX.

Add motion blur to the tornado. Right click on the Snow Particle System and select Object Properties... from the pop-up menu. Enable Object Motion Blur.

Go to the render settings and Apply Object Motion Blur with the following settings:

Samples: 32
Duration: 8
Duration Subdivisions: 32

Render the tornado again. Now the rendering takes a few minutes longer because of the motion blur. The rendered image should look like in picture 10.

At the moment the tornado uses a Snow particle system. There are many other particle systems in 3DS MAX and you could also try this with any of them.

原網站

經典的MEL完全教學。 Classic MEL tutorial.

2009-12-19T08:06:00.000-08:00

http://rapidshare.com/files/322381246/PJ_MEL.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/322469309/PJ_MEL.part2.rar

Paul的經典MEL教學，講的非常深入，非常好啊！

連我自己本身都經常拿出來重複觀賞。附帶一提，他使用的編輯器也是CONTEXT，果然專業的都用同一種編輯器。哈哈。

密碼請前往此link索取

David的新作宣傳

2009-12-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

我的偶像David Schoneveld最近拍了一個小短片，實在太有趣了。一定要分享給大家，請大家也支持一下David吧！在Cgtalk幫他打氣一下！

David在裡面飾演一個神祕又可愛的反派角色，我看到那一瞬間我忍不住大笑出來，哈哈哈。

Secret Agent Challenge Final from destruct007 on Vimeo.

使用Maya製做龍捲風(基礎)

2009-12-03T21:23:00.000-08:00

來源網站

Step 1: Surface Setup

When you start the script, the script asks you, if you want to create a new tornado system if the script can't find one with default name. If you say yes, a new system will be created. If you already have one or you want to access another system with different name, just press no. Then the script asks which name it should use. Enter one. If there's already a system with this name the script autmatically will use it, otherwise a new tornadosystem will be created.
Then the following window appears:

When you first run the script a new group will be created. The group has the name “group_Tornado”. Everything will be parented into this group. The group also holds some attributes.
The “Create Cylinder”-Button creates a NURBS cylinder which is the base geometry to drive the particle system. The next step is the “Create Lattice”-Button. This button creates a lattice box wich you can control with sliders found under the “Control Lattice”-Button.

The “Scale UP/Down“-control handles the Y-scale of the lattice. The “Scale Row x”-control handles the XZ-scale of all points the are on the same XZ plane. With the “Row x up/down”-control you can move each row up and down. When you think you have the right shape, you can delete the lattice box with the “Delete Lattice”-Button but you can also animated the shape. Just use "Set Key"-button. If you want to animate the shape of your tornado you should first create the latttice and than create particle system. There's no problem if you want to animate the lattice afterwards, but there could be troubles if you first create the particle system and than use the lattice box...

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Step 2: Particle System

The next step is to create an emitter and a particle system. You can make this with the “Create Emitter”- and the “Create Particle”-Button. When you create an emitter, every particle system after that will be linked to that emitter. When you create another emitter, the next particle system that you create will be linked to this emitter. With this function you can create different emitter and particle systems.

You can control the emitter with the “Control Emitter”-Button. With the “Emitter x Rate”-slider, you can control the creation rate. The “Max for x”-slider controls in which area the particle are born. The “x” stands for the emitter. If you have more than one, you’ll have sliders for each emitter.

You can control the particlesystem with the “Control Particle”-Button. The window has sliders for each particle system. The “Speed Px/y” sliders control the speed of the particle around the surface. The “Up Speed Px/y”-Slider controls how fast the particle go up. The Letters x/y mean the number of the particlesystem (x) and the which controlpoint is used. By default there alway three controlpoints (top, center, base). A particle can fly slow at the base, get more speed in the middle part and almost stand still in the upper part. If you set all of the “Speed x/y”-sliders on a value of 0, the particle will fly straight up. If you don’t want that the particle to fly up until the end, you can set the “UP Speed x/y” (y=3=top)on a value of 0. Then the particle will go around the surface for ever…

The “Position x/y”-sliders control where on the surface the controlpoints are. That’s useful if you use more than one particle system.

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Some needful things

The "Display"-button opens a window with various buttons. The first part consists of 4 buttons. The first one is to hide/unhide the user interface. With the second button you can activate the Attribute Editor/Tool Settings and the Channelbox.

The second part has some nice features. You can toggle heads-up-displays. One for the the numbes of emitters and their emitter rate. The second for the number of particles. The third toggles the frameratedisplay.
The last rollout has some object display controls. The shading of the surface is by default deactivated. You can activate it with "Toggle Shading". When shading is activated, you can also activate wireframe on shaded. This helps to control the surface. The other two buttons are for the smoothness of the cylinder.

The last check boxes hidse/unhides particlesystems. Every particle node of your tornado group should be listed. If you have problems with your frame rate, disable one or more.

A second window is for advanced use. The preferences section controls everything from default speed up to the name of the particle system. If you want more than one cylinder, you can enter a new name and then choose new. A new group will be created. Than there's no problem to setup a second (or more if you like!) cylinder with as much emitter/particles as you like. It's up to you!

One thing you should keep in mind! If you change something, like the name and you restart Maya or source the script, the script can't find the group with the changed name! That's because every name will be reseted. If you want to access your custom-named group, you should go to the preferences section, choose set name and change into your name. For example the root-group of your system is named "group_twister", than you have to enter twister. Then you choose "Update" and "Cancel/Close". Now the script should detect your group and all of the emitter/particles. That's also a fast way to switch between different systems!
There're also other buttons like "Lattice Divs" and so on. You shouldn't change them if you don't really understand the system!!!

With "Lattice Divs" you can control the number of rows of your lattice box. Try for example an higher value, than choose "Update" and create a new lattice box. Now you have more control... "Max Latt. Y" and "Max Latt. XZ" controls the max value of the up and the row scale feature. "Cyl. Spans" and "Cyl. Sections" controls the number of isoparms of your cylinder. If your want more control take a higher number.
By the way, the active value will always be displayed if you click on one of the buttons!
The next two buttons control the number of controlpoints. Use more if you want to refine your speed. For example, if you have scaled a part and now your particle fly fsater at this area, just use a lower for example up speed value and move the controlpoint with the postion slider in your particle control into this area.
The "max Slider UP" and "Round" set the maximum value that you can control with a speed slider. If you need more control in the lower speed area, you should take a small value.
The "Default UP" and "Round" sets the default speed. The "max Emitter Rate" has the same function for the emitter rate.

If you wanna see your changes and the old value, choose "show All". With "Update" you can accept the new setting. This button is usefull if you already created a custom system and now want to chage something. The "New" button creates a new group with you settings. You can close the window with "Cancle/Close". The button doesn't make anything else...

Note

Some words about the tornado-group. You should use the “Delete Tornado”-button, if you want to delete everything. This button deletes the group and all of the ramps/attributes and expressions. When you want to create a new tornado use the “New Tornado”-button.

The whole system has a structure. Every surface/emitter/particle can be found under the "group_Tornado"-node. With this structure it's quit easy to handle. If you want to delete the whole system use the delete tornado button. If you only delete the group, other parts like ramps will not be deleted. Sometimes there could occur a problem if you setup a new one. If problems occur, you should try the "File/Optimze Scene Size"-function. If this doesn't help, save your scene and restart Maya. When you reload your scene, you can continue to adjust the tornado at every step. If you have changed the names in your preferences, the best way to continue your work is set the values again and use update. The script should then recognize the tornado group.
There're a lot of windows, but I think you have much more control with less if you setup more than one system. A second script is in work that will be integrated into the Effects-menu...

物理模擬運算的一些資料

2009-11-26T02:15:00.000-08:00

好用的一些物理模擬運算公式

Nvidia: PhysX Maya User Guide.

2009-11-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

前陣子用了3ds Max的Rayfire插件之後，發現有支援PhysX真的變得好厲害。於是就找到了這個文件和大家分享。

PDF下載

FumeFx導出PFlow給Krakatoa算圖的一個有趣現象

2009-11-22T05:40:00.000-08:00

這幾天不斷的在玩FumeFx和Krakatoa，我發現一個很有趣的現象。

當fumefx轉出pflow資訊，給Krakatoa所用的時候，Krakatoa算出來的圖，和fumefx當初所表現的時間，略有延遲。不知道是什麼緣故，但是兩者在合成的時候，會有另一種感覺。

個人覺得蠻不錯的，有一種燃燒之後，還有很多餘燼繚繞的感覺。

new test with fumefx and krakatoa. from jacys lin on Vimeo.

危機意識 (轉自動畫筆記本)

2009-11-18T01:01:00.000-08:00

有感而發：
It's all business，在商言商，想想美國的那些動畫為何要外包到台灣來，只因為動畫在台灣作比美國便宜而已，所以台灣一家動畫公司的老闆會這麼說，"關鍵一定是成本，再來是交貨期，還有品質"，他說得非常實在，預算絕對是關鍵，品質其實是在最後，是可以犧牲的東西，為了要賺錢，不得如此，這是一般商人的觀念，所以等到哪一天中國大陸的動畫製作管理熟練起來，台灣這些作代工的絕對就會沒落，不信嗎，看看那家曾經是全球最大的手繪動畫加工廠經歷過哪些狀況，再看看現在那家看似接單不完的電腦動畫公司，你不覺得似層相似？

對老闆或是那些坐擁高薪的管理階級來說沒差，反正資產跟公司法人切割，所以可以每天開著高級車，然後直嚷著公司沒錢，哪天真的不行了，大不了把公司關了，搬去大陸，你能耐我何，但是動畫師或是其他勞工呢？長期來超時工作，低於平均工資的薪水，哪天老闆不玩了，結果一覺醒來發現到處找不到工作，也才發覺長期來只知道怎麼作快，不知道怎麼作好，自己根本沒有多少競爭力，老闆想說那就跟大家一樣玩玩自製片吧，反正政府的錢好像蠻好拿的，結果放眼望去好像沒有可以做自製片的員工，這時將責任推到勞工身上，開始抱怨業界沒有好人才，找不到人，你說這叫那些勞工情何以堪啊。

不過事實上要賺錢不一定要用廉價的品質來交換，看看好萊塢那些賺錢的大片，哪部不是為了品質投下大筆金錢，專業的公司知道要做出夠水準的東西，有些錢就是少不了，有些人看的不只有眼前的利益，更是長期的品牌建立，品牌怎麼建立，當然是靠品質，就像皮克斯的 John Lasseter所說的：Quality is the Best Business Plan，品質是最好的經營策略。

經營者們，請重視教育訓練，別再抱怨台灣找不到人才，要是華德迪士尼只會報怨的話，今天就不會有CalArts，也不會有那些利害的動畫師，別想說也不用訓練，反正用案子來操底下的人，久了大家就會進步，這樣做只是在消磨動畫人的熱情，同樣的，加班再長，不知道對的方式，一樣是不會有好品質的東西出現，看一家動畫公司是不是真的希望台灣動畫界成長，就看他投注多少精力在教育訓練上頭，即便像Pixar這樣成功的公司都有Pixar University這樣的教育訓練規劃，我不了解台灣的動畫公司為什麼覺得自己不需要。

至於動畫師們(以及所有部門的 artists)，品質至上是你唯一的路，也才能讓自己在未來更有競爭力，你會說今天你為那些只顧廉價快速的公司工作感到無力，不過還是請將這句話牢記在心，我相信有一天會有一個重視品質的製作需要你，也請讓自己的視野更開闊一些，即便你再資深，也請多接受新觀念，新知識，別老抱著加工廠作業員的心態作事情，多看看國外的東西，隨時保持學習的心態，這是身為動畫人應有的態度，共勉之。

我的求婚妙計！

2009-11-10T08:16:00.000-08:00

我要結婚了！圖片上是我親手為我的未婚妻製作的鑽石，花了我兩個禮拜的時間，純手工打造的喔。

請不要懷疑，這是真的。我將會在2010年4月4日這一天與我的未婚妻完成人生大事。

做CG這個行業的，能這麼早結婚的好像很少，但是我會珍惜的。

求婚過程：
http://www.wretch.cc/album/album.php?id=dim1984kimo&book=1

因為我是華人，所以只有中文版，外國的朋友抱歉了。你們可以考慮使用Google翻譯，哈哈。

JC Studio - Maya, Houdini, 3dsMax and Fx. Learning and researching. 流體 分子 特效 研究 教學

Houdini FLIP and Maya nCloth RnD.

Lock Particles On Emitter In Maya. (deforming object also works!))

Facebook粉絲頁 成立啦!!!

3dsMax轉檔到Maya內 101

佛心來的問與答 001

Maya Fluid: Vortex Smoke.

FumeFX Post Process Retime Test.

How to use 3DElight in Houdini.

HOUDINI_V11.0.658 与 3delight9.0.84

做這個行業，好還不夠，還要無可取代。

PhotoSyth: Gokokuji.

Naiad, 流體的未來之星.

How to load animated Multibodies to interact with fluids. 將多個有動作的物件導入Realflow並與流體互動的教學影片

如何製作DemoReel之將模型線稿render出來

Khnum

每次開啟3dsMax時跳出FumeFX.ini的警告視窗(WIN7)

讓透空貼圖也能被ambient occlusion計算

增加Playblast編碼選項的好東西

Zbrush實用資訊 製作55隻龍的Alpha筆刷

Pyro Fire Thrower WIP 01.

jcTraining102_ParticlesDrivenByFluid. 教你如何讓分子繼承流體的速度

Cell Division made by Maya, 使用Maya製作細胞分裂!

Houdini Pyro RnD - Flame.

Physx for 3ds Max 2011 Unofficial released!

Houdini進階篇: Peter Claes的論文

小祕技:把黑漆漆的maya2011顏色改回過去的樣子

利用Maya Hair製作彈性Rig在Maya2011的新玩法.

Houdini入門學習篇

SquareEnix歡迎會

Happy new year!

來自日本的好東西

Maya Fluid導入wavelet計算公式的解決方案- SOuP.

Volcano test WIP.

羽毛系統 Feather System.

Transfer A Single PointCache File to Maya with Multi-object. 3dsMax為多個物件輸出單一point cache檔案給Maya使用!

Maya Muscle, 方便快速的架設肌肉系統.

Matte Painting Studio - Interview_Vulkan

傑出中的傑出:BlurStudio

厲害的日本人，Kei Yoneoka！

Python 101

TheFoundryChannel：Avatar

Eclipse - Tippet Studios VFX

Watch more Moviefone videos on AOL Video

ThinkingParticles練習。

音樂控制詩篇

強悍的分子系統 : Thinking Particles.

Resident Evil: Afterlife 3D Trailer 惡靈古堡最新電影版預告

StarCraft 2 review.

星際大戰 E3 2010

UDK Mass physics 兩萬五千個桶子即時運算...

隨便畫都好看的神奇工具

RealFlow 5 Hybrido 練習

RealFlow 5 new feature: Hybrido.

Houdini 11

Krakatoa製做奔跑的熊.

cigarsmoke in two ways. 香煙效果製作

根據碰撞產生分子 in Maya Example.

根據碰撞產生分子 in Maya.

Physx測試

跟Pzman的胡言亂語

3dsMax to FumeFX to Krakatoa, by Miguel A. Salek

如何製作生動的表情動畫

Trail Tornado. 分子尾跡為基礎的龍捲風

Making of Maya particle+nParticle waterfall. Maya製作震撼的分子瀑布。

Trail embers, WIP.

Bing Map

烈火燃箭 Fire Arrow WIP.

Houdini Ocean Toolkit : 大海無量!!!

NUKE大車拼

Shave and hair cut: Deer WIP06

犯罪現場還原WIP01

Vray練習

專業mentalray材質庫 mrmaterials.com

雪景測試 WIP03

Nuit Blanche

Maya Fluid Study. by Don Wong

雪景 WIP02

雪景製作 WIP01

液體的玩意兒。

JC Studio - Maya, Houdini, 3dsMax and Fx. Learning and researching. 流體分子特效研究教學

Facebook粉絲頁成立啦!!!

Zbrush實用資訊製作55隻龍的Alpha筆刷

Houdini 中文教學下載