Particle Flow Discussion

[Tamagoo]

hmm. im wondering, does krakatoa support mental ray materials or just the standard material ?

woops wrong thread.

[Glacierise]

@Daniel: Keep tight, if we can help with something, do say so. And good luck!

[PsychoSilence]

hmm. im wondering, does krakatoa support mental ray materials or just the standard material ?

woops wrong thread.

maybe not all the way, which attributes of mental ray materials do you need on krakatoa particles that standard materials don't provide?

[msravankumar09]

http://www.m9fx.com/blogimages/71.jpg (http://www.m9fx.com/blog.php)

Hi want to share 3ds max particle flow logo animation project file, To create this effect i used 3ds max Particle System,I hope guys it may help you. Sample Video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_TBgQPk-bI&feature=player_embedded)

http://www.m9fx.com/images/downloadblog.png (http://www.mediafire.com/?1qk2y4t5cgsu31f)

[PsychoSilence]

Anyone tried pflow in 2012 yet? are shapes any faster in the viewport with nitrous? I'm still waiting for multiple plugins to be recompiled but look forward to work with it. seams to be the best release in years...

[MatthiasM]

sadly it even seems a lot slower on the first sight, i tried a standart flow with display geometry and regular cubes as shape, increasing particle count to 20 K which runs quite smoothly in 2011 on my machine but a lot slower in 2012 , turning off AO and shadows in the viewport does not really help too ;( i hope i just miss some settings to speed it up to the 2011 standard

[PsychoSilence]

Interesting, need to investigate that. I was already wondering why the tech-demo that was posted right before release only showed geometry and basic physx simulations...

[JohnnyRandom]

This Scene and this Script: Dual 3.0 ghz, 4gb Ram, 2x nVidia 8800m GTX (EDIT:updated to 267.76), win7

Max 2008 is the only bare install I have other than 2012, a perfect test I think. :)

Max2008
Smooth & Highlights 2000 Cube Particles, Disable Cached Viewport,
Playback from 0-100
----
Time taken: 1.735s
Average FPS: 57.6369
----
Time taken: 1.709s
Average FPS: 58.5138
----
Time taken: 1.806s
Average FPS: 55.371

Max2012
Realistic:
----
Time taken: 23.239s
Average FPS: 4.30311
----
Time taken: 24.413s
Average FPS: 4.09618
----
Time taken: 23.578s
Average FPS: 4.24124
----
Realistic No Shadows No AO:
----
Time taken: 22.805s
Average FPS: 4.385
----
Time taken: 22.805s
Average FPS: 4.385
----
Time taken: 22.789s
Average FPS: 4.38808
----
Shaded:
----
Time taken: 21.777s
Average FPS: 4.592
----
Time taken: 21.804s
Average FPS: 4.58631
----
Time taken: 21.802s
Average FPS: 4.58674
----
DirectX 9 Smooth & Highlights:
----
Time taken: 2.192s
Average FPS: 45.6204
----
Time taken: 2.138s
Average FPS: 46.7727
----
Time taken: 2.159s
Average FPS: 46.3177
----
Enable Hardware Shading - Enable Shadows & AO:
----
Time taken: 4.376s
Average FPS: 22.8519
----
Time taken: 4.486s
Average FPS: 22.2916
----
Time taken: 4.487s
Average FPS: 22.2866
----

[JohnnyRandom]

Ok, another machine 6-core 3.4ghz, 24 gb Ram, 480gtx (260.99) Note: Pflow cache was disable during these tests.

Playback frames 0-100

Max2011
Smooth + Highlights:
----
Time taken: 1.468s
Average FPS: 68.1199
----
Time taken: 1.47s
Average FPS: 68.0272
----
Time taken: 1.461s
Average FPS: 68.4463
----
Smooth + Highlights + Shadows + AO (default):
----
Time taken: 5.271s
Average FPS: 18.9717
----
Time taken: 5.27s
Average FPS: 18.9753
----
Time taken: 5.274s
Average FPS: 18.9609
----


Max2012
Realistic:
----
Time taken: 13.684s
Average FPS: 7.3078
----
Time taken: 13.699s
Average FPS: 7.2998
----
Time taken: 13.715s
Average FPS: 7.29129
----
Realistic No Shadows No AO:
----
Time taken: 12.829s
Average FPS: 7.79484
----
Time taken: 12.828s
Average FPS: 7.79545
----
Time taken: 12.872s
Average FPS: 7.7688
----

DirectX9
Smooth + Highlights:
----
Time taken: 1.469s
Average FPS: 68.0735
----
Time taken: 1.467s
Average FPS: 68.1663
----
Time taken: 1.47s
Average FPS: 68.0272
----
Smooth + Highlights + Shadows + AO (default):
----
Time taken: 3.43s
Average FPS: 29.1545
----
Time taken: 3.016s
Average FPS: 33.1565
----
Time taken: 3.022s
Average FPS: 33.0907

[PsychoSilence]

ergo the new modes are for the viz industry... (as i am sure they were intended for)

Any one else noticing that you cant use MultiPass effects anymore in the viewport or when making a preview? Hitting preview when turning on MBlur in a standard cam has no effect, "Use MultiPass effetcs" is grayed out when making a preview...
PLUS Point though is that you finally can hide the view/camera name in a preview, no more underlaying the frame counter LOL.

[JohnnyRandom]

ergo the new modes are for the viz industry... (as i am sure they were intended for)


Well they sure as hell didn't optimize it for animation that's for sure :D

Nice about the preview and viewport kontrols :)

[Glacierise]

It's not that they are only meant for viz, but you can only do that much in a limited time. I'm surprised how they managed to get it to this point so quickly, it's a completely new viewport after all. Animation improvements would be coming in the next release, I'd suppose.

[JohnnyRandom]

Ah for sure! It's new, XBR isn't done yet, and we'll just have to wait and see, I am hopeful that it will be addressed :)

[Steve Green]

It's not that they are only meant for viz, but you can only do that much in a limited time. I'm surprised how they managed to get it to this point so quickly, it's a completely new viewport after all. Animation improvements would be coming in the next release, I'd suppose.

Pfft - believe it when I see it.

[CHRiTTeR]

It's not that they are only meant for viz, but you can only do that much in a limited time. I'm surprised how they managed to get it to this point so quickly, it's a completely new viewport after all. Animation improvements would be coming in the next release, I'd suppose.

Its based on research done in around 2000, when they planned to do a rewrite (and started doing one but didnt finish it), so its not that quick :D

Id ratter prefered if they did an actual rewrite instead of hacking everything togetter and making things even worse with every version.

[loran]

Id ratter prefered if they did an actual rewrite instead of hacking everything togetter and making things even worse with every version.

sooooooooo true
Maybe a plugin exist to solve those kind of issue :D

[JohnnyRandom]

Game for Particle People :)

http://universesandbox.com/

[Glacierise]

Good topic :) My favorite one is this: http://www.ion-assault.com/

[tool2heal]

Was messing around with Pflow Box #2 for the last couple of days.

here's the little tests I did, nothing extraordinary, was just bored. I learned a few things though and that's what it's all about. I have more, will prob upload the other set soon.

Any questions, comments, feel free to ask. :)
http://img277.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=721420778_Box2Testsfinal.avi_thumbs_2011.05.06_17.38.20_122_61lo.jpg

http://img277.imagevenue.com/loc61/th_721420778_Box2Testsfinal.avi_thumbs_2011.05.06_17.38.20_122_61lo.jpg (http://img277.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=721420778_Box2Testsfinal.avi_thumbs_2011.05.06_17.38.20_122_61lo.jpg)

http://vimeo.com/23389661

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZThpUy51mlU

[Glacierise]

The peeling is cool :)

[tool2heal]

Thanks, Yea that stuff is easy to setup once you get ur settings correct you can probably peel anything. I'm having trouble with pieces breaking off as perfect chunks though, I'm not great with Box 3 and that's where I think I'm gonna get what I'm after.

This is actually what I was trying to achieve
http://vimeo.com/15015310
But I'm lost on how to get it to 'peel' but stay in better pieces.

I'm currently rendering a quick lava lamp test that looks pretty cool.
will post soon.

[JohnnyRandom]

Ion-Assault :thumbsup:

Nice tests, agree the peel is great, I like the multi-density pillars too.

[tool2heal]

Here's the resulting render from the lava lamp test, I was just seeing if this effect could
be achieved and it can, so I'm going to take it further and see what else I can come up with.
Due to the simplicity I should be able to do this on a much larger scale without much problem.


I could of probably achieved this without box #2 but it would have been much less organic.
Also, if I switch the glue type from simplified (what it is now) to distance and use overstretch
I got a really nice 'drippy' effect. Which I'm going to look into as well.


http://img159.imagevenue.com/loc419/th_794715174_lavalamp_rendercompressed.avi_thumbs_2011.05.07_14.15.41_122_419lo.jpg (http://img159.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=794715174_lavalamp_rendercompressed.avi_thumbs_2011.05.07_14.15.41_122_419lo.jpg)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-YyOQx2EZQ

http://vimeo.com/23414610

[Furball89]

:thumbsup: Cool! i wanted to do a similar effect for simulating nuclear fission (neutron hitting u-235, zoom out and fume - fx nuke!). Haven't played with pflow for sometime... Are you using blob mesh?

[tool2heal]

The setup uses Box #2 and frost particle mesher. Basically there's 4 geosphere birth objects, 2 on top, 2 on bottom.particles are birthed on verticies and glued together. all geospheres are in the same system. theres 4 find targets, 2 above and 2 below. they are used to pull the geospheres apart (attract) them up or down. The particles are then meshed with frost, to get the blending/pulling effect.

the same setup can be used to make them slam together and form one, or pull apart and form two.
I can post the scene if you have Box #2, So you can at least see the setup, even if you
don't have frost.

here you go, I removed frost from the file, It's really basic. But you can use as many geosphere's and find targets as you want, and also play with the speeds and stuff and I'm sure make it look and move much better.

Max 2010 and 2011 scene files

http://www.mediafire.com/?bbbw9awc8gqamwb

[Furball89]

Thanks! a lot for sharing the file. :beer:

[lostdragoon]

hey tool2heal,

haha the peel is looking great. Thanks for using my peel as a reference! check out the newer version over at orbaz forums. I also posted the scene file for anyone to grab. If i remember the setup was probably a bit convoluted on my end. Good luck with it though! :P

-n

http://www.orbaz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2966

[tool2heal]

Very cool. I saw that you were gonna try using texture break instead, that's what was used in the 2 tests i did, really simple. solvent by gradient, sent to next event with a wind. I still have to work on the actual tearing though, ur test's look great,

thank's for the scene, I shall dissect and learn :)

[PsychoSilence]

like the column breaking. the first wobbly cubes jiggle too much, you should lower the solver factor to 0.5 or something.

[sasmitr]

Hi everyone,

I have a point cached character which i am trying to collapse in over a period of time using particle flow. I have tried fracturing the character and skin wrapping it to the master character but am not able to drive this in box#2. Tried using lock&bond but the fractured pieces are not following the point cached character correctly. They just refuse to stay properly oriented.

I am looking for a similar effect which anselm has done with the horse..
http://www.vimeo.com/16941514

Regards.

[PsychoSilence]

The trick is to not let any physx kick in until you trigger it by grayscale map or a deflector or time!
use either a physx switch and set it to turn off simulation OR dont use any physx operators until you trigger the effect with a deflector e.g. and then use the physx shape/world/etc. in the new event.

[sasmitr]

Hey Thanks Anselm,

The main problem is not of triggering the event or physx. I can successfully do it with a grayscale map as u have explained Anselm. Using lock&bond operator is not letting the particles properly take the form of the character. The effect is not like the same as we get using skin wrap. It is not confined as it rotates few particles. can we use skin wrapped geometry in particles. If we see anselm's gazprom video we get to see k how the fractured pieces of geometry of the horse perfectly matches the animated horse.

Regards.

[PsychoSilence]

i pre-fractured the horse in neutral pose with RayFire and added detail where i needed it, then i used lock/bond to "glue" them to the whole horse (still in neutral pose), lastly i loaded a point cache on the whole horse with the cached animation. the particles followed nicely...What i could imagine is that you are not using Lock/Bond properly, it has multiple ways and settings to lock particles.

maybe post a scene file!

Anselm

[PsychoSilence]

Updated the TV / Commercial / R&D reel...

http://vimeo.com/24622443

This reel shows work on TV shows like HOUSE MD, commercial work, game cinematics, music videos for the Black Eyed Peas and Willow Smith as well as newer portions of RnD. Now in eye popping 720p :)

Shot breakdown:
www.incendii.com/​gallery/​Incendii_tv-commercial-rnd_breakdown2011-1.jpg (http://forums.cgsociety.org/www.incendii.com/%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8Bgallery/%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%8BIncendii_tv-commercial-rnd_breakdown2011-1.jpg)

Thanks for watching and thanks to every artist who participated in making this possible!

Anselm

[Glacierise]

Awesome :)

[JohnnyRandom]

Reelly nice :D

[PsychoSilence]

Vimeo now has it's official Orbaz Group after talking with Oleg. Please join and participate, share your work :)

http://vimeo.com/groups/95796

[PsychoSilence]

i uploaded some useful scripts for working with pflow to the vimeo group. Come check em out and grab em here: http://vimeo.com/groups/pflow/files/sort:downloads

Thanks,
Anselm

[JohnnyRandom]

i uploaded some useful scripts for working with pflow to the vimeo group. Come check em out and grab em here: http://vimeo.com/groups/pflow/files/sort:downloads

Thanks,
Anselm

Hey that's a cool Vimeo feature!

[PsychoSilence]

I just uploaded a new film reel if you are interested.
Lend me roughly 6 minutes and i show you what i've got :)

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=991328

Please comment and critique as you like!

Anselm

[Glacierise]

Colossally cool man! The Priest work turned out really great, hadn't seen this one!

[Darknon]

I'm only writing this post to re subscribe, as it got lost when changing email adress or something. ROCK ON!

[PsychoSilence]

I'm only writing this post to re subscribe, as it got lost when changing email adress or something. ROCK ON!

Great to have you back :)

[Darknon]

Thanks. I will post something cool very soon, so stay tuned :-)

[Darknon]

Hi guys

I just finished this little fx shot. Pflow used for debris and fumefx emitter. More info in the youtube description. Tell me what you think :-)

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6IOYrBAOpA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

---

[savat]

Hi guys

I just finished this little fx shot. Pflow used for debris and fumefx emitter. More info in the youtube description. Tell me what you think :-)

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6IOYrBAOpA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

---

your garden is strange like the marek denko garden...have a more green thumb guys :)

[gjeoffreys]

I'm looking to do an animation with pflow and box 2. I have boxes that create different shapes. So they start life just lying around, then tumble together to form a pre defined shape collapse and form another shape, but not using find target and lock bond, as the shapes are already defined in a regular grid pattern, I use birth group to create them. The effect i'm looking for is very similar to the wall in JohnnyRandoms http://www.orbaz.com/visualguide/particleflowtools/box2/PhysXSwitch.html
but with one exception. All makes sense, but I need the blocks to maintain their physics collisions while rebuilding the new shape. Whenever I try to do this they knock the other blocks out of place. Is there a way to lock/bond the particle positions on the final build so they try to maintain their positions? Also how do I create a birth group and script for each "object" in my sequence, how do i tell the build which script it which, I'm not very familiar to scripting, how do I create different sets of the stored pCont data? ie The blocks first create the shape of a motor bike then the break up and form a car.

Thanks very much

[PsychoSilence]

If anyone is interested he has been helped by John over here:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=1000420

in other news: join the orbaz/pflow group on vimeo as your local hang out on the vimeo platform http://vimeo.com/groups/pflow i'll post more stuff soon as they clear nda realm.

thanks,
Anselm

[PsychoSilence]

Lil something i have been working on the last 2 months:

http://vimeo.com/28474010
http://vimeo.com/28473314
http://vimeo.com/28474357

and 2 making ofs:
http://vimeo.com/28334091
http://vimeo.com/28391158

Lot's of Box#3, FumeFX and Krakatoa. And would not have been possible without Deadline to cache 20+ partitions at once instead of sequencial :)

Hope you dig it,
Anselm

[JohnnyRandom]

Great work :)

Hey so when you partitioned with deadline did it let you set the affinity for each max process? I assume that it was using multiple max instances at the same time (since pflow is single threaded) on the same machine, is that correct?

EDIT: never mind found the answer. Which would be... yes it does ;)

[rajted]

Originally Posted by PsychoSilence

Lil something i have been working.....

Great work done Anselm.....Congratulation Man...:beer:

[JohnnyRandom]

Betterwind 2012!

http://www.rpmanager.com/plugins/BetterWind.htm

[PsychoSilence]

New 1 hour free ride :) Just getting back into recording mode for new DVD...

Particle Flow Toolbox#2: Feather Rig Tutorial (a taste of things to come)

http://vimeo.com/29430419

[loran]

Can we rename that thread "Anselm demo reels updates" ;D
few people here those last months

[PsychoSilence]

hah! Just trying to revive the thread a bit :( There hasn't been a major update to pflow(boxes) in a while, died down the conversation a bit...i can dial it back of course ;)

Anselm

[loran]

no offense man! Thank you to keep it alive. This threads was very active before the #box release. I think those plugins are so complex, less people seems concern about.

[savat]

hah! Just trying to revive the thread a bit :( There hasn't been a major update to pflow(boxes) in a while, died down the conversation a bit...i can dial it back of course ;)

Anselm

I really appreciate too what you do but the boxes products seems to be dying: not news,not great policy about informations, not hopes to a periodic better release...

[PsychoSilence]

no offense man! Thank you to keep it alive. This threads was very active before the #box release. I think those plugins are so complex, less people seems concern about.

None taken at all! :)
I agree, there just hasn't been a major update lately to be crazy about. Some other users moved on to other packages as well.

[lostdragoon]

i am patiently waiting for the box 2 and 3 updates also pflow 2.0

i know Oleg is working hard...

edit: I am sure Autodesk is talking with him about bringing us a faster pflow after all those wishlist wishes for ICE in max :P

[loran]

I am not sure about Autodesk priorities... They spend their time bringing RSS popup messages in 3ds Max viewport (???). I just give up with them

[savat]

i am patiently waiting for the box 2 and 3 updates also pflow 2.0

i know Oleg is working hard...

edit: I am sure Autodesk is talking with him about bringing us a faster pflow after all those wishlist wishes for ICE in max :P

how to extract blood from a stone:

click here. (http://www.orbaz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3347)

it's impossible...

[PsychoSilence]

Another 47min. freebie as teaser for the new tutorial project i'm on. Will not be out this year but early next year :)

Particle Flow Toolbox#2/3: Velocity Sculpting/RayFire Fragmenter/PhysXplosion Prevention (http://vimeo.com/29853822)

This is the second of a new series of video tutorial coming your way :) It's again a freebie! It's almost an hour long tutorial about using geometry to sculpt your explosion and velocities using the PFlow Toolbox#2 and #3 in canon. Along with that you learn how to use the new RayFire Fragmenter modifier and how to prevent "physx explosion" caused by overlapping collision shapes.

hope you like it,
Anselm

[Glacierise]

Schweet! Great to see these things in the box3 way, very interesting.

[loran]

hey guys, I know this is not really particle flow related but I ve just released KabooM MassFX (http://loran-cg.blogspot.com/2011/10/kaboom-massfx.html)and I know you love exploding things :). This is a script tool to animate dynamic explosion in max2012. Its free and very easy to use.
Enjoy!

[adom86]

Hey guys.. just a question regarding real people disintegration effects.. I have done the effect using a model before so I'm ok with the effect it self. My question is that if it's a real person do people model the person ( and animate if moving) as best as possible or is there another workflow around :)

Just so u know I will have to stitch a new veraion of the background for a clean plate as the plate has the person being disintegrated in same shot.

thanks

[tarik3d]

Hi all,

I am using sim cloth in 3ds max and Pflow, I was wondering if there is a way of making particles (rocks) interact with the cloth sim? I can get the particles to bounce of the Cloth but not the particles do not influence the cloth.

Help would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Tarik

[holycause]

you could try with a mesher.
but i m not sure about the result

[tarik3d]

Thanks :) I will check that out.

[PsychoSilence]

Great collection of Max Scripts for vfx artists. Thanks to Deko.lt for gathering and sharing!

http://lab.deko.lt/81253424

[PsychoSilence]

Minor OT but definitely a must read for all vfx folks out there:
Art of Destruction (or Art of Blowing Crap Up)

http://www.fxguide.com/featured/art-of-destruction-or-art-of-blowing-crap-up/

[JohnnyRandom]

Wow, great read, lol all of it :)

[joshpurple]

Excellent article, Thank you :) !

Curious to hear any thoughts in regard to this from the article;
(not meaning to argue, disagree, or show any lack of respect to Mike Seymour, or the article. Just honest feedback / opinion ).

Houdini, by Side Effects Software, is currently the ‘go to’ software for RBS. Its growth in this market segment is widespread and well earned. The software provides control, flexibility, and speed and as such is now being adopted as part of the workflows of top companies from procedural trash in Pixar’s Toy Story 3 to Dneg’s new Bang tool. In fact, Dneg now uses Houdini half the time for their effects pipeline. “We use 50:50 between Maya and Houdini for effects work,” says Nicola Hoyle. “We run Dynamite in Maya and our cloth sims. We tend to run any heavy rigid body stuff through Houdini, all the fluids, dust and fire are also all done in Maya as well.”

[haavard]

Interesting read!
Sorry for going more OT, but the tetrahedralization was new to me. So I downloaded and compiled TetGen and wrote a little script that "tetrahedralizes" any closed mesh from max. This is how far I got tonight:
http://folk.ntnu.no/havardsc/misc/tetrahedralization.png

[PsychoSilence]

That's pretty cool! Will you share it once you are finished?

Anselm

[JohnnyRandom]

Maybe BrandonD will chime in for you :)



That tetraChopper looks cool :)

[haavard]

http://folk.ntnu.no/havardsc/scripts/TetGen.rar
Just run the .ms from max. tetgen.exe and the maxscript file need to reside in the same folder.
I have not properly bug tested it yet :)

[PsychoSilence]

http://www.incendii.com/images/Incendii-VFX_Happy_Holidays_2011.jpg

Happy Holidays, ya'll! Keep it alive and caching in 2012 :)

[Glacierise]

cool pic :) Happy Holidays Anselm and everybody, have a spectacular 2012! In a good way :D

[JohnnyRandom]

Bahaa Happy belated Holidays! great image Ansi :)

[Da_Ul]

Hi!

Short question: is it somehow possible, to get above the upper limit of 1.000.000.000 particles/Source?

Greetings,
Uli

[holycause]

I never tried it, but you could duplicate your PFS and change all the seed values.

[Da_Ul]

yes, tried this, and it's working, but I want to get over the limit for one source, just curious. :)

Uli

[PsychoSilence]

Some of the latest...Qualcomm CES Keynote MAKING OF with lots of box3 and krakatoa :)
http://vimeo.com/35609739

Enjoy!

[JohnnyRandom]

Nice, looks good :)

[Glacierise]

The city looks awesome

[PsychoSilence]

Dodge it, dodge it,...oh well!
http://vimeo.com/37874008

Hurricane Cabin (Render)
http://vimeo.com/37666340

Hurricane Cabin
http://vimeo.com/37552477

Kaboom Cabin
http://vimeo.com/37602289

Tornado Cabin
http://vimeo.com/37564198

Loosing Weight in 2 seconds...
http://vimeo.com/37287597

[JohnnyRandom]

Skeletons are cool :)

[Glacierise]

Funk from beyond the grave \m/

[gjeoffreys]

Anyone know what happened to Zhang Yang. I really wanted to have a look at his pflow fluid script, but his website is no more.

[holycause]

nice shots :beer:

[avolution]

http://web.archive.org/web/20090625012742/http://www.zhangy.com/main/index.php


Anyone know what happened to Zhang Yang. I really wanted to have a look at his pflow fluid script, but his website is no more.

[gjeoffreys]

Yeah tried web archive already, it hasn't stored all the files.

Thanks

[PsychoSilence]

long time no post...

http://vimeo.com/41309293
http://vimeo.com/41307874

@gjeoffreys: rumor has it the Oleg is working on something like that. Also that the toolboxes might be subscription at some point in time...oh rumor mills. they never stop grinding...

[3ak]

long time no post...

http://vimeo.com/41309293
http://vimeo.com/41307874


Nicely done!

[irwit]

Hey all

Long time lurker and unfortunately had a 2 year stint of Maya for work which took me out the PF world for a while.

Anyway I'm back and trying to get back up to scratch ( for me at least ).

When I left PF I was looking into some procedural water effects. Basically rain on a car type stuff. It wasnt much more than the alan mckay tutorial but I was getting some good results but was stuck on finding an alternative to blob mesh as it was waay too slow for a full car. I tried glu3d which was great but at the time it didn't read particle scale so was kind of a write off from the start.

Anyway I have been looking at frost which from the looks of it should be awesome for this but I just wanted to see what everyone else thought on a good route too create this kind of effect.

[JohnnyRandom]

Hey Will good to see you back :)

Having used all three and realFlows renderkit and standard mesher, hands down Frost is the most versatile, stable, fastest (hell so quick in comparison it is actually fun to use)IMO best quality mesh and lol most memory consuming of the bunch but hey memory is cheap these days. It, although not at all necessary, XMesh is a solid meta mesh (and more) combo.

Oh and even Krakatoa in evaluation mode (ie the PRT workflows) is a super frost companion at no extra expense.

Grab a demo, they will grant you a 15 or 30 (cant remember which exactly) day demo license to give it a full whirl.

[irwit]

Hey Johnny

Cheers for the info, checked out your "red splash" image using frost, looks great! Been looking at some demos and videos and think I am sold! Will post any results when I get it going.

[JohnnyRandom]

Thanks :)

There is some good eye candy here too:
http://vimeo.com/groups/frostlove

BTW its not just for meshing particles either it works with shape instances too ;)