Flowing Lava - how do i do it...

[CHRiTTeR]

Metaparticles really slow, but easy)

Or maybe even an animated displacementmap?

[FatAssasin]

If I were doing a lava effect, the first thing I would try is using lofts. Make splines that go down the volcano where you want to lava to flow, and then create lofts from the splines. Then you would animate the scale of the lofts so that they "grow" from one end of the spline, down the length, to the other.

Morph targets might be another alternative.

Metaparticles might work too, but like Chritter said they're very slow to work with. But you would do it by binding the PArray to a Path Follow space warp and using the same splines I mentioned before so that the particles would follow the path of the splines.

[cutcopypaste]

I'll just assume that this is for an animation... naw.. let me assume it's for a still shot... naw.. let me ass u me


Try using the forum search. Try using Google.

Try this link. (http://www.3dluvr.com/content/article/111)

[sireel]

It kind of depends on the kind of shot your going for.... is it a distance shot that shows the entire mountain as it explodes? it is close up of the top as you see the lava spewing out from it or is it close up on the ground that shows the lava flowing down? You really need to break it down a bit. I'm assuming this is for an animation sequence but you havn't made that very clear either.

[amckay]

Haven't read the other posts
but don't necessarily think particles are the way to go
you can get some great effects by painting a lava mask of where you want the lava to go and making a reveal mask animate down. You could also makeit a displacement map and displace in mental ray or something, same with fatassain said about lofting, keep your mind open to ways to do it. Stuff like that is killer on system resources when using particles and isn't necessarily required to use particles unless you really want to make it dynamic. But from a distance there's plenty of other ways to go about it.

Just my two cents

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.