Afterburn

[nitrocom]

http://rapidshare.com/files/12619795/collision_smoke.rar.html

Here it is...

This includes a mov and the max scene...

If the movie is what you want so you download the scene and check the settings...

[CapitanRed]

hmm...i don't think that the void deamon will help. I don't want to make a hole into the smoke. what i want to reach, is to drag the smoke behind the object wich flyes trough.

Edit:-----

lol, you were faster :D

yes, thats what i'm looking for. i wonder why the volumentrics do not move like they did in my scene :eek:
but ok, I'll do it this way and hope this time it will work :D

thanks alot

[PsychoSilence]

http://rapidshare.com/files/12619795/collision_smoke.rar.html

Here it is...

This includes a mov and the max scene...

If the movie is what you want so you download the scene and check the settings...

nice approach! thanks for sharing! :) glacierise´s tipp with the void demon might work well together with your file. check the AB help for the void demon and it´s function ;)

kind regards

anselm

[nitrocom]

Wow, very good you liked it:)

May be someone could take it further to more realism :) I ve got no times to make it better right now..

BTW, why dont we make challenge about the LOTR volumetric smoke.. It may help us to know better AB :)

On the other hand, I'm tryin FUMEFX right now but it is very hard to understood some settings. Could anyone send a good or advanced tutorials for it. Cause the tutorials of program in itself is sufficent...

Thanx Guys..

[PsychoSilence]

well, for a vulcano i don´t think fume would be the right choice...for puffy stuff AB is more suitable in my personal opinion.

for a vulcano i can hightly recommend Pete Draper´s masterpiece DECONSTRUCTING THE ELEMENS:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/024052019X?tag=xenomorphic-20&camp=15309&creative=331465&linkCode=st1&creativeASIN=024052019X&adid=0VG8BMQN0Z24NH50V2MM&

it´s definetly worth every penny. i don´t have the latest release but i think the vulcano and lava tutorials are still in :)


kind regards

anselm

[nitrocom]

Hi guys...

I'm wondering(I know this one is not related to AB) in this book i was tryin to modeling a volcano...The problem is im doing everything what he said but somethings going wrong and i cant finish it... If you guys have example could you explain me ???

Thankss...

[depleteD]

Its a mattepainting made by Dylan Cole for LOTR. What my main focus is how to achieve that puffs of smoke for volcano. Like with noise and density. I increased the density but still i am not getting that type of effect.

They didnt use particles, the compositors grid warped the painted smoke.

[depleteD]

Originally Posted by nitrocom
http://rapidshare.com/files/1261979..._smoke.rar.html (http://rapidshare.com/files/12619795/collision_smoke.rar.html)

Here it is...

This includes a mov and the max scene...

If the movie is what you want so you download the scene and check the settings...


Yo dude thats pretty good, do you have box 1? U could have a large group selection attached to the box, the selected particles could then be affected by a wind thats pointing in the direction of the box, this will give you a soft push on your particles.

I would also add soft turbulent non AB particles on your box, like whisps.

-Andrew

[rebolt]

Well thanks everybody but somehow i got the required smoke for my volcano scene. So hopefully i am posting it soon. :)

[nitrocom]

To be honest, the hardest thing that i face til now is hard volcano smoke... I'm wondering how it is gonna be!

[PsychoSilence]

Well thanks everybody but somehow i got the required smoke for my volcano scene. So hopefully i am posting it soon. :)

i´m curious about the final effect :)

kind regards

anselm

[nitrocom]

Hi guys...

My new post here, a explosion scene...

I wanna just take some critics from you...

Link:

http://rapidshare.de/files/37582338/MeteorExplosion_Edit.mov

What could have been done more for this scene... I need some opinions...

Regard...

[Massemannen]

I suggest the following:

1. Why does it explode? Is it getting hit by something?
2. Try to fade out the edges with the volumetric light. It is a very distinct sphere when i watch it in slomo
3. After the initial blast I can see the big rock fade away in a blueish glow. Sett vivibility to zero in Track at the second it blows up should get rid of this problem.

My 2 cents

[nitrocom]

Hmm, thanks man ill try them...

What you said in 1 is very true.. I ve got show why it is exploding... Actually its exploding because of a missle but i ve got show it...

[ruster]

Afterburn is unstopable anyway :)
http://vfx.datamill.com.ua/animation/pics/big/clouds.avi
Just some playing with spinners and here we go )).

[CapitanRed]

ruster: your clouds look awsome. i don't want to know how long this took to render ;)

but i think the phase is moving to much in this short time

[nitrocom]

Ruster is it me or video im not sure but icant see anything... Is there any codec problem?

[ruster]

Ruster is it me or video im not sure but icant see anything... Is there any codec problem?
It's Divx 5.1 . Klite pack shood work.
It took 10 min per frame.
Phase is just for some "puffyness" ;)

[Glacierise]

Nice clouds ;)

[nitrocom]

Everyone except me could see it :) What is problem with me???:)

[DeKo-LT]

Everyone except me could see it :) What is problem with me???:)

Brain??? :scream: (just kidding... :))
Try to use VideoLAN (http://www.videolan.org/) player to view that movie, it doesn't require any codecs ;)

[nitrocom]

Pufff mate, finally :)

I lke the puffies just hangin all around... Ahh If I want AB adjustment, it will be rude for you :) I just want to see different style!

Anyway less phase of noise would be better for animation, however, it is very good especially as a still... Keep going!

May we take adjustments:rolleyes:???

[cezmikardas]

good clouds super :thumbsup:

[darkdreams]

looks reeeaallyyy good!!! :thumbsup:

[loran]

yesterday, french TV show SUPERVOLCANO, a BBC drama. Does anyone know which fx studio do the job? there was plenty of heavy smoke afterburn like :)
great job.http://www.exitmundi.nl/supervolcano.gif

[nitrocom]

Wow, looks great,

I would like to know how they can achive a effect like this? Is there any opinion about that???

[rebolt]

Yeah i saw it too on Discovery channel. Its just awesome :buttrock:. Yeah me too want to know who guys did this great job.

[Matt^]

It was done by Lola Post Production in London, and very nice it is too!

[depleteD]

Any one have expirence with Afterburn Material IDS and rpfs with digital fusion?

I have an id pass which I can see my different systems with their ids. The Native render elements Material ID pass will not hold this information.

If I store them in a rpf file, digital fusion doesn't see the atmospherics in the image. This is all very weird.

Does anyone have a solution or expirence rendering out afterburn materialIDS?

-Andrew

[radoxist]

HI,
I have a problem with afterburn and opacity maps. Dont know how to solve this :(. Have a look at the picture, the planes of grass on the ground...

http://www.radoxist.com/download/AB_prob.jpg

[feldy]

are those just planes with grass mapped to them. i had the same problem last week were i had movie fire mapped to a plane with an alpha and agiast the black it would render fine but if the afterburn elemnt was there it wouldnt render the alpha correctly. i never did find a soultion for this problem.

[radoxist]

feldy - yes that are just planes with alpha.......hope there is a solution for this

[PsychoSilence]

the problem is that you use sprites...mapped geometry. volumetric effects always have the problem with mapped alphas. you will have the same error in the Z-Buffer...volumetrics use geometry for calculation and not maps...any chance to create the grass with volumetrics too? how about a hairfx or ornatrix solution? maybe even pflow can do the job if you have the toolbox#1...

kind regards

anselm

[nitrocom]

Did use vray for rendering this scene, cause vray has problem with AB or with some other plugins(i cant remember a name right now ill try to remember) use default scanline if its still going on jst simply close every specular map on planes maybe it could a solution...

[nitrocom]

Hey guys by the way, my new stuff, just a test version...
[img=http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/9379/fireballdt3.th.jpg] (http://img72.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fireballdt3.jpg)


well the question is im wondering how can i imrove the looking of clouds. They are just mapped and i dont want to use it,i know it is not exactly related to AB however may be there could be some AB solution...

[nitrocom]

And here is an another stuff of me.. Take a look and make some critics guys :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=co8uftPzejg

Enjoy...:thumbsup:

[noouch]

nitro: more particles! also, it would help if you could provide the video in a different format (.mov?) where you can step through it frame by frame to get a better look at what's happening.

[renochew]

A general question on AB, when you use space warps to drive particles movement and change their direction, say producing some kind of swirl effects, when particles change direction, the corresponding AB cloud will spin rapidly in a very unnatural (and rather random) way, I guess it is because auto stretch is turn on and I can't figure it out a better way to do that, did anyone ran to the same problem before?

Hope it makes sense.:shrug:

[Glacierise]

The 'align to particle velocity' (or something) switch is to blame ;) Turn it off.

[CapitanRed]

yes, I had that same problem. it is allways when having velocitystrech on, and changing force direction.

where is this align to particle velocity??in AB-view or particle-view?

[renochew]

Thanks for the quick reply. But that is exactly the problem, auto-stretch is a very important feature to me and it is too much to sacrifice this (turn off alignment will also turn off auto-stretch) :sad:

[Glacierise]

It is in Afterburn's UI. In the Particle Shape/Animation Parameters, right below the 'type' combo box, there is an 'Alignment' label, with 'None' and 'Part. Velocity' buttons. Press 'None' ;)

[Glacierise]

Try to go to the afterburn event in the particle view, and click 'Afterburn controls particle orientation' These two are actually inverted (as I see it). By default (unchecked), control goes to AB; when checked - it remains with PF. I don't know if this would help, but it is an option :)

[bealobo]

hi!
I'm trying to get velocity channel out from afterburn but after a lot of tests and research I'va came to the conclussion that it's not possible, am I right?

thanks,

[renochew]

Glacierise, I will try your suggestion as soon as I can access to my computer again.

Balobo, I am also thinking of accessing the matrix channel of the particles and maybe manipulate it somehow if other simple solution is not exist. Can you explain briefly the way you tackle the problem and how you came up with your conclusion? So that me or others do not need to go through again what you have gone through, and think of a different solution instead.:)

Other questions on my mind. is the turbulence from the wind that cause the random spinning? Why the AB cloud spin? I mean what part of the particles movement is translated into spinning movement of the cloud?

Ronald

[rebolt]

If we include a scene in our showreel showing clouds flythrough developed in Afterburn,
then how can we show its breakdowns ? Any idea ?

[CameronHallam]

If we include a scene in our showreel showing clouds flythrough developed in Afterburn,
then how can we show its breakdowns ? Any idea ?


Probably just show a shot of it unrendered just showing particle placement etc
Then show how iot is after a render and how it is after you composited, like showing different layers if you added them, such as lighting and colours and stuff.

[renochew]

Try to go to the afterburn event in the particle view, and click 'Afterburn controls particle orientation' These two are actually inverted (as I see it). By default (unchecked), control goes to AB; when checked - it remains with PF. I don't know if this would help, but it is an option :)

No, it didn't work:sad:.

It seems to me that it would be a big limitation of what one can do with AB if there isn't really any work around...

[Glacierise]

Maybe you could post your scene, so we can have a shot at it :)

[bealobo]

Balobo, I am also thinking of accessing the matrix channel of the particles and maybe manipulate it somehow if other simple solution is not exist. Can you explain briefly the way you tackle the problem and how you came up with your conclusion? So that me or others do not need to go through again what you have gone through, and think of a different solution instead.:)

Hi,

I first tried the standard way: "render elements" but it didn't work.
Because I was triying to get z-depth as well I thought that perhaps using the video post "Afterburn Glow" will allow me to take not only z-depth but velocity, but I was wrong.
And finally a friend of mine suggested this (http://www.anidesign.de/index_vel.htm) but I haven't got the chance to give it a go yet.
I'm rendering with Scanline, perhaps using other renderer will do, but I really think that Scanline being the 3dsMax native's should be the one that handle these kind of things best.

And another problem I'm experiencing is about Z-depth, I can take it out but it does not have AA filter at all, looks horrible and it's useless.
I've heard of a method using black fog, but I'm quite new to Afterburn so I hope I'll make it work without problems. Any advice here is welcome.

[CapitanRed]

if you want the velocity out from your particles, perhaps you can get it out of a script. but what for?
do you want motionblur your atmospherics?
if you want to save the velocity of your objects into the renders, you can do it with .rpf files.
but i don't think that this will work for the volumetrics. you can put an imageblur to your flow. this will blur it a bit. but mostly it isn't really visible, because the whole volumentrics has a lot of random detail, so the eye does not se a difference.(even mine does not ;) )

[bealobo]

I've made an octane shader with very small radius, as a sprite really. So I wouldn't say atmospherics really but of course they are not objects so .rpf files do not work either.

I have to composite the shot with a motion blurred lightwave scene and I just wanted to make sure I can adjust the blur in case the parameters that I've set to match in terms of blur don't actually match (sometimes different programs perform different internal calculations for these things).

I guess I'll have to get along with image motion blur and remake the render if the motion blur doesn't match between applications.

[CapitanRed]

hmmm...this is a special situation. but small radius octane shader volumetrics sounds for me as would there be another way than afterburn(I don't exactly know what your particles look like, but sounds for me as would they have a simple shape. so I guess you use AB for because the particle velocity alignment and strech possibility)
I this is the case, there is a script which streches the particles by velocity. and If you would use this script, you would get velocity value in .rpf

if your atmospheric renders don't take long, then i would use multipass motionblur. this way you have full control so you can match it to your lightwave scene.

[bealobo]

I'll try both ways.
I haven't thought about it... 3dsMax is not my main 3d application and there are a lot of basic things that I don't know yet.
Thank you very much for the suggestions.


By the way, my particles are imported from realflow and they do "cast" a velocity channel because somehow internally, they are like really really small objects.
I'm not using that (I've set its Size to 0.0) as they will not match my afterburn shader but it might be interesting for somebody at sometime.

I'll let you know how it goes
THANKS!

[renochew]

Maybe you could post your scene, so we can have a shot at it :)

I cannot access my computer now, but there is absolutely nothing fancy with my scene, all you need is change the direction of the particle by some spacewarps and turn on part. velocity and auto-stretch give some stretch value, say 40, to the AB shader.

You can also download a scene provide by Loran, it has a nice rocket-propulsion smoke movement, when you turn on the part. velocity and auto-stretch, and play the animation in the viewport, you will see the spinning. And when you render out the scene, you will notice how it ruin the originally realistic pieces.

http://laurent.renaud.free.fr/tuto02-uk.html

[nitrocom]

I cannot access my computer now, but there is absolutely nothing fancy with my scene, all you need is change the direction of the particle by some spacewarps and turn on part. velocity and auto-stretch give some stretch value, say 40, to the AB shader.

You can also download a scene provide by Loran, it has a nice rocket-propulsion smoke movement, when you turn on the part. velocity and auto-stretch, and play the animation in the viewport, you will see the spinning. And when you render out the scene, you will notice how it ruin the originally realistic pieces.

http://laurent.renaud.free.fr/tuto02-uk.html

Well what you showed us is very impressive as a animation way, however im sticked to being realistic about that so I took a render of my AB tree :) Take a look...

About this render, I'm just wondering applying a volume light effect on it! In making of STEALTH (Digital Domain / Commercials / Behind the Scenes) they achieved it in the clouds and it impressed me very much when I first saw it! A Volumetric Light Setup which is flying through the clouds :)

How could it be done in max?

Render took about 12 min(which is very high!)

Link: http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/8096/puffsmokeac5.jpg

[bealobo]

Hi again,
first thing I did it, I got velocity channel out of afterburn rendered particles.

This is how my tests went:
1. I tried with shapes and facing shapes and it was much faster than AB. However the result was not looking as good as AB render, which had more volume.

2. I tried the multipass motionblur and it really have controls that are similar to lightwave's, thought adjusting some of them would be difficult (dither) as lightwave offers less control (it does not allow to set a value, just turn it on and off). But, and it's a big but, it's a lot more slower that old image blur I was using.

3. Tried these plugins (first one for getting velocity channel out of max and second one to read that in combustion/ fusion, etc)
http://www.anidesign.de/index_vel.htm
http://www.revisionfx.com/products/rsmb/
and they worked!!! with Afterburn particles!
Just one note, I had to output the files in tif 16 bits instead of png as adviced because I don't know why the images came out black.


After all these with the motion blur, I'm going to use a black fog to get the z-depth to make some dof in postpro. I've tested it and it worked fine (thought it is inversed from the z-depth from lightwave).

Thanks for your advices and comments!

[rebolt]

I was making a preview of the scene for the making of my clouds flythrough. But the problem
is that in the preview the afterburn is not showing up. I even clicked on the show in viewport but its not showing in rendering.

I am posting a screen shot of the preview.

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/8083/screenshotlw1.jpg

[nitrocom]

In preview, you have to click on shape, i hope so at least :) It has to be solution for it...

[rebolt]

Thanks i got the solution.:)

[BrokenWindow]

I got a problem with Afterburn. I did post this in the main forum, but figured I'd give it a shot here too. If I check "create image channels" in the afterburn renderer and render. It automatically crashes max every time. I'm trying to create a z-depth pass of an animation. I am exporting in rla, or rpf format and have z-depth checked, but no luck...anybody have any ideas?

Thanks in advance..

[SoLiTuDe]

I haven't run into this problem ever... so you just tell it to create the image channels, hit render, and then it crashes? That's nuts. :) First thing I would do is go ahead and talk to afterworks/sitni sati about the issue, and see if they can't figure what the deal is. ..you do have the latest version I'm assuming? And what version of max and windows are you using?

Edit: Just noticed you may have posted this on the sitni sati forum already... or somebody else is having the same problem. Just keep bugging them and you'll get through eventually. :)

[renaissance01]

hey everyone...

The other day, i installed 3ds Max 8 on 3 other computers to render a scene involving afterburn that i'm working on. When i tried to install afterburn onto the other computers...it would say it had installed it succesfully but when i went to open max, just before it loads up the viewports, an error box comes up saying...cannot initialize afterburn .dlo file and cannot find the file. I looked through the max files and found the exact afterburn.dlo file where it was supposed to be although it's still coming up with it. Can anybody help me ?

[visualchaosfx]

Hey folks,

Got a small afterburn clip for ya to critique and stuff.

http://www.visual-chaos.com/ship_crash.mov

Personally I think it looks cool.:)

Be gentle lol.

[SoLiTuDe]

Hey folks,

Got a small afterburn clip for ya to critique and stuff.

http://www.visual-chaos.com/ship_crash.mov

Personally I think it looks cool.:)

Be gentle lol.


Good job man! I would say the initial explosion needs to be way faster then slow down... it just kinda expands way too slowly. ..otherwise the look is good. Also... right before the flash i see a wierd thing at the top of the animation where the trail is... kind of like another trail is about to come behind or the noise is just being funny. Otherwise I'd just like to see some more debris... some bigger pieces as well.

Again, Good Work!

--Ian

[PsychoSilence]

currently no time for long posts sorry :cry::cry:

- less density for the flight trial
- less flashing when it crashes
- waaay more debris
- less density after crash, more color/cloud/smoke variation
- less speed for the AB crash trials
- beside of debris i´d like to see some wrack pieces spinning away from the crash site
- ground deformation visible thru the AB smoke

sam posted a nice blur workaround for the density. render it in a second pass! maybe he explains this in more detail. but this trick works like a charme for me at least...

again sorry for such a loosy short list...deadline day tomorrow is my excuse :(

kind regards

anselm

[visualchaosfx]

Good job man! I would say the initial explosion needs to be way faster then slow down... it just kinda expands way too slowly. ..otherwise the look is good. Also... right before the flash i see a wierd thing at the top of the animation where the trail is... kind of like another trail is about to come behind or the noise is just being funny. Otherwise I'd just like to see some more debris... some bigger pieces as well.

Again, Good Work!

Thanks bro! So the expansion should be faster up until the smoke cloud peaks. Then expand slowly.

Yes the noise is acting weird. I'll have to play around with the settings more to get rid of that. I just got a little excited after I seen all this comped together. I've never made an explosion before. I've always used stock footage but after watching your demo reel a few times, I had to try and make one.:thumbsup:

- less density for the flight trial

I was basing the density from what I remember in the Superman Returns jet sequence. The smoke should be at a lighter density?

- less flashing when it crashes

Yeah I kinda exaggerated the flash a bit. I'm gonna tone it down just a tad.

- waaay more debris

Yep gonna have me some bigger pieces and stuff.

- less density after crash, more color variation

I was thinking the cloud would have that much density and that the color would stay the same until the cloud starts to disapait more.

- less speed for the AB crash trials

The trail expands a litte fast? Is that waht you mean?Thanks for the suggestions guys:thumbsup:

[EquiNOX]

Hmm, say I am still new to afterburn... went through lot of Allan McKay's Turbo training vid tut (1 & 2). The only thing or part that have not gave me a clue on how to get this effect
like this....
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/EquiNOX_3D/2_b.jpg

Notice dust cloud is more of stick up rather than puffy, I'd need you help achieving this like sharing some tips or suggestions on generating one like this in AB Parameter.

Thanks

[visualchaosfx]

Hmm, say I am still new to afterburn... went through lot of Allan McKay's Turbo training vid tut (1 & 2). The only thing or part that have not gave me a clue on how to get this effect
like this....
http://i89.photobucket.com/albums/k201/EquiNOX_3D/2_b.jpg

Notice dust cloud is more of stick up rather than puffy, I'd need you help achieving this like sharing some tips or suggestions on generating one like this in AB Parameter.

Thanks

I would try tweaking the squash or auto stretch or both and see what that does.

[visualchaosfx]

In my little explosion PFLOW setup, I have debri event with a spin operator applied to it. The pieces explode and spin into the air and fall down onto the ground but they are still spinning. I can't figure out how to stop the debri from spinning once they hit the ground.

Any suggestions?

[rebolt]

Hey folks,

Got a small afterburn clip for ya to critique and stuff.

http://www.visual-chaos.com/ship_crash.mov

Personally I think it looks cool.:)

Be gentle lol.

Good explosion man. But i think the trail which comes along with the plane as it crash down is more looking like an asteroid trail rather than looking as if its burned the engine or something. Try to take the larger area of the plane and put that on fire so that it looks like that the wings also burned with more area and also i think you should make the debris in some large peices also because its was a plane which crashes down right not just an explosion happens.
So add that also but otherwise good explosion and flash is too much.

[SoLiTuDe]

In my little explosion PFLOW setup, I have debri event with a spin operator applied to it. The pieces explode and spin into the air and fall down onto the ground but they are still spinning. I can't figure out how to stop the debri from spinning once they hit the ground.

Any suggestions?

If you're using a collision test for the bounce / fall on the ground, use it with "collided multiple times" ... let it bounce a few times, and then have it go out to the final event where the spin will be set to 0.

[PsychoSilence]

DD did some awesome impact and particle work on david fincher´s pebl motorola spot:

http://www.digitaldomain.com/links/comm/behindscenes/BHS1/bhs1.htm

maybe you can "steal" some looks ;)

kind regards

anselm

[nitrocom]

DD is the best about those knd of stuffs:) They like particles...

Anyway, actually explosion is good but it could be better than this... May be more realistic shake of cam and more debris... They are first to come up...

[visualchaosfx]

DD did some awesome impact and particle work on david fincher´s pebl motorola spot:

http://www.digitaldomain.com/links/comm/behindscenes/BHS1/bhs1.htm

maybe you can "steal" some looks ;)

kind regards

anselm

Oh WOW. That little video clip looks sweet. Is there any way of saving that quicktime clip? That would be great to add to my study aids.

[SoLiTuDe]

Oh WOW. That little video clip looks sweet. Is there any way of saving that quicktime clip? That would be great to add to my study aids.

Yupp... get the pro version of quicktime. :)


http://www.digitaldomain.com/links/comm/behindscenes/BHS1/makingofpebl.mov

should work...?

...it works if I copy and paste the link into my browser but not if I click it.

[visualchaosfx]

Yupp... get the pro version of quicktime. :)


http://www.digitaldomain.com/links/comm/behindscenes/BHS1/makingofpebl.mov

should work...?

...it works if I copy and paste the link into my browser but not if I click it.

Nope didn't work but thats ok. I booked marked the site anyways. Hopefully they don't go around changin links on me lol.

[SoLiTuDe]

wierd... it still works for me if I right click the link then do "copy link location" and then paste it into the browser... oh well :)

[visualchaosfx]

Anyone run into a problem like this:

http://www.visual-chaos.com/afterburn_issue.wmv

Watch the trail cloud. I can't seem to fix this.

[CapitanRed]

when you spawn particles, do you respawn them? could be that there is more than one particle at the same place...

[visualchaosfx]

when you spawn particles, do you respawn them? could be that there is more than one particle at the same place...

I don't believe I do. I have the Birth set to emit start: 0 Emit stop: 600.

Never had a problem like this before where the firey part of the material flickers. Not even in the last video clip I submitted in this thread did that.

[SoLiTuDe]

Can you post a screen of your flow? ..just for kicks

Oh yeah -- do you think it could be a codec issue with the wmv compression? Try rendering to frames and see if there are any wierdo frames.

[visualchaosfx]

Can you post a screen of your flow? ..just for kicks

Oh yeah -- do you think it could be a codec issue with the wmv compression? Try rendering to frames and see if there are any wierdo frames.

Nope no codec issue. I first noticed this when I rendered to png files. Then I rendered an avi and quicktime and it was doing the samething.

Here, take a look at the max 8 file:

http://files.filefront.com/ship_crash_2max/;7063149;/fileinfo.html

My server is acting up so I had to upload to my filefront account.

[CapitanRed]

I rendered it now 3 times, and i don't get the problem you have...
i allways rendered without the plane to speed it up. but i don't belive that the plane has something to do with it.
perhaps just restarting max will help...don't know.

[visualchaosfx]

I rendered it now 3 times, and i don't get the problem you have...
i allways rendered without the plane to speed it up. but i don't belive that the plane has something to do with it.
perhaps just restarting max will help...don't know.

It isn't the ship. I know that for a fact because before I posted the first video clip, it wasn't doing that. I'm almost thinking its the way the the noise settings are setup in afterburn. But so far nothing has changed.

[renaissance01]

hey Solitude,

was just wondering...in your showreel (awesome reel btw) how did you achieve the dusty fog effect with those tanks etc. Was it with fog, volume fog, afterburn fog ? I'm trying to get similar results with one of my scenes but it's not exactly how i pictured and the problem is i'm using mental ray so afterburn fog is probably out of the question.

[SoLiTuDe]

As far as I know / remember that was actually set up by the guys at Gas Powered Games -- BUT I'm opening the file right now... soo....
Like I was suspecting it's actually just regular fog...

Not sure about the final file (I only have some of the pre-vis ones), but I doubt it changed too much, but it's set up as Layered fog with falloff set to top, and the density is set to about 20 or so (depends on the scale of the scene i'm sure) ..the top number value will also depend on the scene... and in this case it was animated I believe so it went higher as the camera panned up. (just a guess) The fog is a sandy color, and also the ambient color set in the env set to a darker sandy color

Hope it helps!

And thanks for the compliment on the reel!

[3DKonglen]

Hah this is cool I have just played that game Supreme commander and I thought that intro was amazing , and hey heres the guy that created those amazing intro animations ! Great work Ian !!

cool to see guys like you and Allan mcKay in this forum , small world ! :)

[SoLiTuDe]

Thanks man! I'm workin at that same company again... so we'll be having some more fun stuff coming up pretty soon.

lol: I probably wouldn't put me and Allan in the same category just yet. :)

[visualchaosfx]

Is there a way to render the shadows seperately from the Afterburn explosion?

[SoLiTuDe]

which shadows? the ones aburn casts onto the ground? or the self shadowing of aburn?

[visualchaosfx]

The self shadows.

[superhypersam]

there is no g bufer extraction on atmospherics so u cant get a shadow pass.

A workaround, render AB all white and extract the shadows in comp based on a luma key.

[DaveWortley]

Anyone know where I can get a demo of Afterburn 3.2a for Max 9.0? I've got the 3.2 demo that came with Allan McKays DVD but I use max 9.....

[SoLiTuDe]

You should try contacting sitni sati / afterworks and see if they can send you one:

support@afterworks.com

[dnashj33]

I was trying to render out a preliminary animatic for a project that I'm working on, and while I like the look of the GI (fR Image), I'm having problems with noise/flickering in the clouds (using Afterburn), and am wondering if it's a problem between the 2 plugins or what. I made sure, inside Afterburn and Particle Flow, to turn off any sort of animated settings (don't want the clouds to move an inch), re-rendered, and that didn't help.

I thought it might be from the camera being a bit too far into a the cloud layer, so I elevated the camera path to make sure that wasn't the problem. No dice. I turned off GI, hid the jet and test rendered just the clouds. Didn't work. I'm going to try to test render the clouds using just scanline, and see if it's a problem with fR not wanting to work with AB (since Cebas has a competing product, PyroCluster, they may intend for there to be little support for AB...don't know).
I was just wondering if this is a common problem, and if someone might have had a similar problem using the two. I'm using Max 8, and have updated service packs and such for the program and all the plugins. Thanks.

P.S. I wanted to upload a low res example of the animation (1.6mb .mov which I zipped), but it still is too large to attach, and I don't have a website up yet.

[CapitanRed]

looks nice dnashj33 ;)

try rendering to another file format. I think i had your problem some time ago, not with afterburn, but with standard volume effects in max.

here the thread about it:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=6&t=445089

[nitrocom]

Well actually the only thing i can say IVE got the same problem with AB but not in fR. In scanline renderer you can experience the same flicker problem, and I'm looking for answer to solve it...

Is there any solution for it?

[dnashj33]

Just did a small test render of the clouds using scanline...same problem

After doing some more searching about, I came across a similar thread on 3Dluvr.com where someone else had the same problem. Alan M. told them to adjust their step size down.

I tried that, and did another quick test render and that seems to do the trick. You may have to tweak your falloff a bit as well.

I bought the Turbo Training title "ParticleFX for film" dvd by Szymon Masiak (as well as Alan McKay's) some time ago. It was very helpful, but he states that in order to keep the render times managable, you need to increase the step size...in this case he bumped it up to around 20. That may work if you are doing TEST renders or a single frame render. But I wish he would've mentioned that during the final render of an animation you MUST take those step sizes back down to recommended levels (5 or less)...to prevent all of that noise jumping around. Sure would save some folks a lot of rendering time, and the headache of having to diagnose these kind of problems.

[Lookfilms]

wuz up!

Heres a meteorite animation i did recently and composited to my areal render:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5312/thumbnailene6.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thumbnailene6.jpg)
http://www.savefile.com/files/685217

comments&crits welcome

*probably i would want to add burning pieces to break appart to make it more rough.

[Daniel-B]

That looks awesome, Lookfilms. I look forward to seeing more.

[dnashj33]

Agreed. Nice job. The only thing I would adjust is the camera shake. Make it very brief at the beginning...while it is in close proximity, instead of allowing it to continue to shake well after the meteor has passed. Other than that...looks great.

[rebolt]

Wow really amazing work dude. Its looking fantastic.

[Mafx]

Hey all,

As you can see from the attached image I have an annoying issue when I bring the explode daemon into the equation. The blending between the colour and the smoke is really bad and grainy looking. Can some please help me with getting around this as no matter what combo of settings I play with I can't seem to come up with a solution.

I would really appeciate some help with getting this setting looking how it should and just blend nicely.

Thanks.

S.

[SoLiTuDe]

Best I could do for now :) Like I said in an email to you (so everone else knows) the noise scale in the explode daemon needs to be bigger most likely, and also probably less intense... the afc curves and values of the color and multiplier play a big role in the final outcome of the image... I just did a 20 minute test... and I'd attach a pic / file... but my web server is being retarted...

[Mafx]

sure I am now late for a meeting but in mucking around with it.. winding the amount WAAAY down did the trick perfectly. Well it is obviously not perfect but way better than it was earlier.

Big help man, thanks.

S.

[Ehren]

So max doesn't render zdepth for atmospheric, but I was reading somewhere that afterburn renders zdepth for every pixel. If this is the case, is there some way one can get this zdepth information out of afterburn? Perhaps through a post effect?

I've got an animation of a glass tube rendered with MentalRay that will be extended through a cloud flythrough. Being able to get the volumetrics to layer over and behind the semi transparent MR render would be easy if I had a z channel for the clouds. I dont think the Matte/Shadow material would work here.

On another note, how can one apply the matte/shadow material to a x-refed scene with the default scanline renderer? MR has the nice material overide slot.

Thanks.

[mustan9]

So max doesn't render zdepth for atmospheric, but I was reading somewhere that afterburn renders zdepth for every pixel. If this is the case, is there some way one can get this zdepth information out of afterburn? Perhaps through a post effect?

It doesn't work very well. The ZDepth is only for the sampled pixels that become solid, and no longer transparent.

[feldy]

I'm posting this here as i dont have an answer http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=183&t=495851

its about afterburn at 3k resoultions not rendering correctly.

[Massemannen]

Hi all!

I read on the Aterworks forum that AB 4 is under development... Have anyone heard approx. releasedate and new features?

Take care

[theotheo]

Hi all!

I read on the Aterworks forum that AB 4 is under development... Have anyone heard approx. releasedate and new features?

Take care

That sucks! For me altleast, since i jumped on the Pyrocluster ship instead of afterburn! :)
Still no Pyro for max9.

-the0

[feldy]

everything is being kept under wraps right now. he does not want to see it get leaked.

[Steve Green]

I'm sure it will be great, though he's set the bar pretty high himself with FumeFX...

- Steve

[SoLiTuDe]

Hi all!

I read on the Aterworks forum that AB 4 is under development... Have anyone heard approx. releasedate and new features?

Take care

All kresimir really said so far is that it's going to render nicely with fume (and dreamscape of course) But that's the extent of what we know... i'm sure it'll be a lot of updates though... Unfortunately he's not even going to fix the current aburn bugs in max9 (which sucks). So far they're aiming for september ish.

[everlite]

Hey guys,

Basic AB question, i've just built up a nice cloud/mist effect and went to animate, however the animation of the AB was very jumpy/noisey, almost seemed like a really high frequency phase shift or something, though the AB phase is set to zero. Is there anything else that might cause such an effect? I've checked the particles, they're as solid as a rock, so it seems to be something on the AB shader itself, it looks like the noise is animated or something. Basically i'm just creating a really solid cloud with no motion.

Apologies, not too clear :)

- Dave.

[SoLiTuDe]

...well... do you have an animation to show us what you mean? If you haven't animated the phase, and the particles aren't moving, then there shouldn't be anything moving. ...you said you "went to animate" ..what did you animate? Are you sure you didn't add an afc and a high value to the phase???

[everlite]

Cheers SoLiTuDe,

It's an animated flythrough. Please see:

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/canyon.mov

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/ab_dig.jpg

Cheers - Dave.

[SoLiTuDe]

Looks like your step size is way too high for starters... it might appear to be "moving" because the change in steps is so huge every time the camera moves. Start by bringing it down a ways... maybe to like 5 or so instead of 20 for that sphere size. You may be able to bring up the density a bit and still have it look right and it should help render faster when you bring the step size down. Bringing the step size down usually makes things render smoother, but with low densities it will render rather slow. You'll need to find a good balance for it to render fast / look smooth enough.

[nitrocom]

Hi everyone,

I saw your anim. dude and I like the concept :) I have to admit :) Anyway..

My answer will not be a solution for you but I was wondering what is the problem with flickering when working with AB, cause I've experienced the same problem with AB when I was about to build something cloudy... But as Solitude said step size might be a solution for it...

By the way, density is too high for a haze or smoky effect... As a critic :)

Take care...

[everlite]

Hey guys,

Yeh, it was the step size that was doing it, just out of interest what use does the step size do? and when would having it high be an advantage?

This is just a wip test. I plan on reducing the clouds into a subtle mist eventually. Please see the new verison, any thoughts on the clouds, maybe look a little too ... something, not sure :)

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/canyon2.mov (2.5mb)

Cheers again - Dave.

[nitrocom]

Hi Dave,

It seems better than the last one's :) What I'm wondering is the step size, what step size did you use here?

By the way, using 0,05 or lower would be better for density...

Take care...

[everlite]

Cheers, i think it was about 1 or 2 (at work at the mo)

Took 6 hours to render! and the canyon is a simple camera projection.

- Dave.

[SoLiTuDe]

The simple explanation of step size is (as best as I can explain it) that when afterburn shoots out a ray into the afterburn volume it samples (called raymarching) the 3d noise/voxels via the step size (and falloff). A step size of one means that every 1 unit it will sample the afterburn volume and eval some pixels for ya... if you do a step size of 20 that means that every 20 units it will sample the volume for data. So lets say your sphere is 20 units big and your step size is 21 units, you may skip the entire volume in the calculation... but if you set your step to one then it'll look nice and pretty cause you sampled it 20 times. Setting it higher obviously makes it render faster since it will do less sampling, but it will make it look harder / denser as a side effect... which is quite alright in a lot of cases. You have to play with it to get good time vs quality.

http://www.cg-academy.com/pages/topic_plugins/dvds_afterburnmasters1/cover_pic_03.jpg

^ Is basically how it works right there... great dvd btw (allan's cg academy aburn basics) The help file gives a decent definition of this... but oddly enough the pyrocluster help gives a better description... and they both basically work the same.

[Sulla]

Hi I am needing some help with a project. The client wants a meteor like object flying over the earth. He wants it to look exactly like the start of the new fantastic 4 trailer http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantasticfourriseofthesilversurfer/ . The problem is I am brand new to afterburn and had not had any luck. I have one from another project that looks like a regular meteor with fire and smoke etc. But getting the look of the one from the trailer is giving me a hard time. The rest of the shot not a problem as I have a really outstanding looking hi res earth. Any way if any one can help I would be in your debt. An online turorial on something close to it would maybe be the easest. But I will take any help I can get. And if worse comes to worse I might pay someone to help set it up so I can get it done on time.

[The One]

I don't see why you would use AB. Looks to me like it could be done with PF and motion blurring the hell out of it.

[Sulla]

Maybe thats the way to go. Working on doing different ways. Will try that.

[dnashj33]

After looking at the trailer, that can be done very quickly in a Compositor like Combustion or After Effects...and I think it would be overkill to try to do that in Max.
I use Combustion, and there are a number of particle effects that would give you the exact same look, or you could use a Paint Operator to paint the meteor and the trail, apply a glow and then apply a standard motion blur.

[Sulla]

Hmm well the problem is I have neither afteraffects of combustion. I probobly need to look into getting afteraffects. More money to spend:)

[Sulla]

Double Post

[PsychoSilence]

Hi I am needing some help with a project. The client wants a meteor like object flying over the earth. He wants it to look exactly like the start of the new fantastic 4 trailer http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantasticfourriseofthesilversurfer/ . The problem is I am brand new to afterburn and had not had any luck. I have one from another project that looks like a regular meteor with fire and smoke etc. But getting the look of the one from the trailer is giving me a hard time. The rest of the shot not a problem as I have a really outstanding looking hi res earth. Any way if any one can help I would be in your debt. An online turorial on something close to it would maybe be the easest. But I will take any help I can get. And if worse comes to worse I might pay someone to help set it up so I can get it done on time.

i´d suggest sam´s way:

http://www.orbaz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=599&highlight=fire

kind regards,
anselm

[Sulla]

Those are some nice looking flames I will check out the plugin he mentions.

[nitrocom]

This is very nice fire effect... I'll try to do similar one, anyway...

What he is probably looking for is not the fire, but high motion blurred pF balls...

You can simply build up a scene like this with pF which includes sphere shape and maybe you can keep their size low so you can see more cloudy effect...

[nitrocom]

Hi again,

I made something similar in fumeFX, and want to share with you guys :) Nothing special just a normal fire...

here's a rapidlink :

http://rapidshare.com/files/37343564/fire_test.mov.html

[mac-mac]

Hi,
I am just starting with Pflow and AfterBurn, but I desperately need to make realistic effect of
clouds animation, like clouds are push by strong wind.

Til now, I created nice cloud by PFlow element (ealier I was trying to achieve it by pc-cloud and gizmo but effect wasn't good enough) I connected it to AfterBurn source particle, I increased phase value and tried with other parameters, but nothing work. Ofcource I can move it towards, but I can not obtain smoothly changin like in nature.

My parameters in PFlow are in Birth emit start: 0 emit stop: 0, amount: 8,
I add more force by wind and speed element, but nothing works.

I found in google many articles and tutorials about fire, explosion, dust BUT Unfortunately
nothing about CLOUDS ANIMATION )-;

Please help me.



I am attaching picture:

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/7708/cloudssf1.th.jpg (http://img172.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cloudssf1.jpg)

[nitrocom]

Hi there,

When I looked at your setups, I dramatically saw that you are using a very active phase animation. That's not right to achive something naturally realistic!

First to do here is not to create a pf with just Position Icon. You have build up a new tree with Position Object... You can create a plane with noise modifier which has low value of roughness, then give some strength(being low is the key point here)! It could be 3,3,3 or the value which is suitable for your scene... Than create pflow which is gonna use your plane as a position object. Now you can give any kind of animation to your plane, clouds move easily and as a unique object!

So lower phase down a little bit, actually not little, a huge decrease! If first key is 20, then use 23 or 25 for last key, not so high!

Btw, just delete the speed operator, you wont need that!

Using turbulance is a good Idea but use fBmTurbulance, so you can adjust the blur and detail level! Decrease the blur and increase the detail, detail : 2,12 blur : 0,78 maybe, (if you wanna achive something fractal!)

So that's all I can say right now,

btw : http://www.wonderslime.com/main.html in here from tutorial you are gonna find a perfect cloud tutorial thanx to daniel! Actually you're gonna see all I wrote is waste after reading this tutorial :)

[zad]

Hi guys, i am animating clouds (Afterburn) across a sky and when i turn on auto key and try to animate the postion of the pf source from one side of the screen to the other, the afterburn clouds stay and will not animate with the pf source....
Does anyone know why this is happening....
cheers

[nitrocom]

Can we see your pf and AB setups? But for what you said, problem is probably related to position icon! Well it's gonna be clear after you post the setups...

[CapitanRed]

lol...to move particles you can not animate the source and exept particles to follow. there would be some ways to do that i think, but its not necessary.
instead, you can use the speed operator ;)

[nitrocom]

Well, if you use a position object in your pflow setup, you can animate the source object... Probably it's your solution!

[zad]

Thanks for actually trying to help here nitrocom. I went over it my events and found that the lock on emitter had some how turned off. Simple as that.

And so this is how you make particles follow the pf source CapRed LOL... and yes it is necessary in my scene.(Use your imagination)

So thanks heaps for tying to work this out with me nirtocom, have a great day

[PeterGHill]

Hi All

Latest Afterburn.

My clients want a 'gas' explosion within London Street
as is yet to be filmed.

Not sure how this is looking as I am emmersed in AE
land, need to do some positioning of highlights within
bulbous areas but think I am on the right path?

Please please please question my ability...

http://www.productionconsultants.co.uk/max/Comp.wmv


CAB

[visualchaosfx]

wuz up!

Heres a meteorite animation i did recently and composited to my areal render:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5312/thumbnailene6.th.jpg (http://img96.imageshack.us/my.php?image=thumbnailene6.jpg)
http://www.savefile.com/files/685217

comments&crits welcome

*probably i would want to add burning pieces to break appart to make it more rough.

WOW that was friggin cool. How did you get the meteor to glow like that? And where did you get the background image?? I've been looking all over for an image like that.

[nitrocom]

To Peter,

I can't understand your question although I saw your animation, could u explain it little more pls???

[everlite]

Originally Posted by Lookfilmswuz up!

Heres a meteorite animation i did recently and composited to my areal render:

http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/5312/thumbnailene6.th.jpg
http://www.savefile.com/files/685217

comments&crits welcome

*probably i would want to add burning pieces to break appart to make it more rough.



That looks pretty cool :) it's inspired me to have a try myself, please take a look and share any critique, wip:

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/meteor1b.mov (2.3mb)

Notice the flicker, how it only effects after the deamon's gone through, any ideas? The step size is at 3 and the sphere size is at 110.

How do you make the edge of the clouds a little fluffyier? I thought this was what volume falloff and density falloff did (cubic), but that doesn't seem to "fluff" it up any more.

- Dave

[visualchaosfx]

That looks pretty cool :) it's inspired me to have a try myself, please take a look and share any critique, wip:

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/meteor1b.mov (2.3mb)

Notice the flicker, how it only effects after the deamon's gone through, any ideas? The step size is at 3 and the sphere size is at 110.

How do you make the edge of the clouds a little fluffyier? I thought this was what volume falloff and density falloff did (cubic), but that doesn't seem to "fluff" it up any more.

- Dave

Hoe do you go about adding the glow? Is it the afterburn glow in video post? I can't seem to get that one to work.

[everlite]

Do you mean the internal fire? Add an explosion deamon to the scene, then add this to the AB along with the original emitter, set the colour to black > red > yellow > red > black. need to tweak it a little. Forgive the old response, but the help file has a great tutorial on just this :)

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Do you mean the internal fire? Add an explosion deamon to the scene, then add this to the AB along with the original emitter, set the colour to black > red > yellow > red > black. need to tweak it a little. Forgive the old response, but the help file has a great tutorial on just this :)

- Dave.

Hey Dave,

I already have the explod deamon setup but I was talking about this:

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q42/visualchaosfx/image.jpg

[everlite]

Apologies :) i misunderstood what you were refering to. I'm not sure how the effect was created but you could throw the ambience of the emitting object up to 100% white and apply a glow to track the material id. That'd do the job :)


Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Apologies :) i misunderstood what you were refering to. I'm not sure how the effect was created but you could throw the ambience of the emitting object up to 100% white and apply a glow to track the material id. That'd do the job :)


Dave.

I'm almost thinking that the glow may have been added in another program like after effects or something.

[SoLiTuDe]

I'm almost thinking that the glow may have been added in another program like after effects or something.

That's what it looks like to me.

[visualchaosfx]

That's what it looks like to me.

Thats what I thought. I thought maybe afterburn glow was used lol.

[SoLiTuDe]

Speaking of which -- I haven't been able to get that to work in max9 at all anyway... keeps crashing. :shrug: I hardly use it anyway

[PsychoSilence]

time for IAN and SAM to show up :bounce::D

i´d suggest to lower the stepsize then to get rid of the flickering. for the density there´s to say that low density volumetrics render waaay longer! Blur has a nice trick sam might explain one more time. searched this thread but didn´t find the post (thats why i C&P very informative posts into a document usually ;) ). Blur renders the thick/non seetrough diffuse pass first and then the same setup with black and white as an alpha mask. then they throw is togehter in comp. that should save tons of render time. but sam´s the guy to ask here ;)

kind regards,
anselm

[everlite]

Thanks Anselm, looks like i'll be lowering the step size even more :) Can anyone expand on the tip you mentioned??

Any more tips on how i can improve the effect?

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/meteor1b.mov (same as above, 2.3mb)

Cheers, Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Hey guys,

I've been messin around in afterburn doing my version of an asteroid headin for earth and stuff. I was originally going to do this in Fume but found out last night after playing back the animation that I did some things wrong so I through one together in afterburn. This isn't finalised or anything and would appreciate some tips to make this better. This was a straight composite in 3D Studio Max.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q42/visualchaosfx/asteroid_pic.jpg

I achieved the lens flare using video post effects.

[mustan9]

Um, looks cool. But I don't think it can burn up in outer space. It has to be lower down in the atmosphere. It could start glowing, and forming a heat wave.

This is such a common effect in AB. Maybe try doing a different take on it.

[visualchaosfx]

Um, looks cool. But I don't think it can burn up in outer space. It has to be lower down in the atmosphere. It could start glowing, and forming a heat wave.

This is such a common effect in AB. Maybe try doing a different take on it.

Oh yeah I plan on doing more with it. Having it impact on the ground and stuff. I couldn't find any lower atmosphere shots of earth so I just used this one as a temp backdrop.

[everlite]

Could always do a google earth stitch job and map it to a plane :) Though don't tell google i said that :)

Do you have an animated version?

Maybe a subtle blue tinted rim light might look nice.

I'd like to see a little more internal flames.

Looking good :)

I'm trying to get the glow working right but it still looks a little crap, might use the video post as you did, see if that's any better.

Keep us posted :)

Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Could always do a google earth stitch job and map it to a plane :) Though don't tell google i said that :)

Do you have an animated version?

Maybe a subtle blue tinted rim light might look nice.

I'd like to see a little more internal flames.

Looking good :)

I'm trying to get the glow working right but it still looks a little crap, might use the video post as you did, see if that's any better.

Keep us posted :)

Dave.

I'm rendering it now and will upload it momentarily.

I'm using google earth now. I'm gonna have to replace the water textures as the ones on there are just plain blue.

[visualchaosfx]

Here's the Afterburn test clip:

It ain't easy being cheesy! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTDIo3nrGNQ)

[everlite]

Looks good :) Curious, what step size did you use and what was your sphere size?

- Dave.

[Glacierise]

What looks wrong with this is the ambient light in the smoke. This is space, and there is no atmosphere to scatter the light - so there should be deep shadows and bright highlights. Otherwise, it's cool ;)

[visualchaosfx]

Looks good :) Curious, what step size did you use and what was your sphere size?

- Dave.

Thanks David,

I used a step size of 1.0

My sphere radius is 8.0 and the Hi value is 30.


What looks wrong with this is the ambient light in the smoke. This is space, and there is no atmosphere to scatter the light - so there should be deep shadows and bright highlights. Otherwise, it's cool ;)

This effect was intended to be composited on a backdrop similair to this one:

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q42/visualchaosfx/image.jpg

But I haven't had any luck finding such images which is why the lighting in the smoke is wrong.

Is the asteroid supposed to burn as its flying through outer space or does it only burn when it enters the earths atmosphere?

[mustan9]

http://spacehardware.uah.edu/Images/Flight1/Camera4_18text.jpg
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/amazingimages/images/cv88421ftcam2_wm_cte.jpg
http://sunsite.utk.edu/~mcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/18.jpg (http://sunsite.utk.edu/%7Emcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/18.jpg)
http://asunews.astate.edu/Crowley's%20Ridge%20Fliers%20026.jpg

Try, googling for "high altitube ballon" images.

[visualchaosfx]

http://spacehardware.uah.edu/Images/Flight1/Camera4_18text.jpg
http://a52.g.akamaitech.net/f/52/827/1d/www.space.com/amazingimages/images/cv88421ftcam2_wm_cte.jpg
http://sunsite.utk.edu/~mcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/18.jpg (http://sunsite.utk.edu/%7Emcoffey/ux-1/ballooncam/18.jpg)
http://asunews.astate.edu/Crowley's%20Ridge%20Fliers%20026.jpg

Try, googling for "high altitube ballon" images.

Thanks man!! I was googling satellite images, hi res earth shots. :thumbsup:

[Glacierise]

It doesn't really burn unless there's oxygen, but it does fall off from sun's energy, etc. Anyways, at this altitude there's sparse atmosphere already, so there is friction, it should burn. And, more importantly, it looks cooler when burning :D

[visualchaosfx]

It doesn't really burn unless there's oxygen, but it does fall off from sun's energy, etc. Anyways, at this altitude there's sparse atmosphere already, so there is friction, it should burn. And, more importantly, it looks cooler when burning :D

What I will end up doing is a shot where the asteroid is entering the atmosphere and it starts to burn. Just so there's more to this scene then just a clump of rock entering the frame.:D

[charleyc]

Are you using the Explode Deamon?

[charleyc]

What looks wrong with this is the ambient light in the smoke. This is space, and there is no atmosphere to scatter the light - so there should be deep shadows and bright highlights. Otherwise, it's cool ;)

If there is smoke (or any kind of debris) that is what the light would scatter through. So if you have something that is very hot, emitting a lot of light, the light would scatter through its trail.

[everlite]

Hey Lee,

Hows the asteroid effect going?

Here's what i came up with this evening, the Max glow didn't hold out too well so i did a little AE post, in fact i think i over killed the AE :) and the ground is a little laim :)

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/meteor1i.mov

Let me know what you think, this is a first for me too :)

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Hey Lee,

Hows the asteroid effect going?

Here's what i came up with this evening, the Max glow didn't hold out too well so i did a little AE post, in fact i think i over killed the AE :) and the ground is a little laim :)

http://www.capturefx.co.uk/web/meteor1i.mov

Let me know what you think, this is a first for me too :)

- Dave.

Hi David,

I'm still looking for a suitable background image for the animation.

Did you use glow or lens effects flare in Max? The video clip looks sweet!! When did you get the background image?

[everlite]

Hi David,

I'm still looking for a suitable background image for the animation.

Did you use glow or lens effects flare in Max? The video clip looks sweet!! When did you get the background image?



I tried using the lens effects in Max but they were a little twitchy so i left them out and added a little glow in AE, the rays are creating using the Shine plugin and just manually tracked the light to the falling object.

As for the map, i screen grabbed a few google earth images together (naughty me) :)

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=

Just flip it into satellite view.

I'll probably go back and fix the ground tomorrow.

One thing i tried to do with this test was to create a sense of speed and a little chaos with the camera, give it a sense of ergency. I also tried to rack the exposure (AE) a little.

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

I tried using the lens effects in Max but they were a little twitchy so i left them out and added a little glow in AE, the rays are creating using the Shine plugin and just manually tracked the light to the falling object.

As for the map, i screen grabbed a few google earth images together (naughty me) :)

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&tab=wl&q=

Just flip it into satellite view.

I'll probably go back and fix the ground tomorrow.

One thing i tried to do with this test was to create a sense of speed and a little chaos with the camera, give it a sense of ergency. I also tried to rack the exposure (AE) a little.

- Dave.

I like the shine plugin. That thing is pretty cool. The clip looks great. Did you create the clouds using Afterburn?

[visualchaosfx]

Here's an image of the asteroid composition. The background image was comped together using the satellite images from google maps. I gotta go through and redo the water textures so that the background image looks more real.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q42/visualchaosfx/asteroid_comp_test.jpg

Other than that I think it looks good. I'm gonna tone down the gamma levels so it doesn't look to bright.

[everlite]

Hey Lee,

Yeh all the trapcode plugins are pretty cool, though it's easy to get carried away :)

As for the clouds, no they were just two planes with clouds map onto them, i also placed the camera inside a small volumetric gismo (max volume fog thingy) using AB for the clouds would probably kill my PC :)

Your latest version is looking pretty sweet, do you have an updated animation?

One thing, i think it could do with been a little more in frame maybe, not sure. Also the ambience might be a little high, there doesn't appear to be enough contrast between the smoke and the background.

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Hey Lee,

Yeh all the trapcode plugins are pretty cool, though it's easy to get carried away :)

As for the clouds, no they were just two planes with clouds map onto them, i also placed the camera inside a small volumetric gismo (max volume fog thingy) using AB for the clouds would probably kill my PC :)

Your latest version is looking pretty sweet, do you have an updated animation?

One thing, i think it could do with been a little more in frame maybe, not sure. Also the ambience might be a little high, there doesn't appear to be enough contrast between the smoke and the background.

- Dave.

Hey Dave,

So your suggesting that I should darken the ambience level on the asteroid cloud? I'll have an animation here as soon as I do some adjustments and stuff.

[everlite]

Hmmm, not too sure, it might look completely different when animated. I'd probably darken it down a little, Make the darkest value equal to the darkest value in the background plate (where the sea meets the land) you could always make it a little more ambient as the particles age, might give a sense of the volume density dispersing over time.

I guess in the end it's hard to say how something might look when you have no reference, but that said from a cinematic point of view the smoke feels a touch too light in the dark areas.

Hope that helps :)

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Hmmm, not too sure, it might look completely different when animated. I'd probably darken it down a little, Make the darkest value equal to the darkest value in the background plate (where the sea meets the land) you could always make it a little more ambient as the particles age, might give a sense of the volume density dispersing over time.

I guess in the end it's hard to say how something might look when you have no reference, but that said from a cinematic point of view the smoke feels a touch too light in the dark areas.

Hope that helps :)

- Dave.

Ah ok I got ya. I'll make the changes and post an animation.:)

[visualchaosfx]

I've gone through and made some changes. I composited everything in Adobe After Effects. I think this looks pretty cool and convincing.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Px0mF47LLyY

I'm gonna have to find me a free web server so that I can post the higher quality clips.

[everlite]

Yeh that's look a pretty sweet m'man!

Only crit, the light bloom seems to be coming from bottom center, i think maybe it should come from the left.

I'm just reworking mine at the moment, trying to correct the ground and make it look a little more realistic :)

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Yeh that's look a pretty sweet m'man!

Only crit, the light bloom seems to be coming from bottom center, i think maybe it should come from the left.

I'm just reworking mine at the moment, trying to correct the ground and make it look a little more realistic :)

- Dave.

Yeah I animated the gamma level and it brightens up anything thats white. I'm gonna make the light boom brighter seeing as the camera is close to the asteroid anyways.:thumbsup:

[Daniel-B]

Does anyone know when Afterburn 4 is coming out?

[nitrocom]

I dont know anything about ver.4 but wondering whats new gonna be in it? Well maybe they'll change the main algorithm of ab and make it similar to maya's fluid :)

[charleyc]

Considering they make FumeFX, it seems unlikely that any of that functionality will be there, but who knows.

[visualchaosfx]

Here's a tracking test and sky replacement scene.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80DuGLq3dvk

I tracked this in Boujou 4. The sky was washed out. All white so I did my best to do a sky replacement composite.

[Glacierise]

I suppose that AB 4 will use something like fume's preview technology, which will be quite awesome. And there will be some other goodness, no doubt :)

[rebolt]

@ lee: Good work man. The asteroid coming to the earth shot is looking great with that glow specially. :)

@ Glacierise: Is it then its really great to see the new version of Afterburn.

[PsychoSilence]

I suppose that AB 4 will use something like fume's preview technology, which will be quite awesome. And there will be some other goodness, no doubt :)

yeah! plus it should work well in connection with fume. And i wish you could render previews with fume(for now i use a kinda hack with pflow fumefx follow to visualize fume in blockings and previews...)...for now the viewport preview of AB is enough for me...

kind regards,
anselm

[everlite]

Has there been a press release or something regarding AB4 or is this just general speculation?

- Dave.

[Glacierise]

Pure speculation. No news for AB4, as far as I know.

[everlite]

Hey Lee,

I'm sure your avatar changes every other day ;)

Looking good mate, would it disperse a little quicker though, around the edges? not sure, and maybe the internal glow wouldn't last as long.

Keep it up :)

I did a similar test to follow the earth one, i might post it up later.

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

@ lee: Good work man. The asteroid coming to the earth shot is looking great with that glow specially. :)

Thanks dude:D

Hey Lee,

I'm sure your avatar changes every other day ;)

Looking good mate, would it disperse a little quicker though, around the edges? not sure, and maybe the internal glow wouldn't last as long.

Keep it up :)

I did a similar test to follow the earth one, i might post it up later.

- Dave.

I'll probably keep my current avatar for a while because I'm a Michelle McCool fan;)

I don't believe the smoke would disperse fast. I think it should disperse slower. I may end up re shooting the scene anyways. I kinda wanted a nice field instead. I just wanted to see if I can track the footage and do a sky replacement. Its harder to do a sky replacement composite when I have those trees at close quarters.

Yeah post your test clip. I'd like to see it.

[rebolt]

Hey Guys please check out my latest showreel completed with months of hardwork. Would be really happy to know my CG family (You Guys) reviews on it. :)

Link: Visual Effects Showreel (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=154&t=535547)

[nitrocom]

Well dude, I like your works..

Probably only thing I would like to discuss here is the first opening scene would be better at last... The answer is scene has kinda problem which I cant explain :) It looks like puffy clouds moving to sky with layers, its movement is bit of unrealistic! It's like you take the animation in 100 frame but then decrease its time scale in edit and make it 250! I hope I can give you the outline...

Anyway, looks good at all... Keep it up :thumbsup:

[feldy]

im gunna have to ask that all you guys from india who are leanring cg and turkey and so on. raise your dam rates. lol you guys charge way to cheap for stuff were loosing to much outsourcing to you guys charge more you deserve it. :)

[everlite]

im gunna have to ask that all you guys from india who are leanring cg and turkey and so on. raise your dam rates. lol you guys charge way to cheap for stuff were loosing to much outsourcing to you guys charge more you deserve it. :)



Yeh i agree with that :) i was recently involved with developing a website for a client, though more getting quotes appose to developing myself. The cheapest quote in the UK came to £20.000, a week or so later a company in India pitched for the same job at £2.000!! they got it :) sad to say they could have quoted at 12-15k and still would have got the job (not my choice)

I'm glad to see India's doing well, and on the up, i'm always interested in seeing what they come up with.

Thumbs up to anyone from India :thumbsup:

Dave.

[feldy]

i applied to a studio out there a few years back hoping they were going to need help with the work we were sending them.

[everlite]

and what happened? :)

[nitrocom]

Whats goin on? :) Well anyway, for me, it is not matter of money or how much does it worth! I think, for now, its matter of quality and skill... So I ve given my ideas here, i think :)

Btw guys, I know this is not the place for job but for more experience, I'm looking for an intern which is in europa or overseas (I mean USA) and Its not the deal about money :) Just for more xperience for 2 or 3 months... Is there anyone lookin for an VFX Intern :) I'm serious!

[feldy]

are you looking for the company to move you out here to the us for an internship? my internship in school was non paid.

[nitrocom]

what was your job in school ? Im looking for a company, btw...

[feldy]

my internship was at a motion capture studio nothing at all to do with fx but i was in chicago at the time and there was not a hole lot there for fx jobs. I wanted to do particle work and not motion graphics.

[feldy]

by the way i did it while in school the i never let the school acutaly help me get work. i found my own work by checking awn.com those kinds of places will help you find jobs in your neck of the woods. theres creativeheads.net cgchannel has a lot of postings

[rebolt]

im gunna have to ask that all you guys from india who are leanring cg and turkey and so on. raise your dam rates. lol you guys charge way to cheap for stuff were loosing to much outsourcing to you guys charge more you deserve it. :)

Hi Feldy actually we give cheap outsourcing because here the currency rates comparing to US is very low in international market. So here people usually charge more than what it seems but its always less comparing to other european and US market :).

[nitrocom]

Actually, quality isn't same as you think, at least for Turkey... Cause client allways wants a cheaper solution, so as it goes cheaper, less quality you can get :) I would like to see more country to understand what they are doing, and what's their quality! I hope, I can make it in next few years :)

See you guys...

[mythology2]

Hi, all.
Just been following Alan Macay's afterburn fundamentals and following along in max as i go.
I'm doing the fireball at the moment.
Problem is that I'm unable to edit the afc curves anywhere!
I've done a right click to enable it, then double clicked to open it. I've moved my mouse over the curve and got a cross to add point, but when I click the mouse button and drag, I just draw out a bounding box!
I've tried it with sphere size, and others around it. just nothing happening.
any ideas? I can't seem to find anything through google.

Cheers.

[dnashj33]

Hi, all.
Just been following Alan Macay's afterburn fundamentals and following along in max as i go.
I'm doing the fireball at the moment.
Problem is that I'm unable to edit the afc curves anywhere!
I've done a right click to enable it, then double clicked to open it. I've moved my mouse over the curve and got a cross to add point, but when I click the mouse button and drag, I just draw out a bounding box!
I've tried it with sphere size, and others around it. just nothing happening.
any ideas? I can't seem to find anything through google.

Cheers.I think you need to click the "Add Point" icon...then click on the curve where you want to place it

[entrancea]

:shrug: Generally when you click on any part of the curve it generally adds a point at that spot and when you click on it and drag it,you should generally be able to move it around.....

[dnashj33]

My bad...was thinking of the curve editor and adding keys. Just tried the AFC curves, yes click once to set point, and next time you click on the point you can manipulate it. Maybe you were trying to do both in one click.

[feldy]

Hey you guys i need a little help. my afterburn shader is driving me nuts. i am useing this as reference http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4f/Explosions_at_Miramar_Airshow.jpg/800px-Explosions_at_Miramar_Airshow.jpg


i am really trying to get that white like in the explosion to the right for my first few frames in the ab shader how ever i were i want white i am getting a ton of yellow and its to overly saturated. as you can see in some of the images here http://img406.imageshack.us/my.php?image=afterburnproblemsqa2.jpg

what i am i doing wrong in my shader i posted a nice pic with all the settings you need to see.

[feldy]

ian were are ya....

[BrandonD]

The main thing that will help you get that blown-out white look is an increased Multiplier value at birt on the AB Explode Daemon. I tend to set the Key Shift to a linear gradient with linear interpolation along Age. The multiplier is a different story, as I tend to have the AFC set as a quadratic curve with the initial value of say 5 and going to zero over Age. Then the actual explosion color itself is something you really need to tweak as the transitions between colors in the gradient is imporant and generally should mimic what you've got going on in the Multiplier gradient (albeit not color, just a light to dark transition). Lastly, set your AB color group to use Density instead of Distance.

By the way, those are lame-ass Hollywood explosions. Explosions from mortars, artillery, bombs, etc in combat are nowhere near as firery. Only in the initial detonation.

[feldy]

yea this is not for a rendered scene. its for in game (unreal 3)and the hole sequence has to be over and done in 16 frames.

lol i had to double check for a sec but i am useing density over distance :) you allmost had me.

and thanks for taking a look Brandon.

[entrancea]

You can use either an Omni Light or the Explode Daemon to get a Blown up Effect.The Omni light can be used by increasing its multiplier to a high value and animatiing it down over time.But that will give you an overall similar kind of color impact.But on the other hand the explode daemon will give you the ability to give your explosion the definite firey look and animate it down to a thick black smoke over time....Here is a comparitive difference between what you can get with a light and an Explode daemon...

http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=abvp3.jpg

Hope this helps.
Cheers

[nitrocom]

Hi guys,

Long time no post here, I got a very basci problem whic makes me crazy :

A kind of "extra lighting" is occuring edge of the puffy clouds. when i composite something it goes for unrealistic situation! Do you have any idea whats going on?

I'm sending an attachment and max files!

[dnashj33]

Hi guys,

Long time no post here, I got a very basci problem whic makes me crazy :

A kind of "extra lighting" is occuring edge of the puffy clouds. when i composite something it goes for unrealistic situation! Do you have any idea whats going on?

I'm sending an attachment and max files!Try removing the skydome, and replace it with just a simple sky gradient in your environment map. I think it's blowing out due to the self-iluminating material you are using for the sky background.

I tinkered around with the file you included, and with the help of Dreamscape (used high altitude cirrus clouds to add a little more detail and realism to the shot) for the background, came up with something like this (using the Lambert shader):

[entrancea]

Hey guys...One rookie Question....My render times are shooting through the roof....My scene is in Generic Units...my Machine Config is P4 Core2Duo 2.13Ghz,2gb Ram and 160gb Sata 7200 rpm......My renders are in 720x405 resolution in Scanline Render Mode....I am rendering FumeFX and Afterburn together and I have 10,000 particles in my scene....My render times are 2-3hrs per frame....Is this normal?Thanks a lot....

Cheers.

[dnashj33]

Hey guys...One rookie Question....My render times are shooting through the roof....My scene is in Generic Units...my Machine Config is P4 Core2Duo 2.13Ghz,2gb Ram and 160gb Sata 7200 rpm......My renders are in 720x405 resolution in Scanline Render Mode....I am rendering FumeFX and Afterburn together and I have 10,000 particles in my scene....My render times are 2-3hrs per frame....Is this normal?Thanks a lot....

Cheers.Since I don't have FumeFx it would be hard for me to comment on it, but with Afterburn clouds, even 250 particles can take up to an hour or more on a dual-core (AMD 64X2 4400, 4GB).
The biggest hit on render time is the step size. .5-1.5 would be highest quality settings, but it grinds your render times down to powder. 2-3 should be pretty good quality and should still keep flickering problems down, while giving you some relief speed-wise. 3-5 may get you close enough to the look you want and will be considerably faster. But for animations this is where you may start to see some flickering begin. It's just a matter of running some tests to find the balance you're looking for.
In all honesty, though, without at least a small render farm, it's going to be frustrating and painful to get high quality results from volumetrics...period. It may be the most render intensive element in CG. Let's hope that Afterworks comes out with the release of AB 4 soon, and that serious speed improvements come with it.

On the hardware front, I share your pain. I've been holding out for the AMD quad-core (desktop) CPU's, since there is a dual-socket MB available for it (meaning an 8 core desktop setup). The server chips and MB's are out of my price range for now.

[nitrocom]

Well, it's normal, i think... Cause in AB, some parameters like density and reduced step size can take the render time higher! As dnashj33 said, even in 250 particle, even in 100 particle :)

On the other hand you got fume fx in your scene, too! In fumefx ui, step reduced step size takes the time higher and higher... So you are using the hardest package can computer face : A fluid sim. and AB! Even in good optimisations, they are very hard to render together!

Btw, 10,000 particle is very hard to calculate for fumefx or AB! It can take some time, too...

[feldy]

i can concur with that. with out a few machines to handle some of the rendering you will be sitting around a lot waiting for renders

[entrancea]

Thanks for all the reply guys......Well at least now I am a bit relaxed knowing that I am not doing anything wrong;) ........Yeah I needed to mix Ab with Fume and the render results are turning out to be pretty cool.....And simming Fume at high res is also a big issue.....but sometimes low grid sims also look good.....But none the less,I guess the time taken for my scene is fine then......We do have a render farm so no prob......

Thanks and Cheers...:thumbsup:

[dnashj33]

Thanks for all the reply guys......Well at least now I am a bit relaxed knowing that I am not doing anything wrong;) ........Yeah I needed to mix Ab with Fume and the render results are turning out to be pretty cool.....And simming Fume at high res is also a big issue.....but sometimes low grid sims also look good.....But none the less,I guess the time taken for my scene is fine then......We do have a render farm so no prob......

Thanks and Cheers...:thumbsup:If you have finalRender Stage 1 R2, you should be able to gang those other PC's together, using it's Distributed Renderer, to shorten your Preview renders. I'm amazed at how well it's DR works so flawlessly with all of these complicated plugins. Can't even get Mental Ray to first base.

[entrancea]

If you have finalRender Stage 1 R2, you should be able to gang those other PC's together, using it's Distributed Renderer, to shorten your Preview renders. I'm amazed at how well it's DR works so flawlessly with all of these complicated plugins. Can't even get Mental Ray to first base.

Allright.....Sounds Tempting...:bounce: ....But is Final Render Stage 1 an external renderer or a Max Rendering Plugin?

Cheers,

[dnashj33]

Allright.....Sounds Tempting...:bounce: ....But is Final Render Stage 1 an external renderer or a Max Rendering Plugin?

Cheers,It's tightly integrated within Max 100%...and not a stand alone. That's the reason their latest upgrade still goes by the name Stage 1 (R2) instead of Stage 2 (like their Maya and C4D versions). Stage 1 is the label for an integrated renderer, and Stage 2, a stand alone version.
Oh, and if you are thinking about taking a look at FR, make sure to check out finalToon, which comes bundled with it (when I upgraded, they also threw in finalShaders 2). Like Zbrush users love that program...I love this renderer. They both rock. Anyway, here are some helpful links to look at:
http://www.finalrender.com/products/products.php?UD=10-7888-35-788&PID=36
http://www.cebasusa.com/finalToon/finalToon.html
http://www.finalrender.com/products/products.php?UD=10-7888-35-788&PID=37
http://www.finalrender.com/products/products.php?UD=10-7888-35-788&PID=45

[dnashj33]

Hey Nitrocom, did you get any better results on your AB clouds. When I changed the self-illuminating material in your skydome, it stopped blowing out. Did that do the trick for you too?

[nitrocom]

Hey Nitrocom, did you get any better results on your AB clouds. When I changed the self-illuminating material in your skydome, it stopped blowing out. Did that do the trick for you too?


Hi dude,

No, I did not give it a try yet, but ill be posting my results when i will do something,

Btw, thanks for your help...

See you soon guys...

[nitrocom]

My quote stuff doesn't work :)

[entrancea]

Nice Dude...Thanks a lot for the info...:thumbsup:

Cheers..

[Dachschaden]

Hey, its my first post here, I followed the thread for a few weeks now though.
I have a problem with afterburn and think heres the only place where I could get some help.
Heres the clip http://www.intern.b-s-g.net/files/Shadow/Vids/impact.avi
Its the impact of an asteroid, and well. As you can see the particles grow in steps, not smooth. I cant see what Im doing wrong. :<
Im doing it with a torus and a wind force giving it the direction I need. There arent any particles respawning though.
Help would be appreciated, and thanks in advance : o

[feldy]

your avi does not play for me try putting it on youtube

[jussing]

The DivX plays fine here. And I don't think you could make out any of the details on YouTube. :)

(I don't know anything about AfterBurn to solve the problem, though... sorry)

- Jonas

[nitrocom]

Hey,

Lower density can be your solution but it would be more handy to see your AB setup in Max, if it is possible...

[Dachschaden]

http://www.intern.b-s-g.net/files/Shadow/Pics/settings.png
Ive tried it with lower density, doesnt seem to work though :<

[JohnnyRandom]

Have you tried decreasing the step size at all? Usually helps with the jitters.

It's a tiny bit difficult to tell whats up, try rendering against a near white background plane with a tile or checker applied.

How are your particles behaving?

[Dachschaden]

It isnt different with a stepsize of 0.5

And there isnt anything strange with the particles I think. They almost stand there with the sphere radius increasing, getting their direction from a weak wind.

[JohnnyRandom]

My next best guess would be the particle speed in relation to the growth scale of the AB spheres. Maybe the scale is happening to fast or particle speed to slow?

[entrancea]

Hey Guys,
I was wondering if I could apply Matte Shadow in AB?

Regards,
Entrancea

[JohnnyRandom]

Scanline sure why not?

[entrancea]

Allright...one question....How can I control the size of AB particles with distance....Which means that I want the spheres to be large near the camera and smaller towards the horizon so as to enable a sense of depth....

Regards,
Entrancea

[visualchaosfx]

Hey ya'll. Its been awhile since I posted anything on here. Been busy doing other things and stuff. Anyways, to get back into the swing of things, I'm relearning Afterburn and I am working on visual effects to put into my demo reel. I'm currently working on a ground explosion. Everything looks great so far as indicated in the image that I have posted in this thread, but my problem is the black shadows that are being cast to the ground.

I've setup my scene with a ground plane and a white material applied to it. I did try and use the matte/shadow material but the Afterburn particles was showing through the gound plane. Anyways, I've tinkered around with the shadow opacity in Afterburn but that setting effects the shadows on the Afterburn clouds as well as the shadows being cast. I actually like the way the shadows look on the clouds themselves but the shadows being cast onto the ground should be lighter. Where do I go to fix this?

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee320/wildstormfilms/shadow_prob.jpg

[everlite]

Looking nice :) if i was you i'd render the shadow out as a seperate pass and then you have full control over the opacity, colour tint etc..

- Dave.

[visualchaosfx]

Looking nice :) if i was you i'd render the shadow out as a seperate pass and then you have full control over the opacity, colour tint etc..

- Dave.

Heh, why didn't I think of that??? Thanks dude!

[nitrocom]

Shadow with AB raytrace shadow ? or am i missing something :) Btwi seperate pass will be better everything...

[Glacierise]

There is a setting (apply atmospherics) in the matte material, try enabling it.

[visualchaosfx]

I have also been working on a scene thats going to have a few effects such as a fighter jet getting blown out of the sky, a total matte painting of a sunset and adding clouds to the scene. For the background plates I'm using a video capture of a Flight Simulator 2004 session that I did yesterday. I've gone through and tracked the video clip in Boujou and have added afterburn clouds in the scene as indictated in the images below. This is not the final composite. I've replaced the sunset background with one of the sunset images that are included with Windows XP and I did some color grading on the clouds and the landscape to match with the sunset image. I think it looks pretty cool but what do you all think?

Untouched Plate
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee320/wildstormfilms/wip_fx_proj_untouched.jpg

Retouched Plate
http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee320/wildstormfilms/wip_fx_proj.jpg

[feldy]

it depends on what your going for. you going for realism or gamey. the clouds look very gameish to me.

[entrancea]

Maybe you could increase the details in the cloud and decrease the opacity.....Cause right now the clouds look like 3D....what I mean is that it needs a little bit more realism..try to add a few more clouds in the background of different sizes to add a variety to the scene and in PFlow also add a scale operator and add in the AB opertor and check the affect particle size.....so that a little variance in the scale operator will make the spheres vary in size......But all these are just suggestions..you can play around with these settings to see what you get...:)

Cheers,
Entrancea

[n0mad]

hi, wildstormfilms
i like the warm illumination of sunseat, but do not make the pink background such "obvious"

:):):)

[Daniel-B]

Hey ya'll. Its been awhile since I posted anything on here. Been busy doing other things and stuff. Anyways, to get back into the swing of things, I'm relearning Afterburn and I am working on visual effects to put into my demo reel. I'm currently working on a ground explosion. Everything looks great so far as indicated in the image that I have posted in this thread, but my problem is the black shadows that are being cast to the ground.

I've setup my scene with a ground plane and a white material applied to it. I did try and use the matte/shadow material but the Afterburn particles was showing through the gound plane. Anyways, I've tinkered around with the shadow opacity in Afterburn but that setting effects the shadows on the Afterburn clouds as well as the shadows being cast. I actually like the way the shadows look on the clouds themselves but the shadows being cast onto the ground should be lighter. Where do I go to fix this?

http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee320/wildstormfilms/shadow_prob.jpg

That looks great. Could you go into detail on how you created it? I don't suppose you could post a scene file for us to look at your settings? Or maybe a screen grab of your settings(particles and afterburn)? Bravo.