Water particles

[TemperalVision]

Yes, it is possible to get the look your going for in R7 without resorting to too much manual work.

The way I would do it is to create a high polygon copy of the original leaf. You can then select a polygons on the leafs surface where you would like the drops to be.Then split those polys so all you have left are the polys that are in the areas that will have the drops on them and delete the high poly modle. Extrude these polys ones, give them a nice water texture and you sould have perfecly formed drops of water on your leaf.:thumbsup:

[TemperalVision]

There is picture of the basic way of doing it.

[kiwi]

What a good idea :thumbsup:


Its OT but if you ever want a nice realistic water drop on a painting {natural media} of a flower or leaf etc,just use a tiny blob of model glue,works a treat :)


Stu.

[Peter C.]

Thats an excellent idea! And a simple solution.....I'm on it straight away!

Thanks for your replies!

Peter C.

[creart]

Why did I never think of that?? - that really is a very good idea!! but you do metanurb the shapes, don't you???

[TemperalVision]

Yes, there is a hyper-nurbs object on the water drops object. Also, the reason for only extruding them and leaving the base of the mesh open is so that when it is smothed, the dropes look like they are hugging the leaf ( as opposed to just being ugly blobs that happin to be on the leaf) it gives it the look like there is some surface tention between the drop and the leaf. I can't say what the particles in R8 are like but I have seen other pics like your where they used a particle system to create the water bead effect and it didn't look to natural.

I hope you'll show us the leaf pic when it's all finished, Peter.

[creart]

Yes, I understand that you have to let the base open - in R8 you would use Thinking Particles and 'stick' them, using PSurfacePosition, to the leafobject and as long as you have the axis placed on the bottom and use the same kind of object as you suggest here, I imagine it woud give the same effect, with less modelling time.... (although this seems pretty fast too)

[AdamT]

If you scroll down this page mdm_Sadie's page (http://www.peranders.com/c4d8/) you'll find a TP file by mdme_sadie demonstrating how to do this with Thinking Particles.

[creart]

I took the liberty to try a leaf with Thinking Particles just to show it looks...
hope you don't mind...

[Peter C.]

Thank you all soo much for all the input. I'll give it a shot with R7 Art, and later with R8. However, I don't have TP, but might get it as it's not too expensive. Those water drops look gorgeouse.....exactly what I want!

[TemperalVision]

There is the same leaf using the polygon water drop modeling tecnique. As you can see, both ways can give a great result. I think what it comes down to is your own personal modeling preferance. As long as it looks great, eh?:beer:

[creart]

TemperalVision, that DOES look very good and my only intention was showing what Thinking Particles can do for you in the R8 version. And since I'm spending some time to get used to TP, I tried to see if that could come with a nice solution, but there are so many ways to get good results, and yours is also definitely one!!!

[Per-Anders]

if you're into the tp thing check out the tp dew thing on my website

http://www.peranders.com/c4d8/

this gives the effect... i was going to play around with it at some point and make it so that the dew would fly off if you shook the object beyond a certain velocity but at the time i had to go and do other things, anyhow the groundwork is there to make that happen. (actually i did make it happen, but it wasn't organic enough for me.. hmm maybe i'll revisit that at some point).

[creart]

Thx, Mdme Sadie, I have .. and was actually just checking out your new tut's.
BTW I have tried working out the PDie thing (concerning an earlier question of mine to you) but haven't figured it out yet...

[Per-Anders]

what was the question again? basically the easiest way to may a particle die before it's time is to use the Pdie node, all you do is plug in the particle link from a ppass node, and then plug in a boleen input (such as the output from a compare node, or a BOOL node) to the "On" input of the tpdie node (boolean in thinking particles goes asa follows 0=false 1=true). when the on state is true those particles that are being evaluated at the time will be killed off and will dissapear... i hope that this helps :)

[Peter C.]

TemperalVision...those drops look gorgouse. I tried your technique, but with the Hyper-nurbs, the drops get too blocky. It got better with the iron plugin, but could you tell me exactly how you did those?

Cheers!

Peter C.

[TemperalVision]

Sure.

I think that I left out a rather critical step. Once you have your drops extruded and split you need to scale some of the drops so that they are not uniform. the bigger drops should have there corners scaled in to make them round and not square. Also the drops should have the top points moved along there y axis to adjust for how large they are.

[Peter C.]

Ok, but when I scale, the polygon also retracts from the bottom...loosing its position on the original leaf. Did you have to reposition them after?

[creart]

This is actually where Thinking Particles in R8 (when you're able to buy it) will be easier in the future - you make the object for the leaf and you make one drop - thinking Particles can do the rest, 'cause it sees if the new drop (new particle) lies within the leaf and when you use half a sphere with axis on the bottom, TP will take care that all drops are perfectly on the surface of the leaf

Futher, TP can take care of different sizes while generating the new prtcls, so no need to go in and do anything manual again
The drawback however is that TP decides for itself where a new drop will come, so you can't go in and pt that oen drop exactly where you want it, unless you use 'current state to object' and change the drop that you want.

[TemperalVision]

Originally posted by Peter C.
Ok, but when I scale, the polygon also retracts from the bottom...loosing its position on the original leaf. Did you have to reposition them after?

No you don't. All you have to do is scale the using the X & Z (deselect the Y) axis and it should remain on the leaf.

In responce to crearts conments,
I do not have R8 yet and can't wait till I get it. I would love to have tp ( and all that other cool R8 stuff ) so that I wouldn't have to be bothered to do all this stuff. Allthough my method is fast, it's not nearly as fast as tp (which aparantaly does it instantly). So if it's speed you want go with tp. If you want more control over each individual drop use the polygon method.

Like I said before... "I think what it comes down to is your own personal modeling preferance":cool:

[creart]

TemperalVision, you're completely right!!

If I would have thought of your trick earlier that would have made a large difference in some models, but now I have TP, it surely is a fast and easy and simple to change way to have almost the same result.... (and now I have it I just like to play and see what else it can do...)

[Peter C.]

LoL...man am I dense....of course you deselact the Y-axis. Sorry for that stupid Q, my thinking cap is in the laundry basket.
:D

[TemperalVision]

Everyone is intitled to to have moments like that.( I've had more then I'd like to admit:shrug::blush::insane: )

I'm still hoping to see your finished leaf, Peter.:)

[Peter C.]

I'll work on it tomorrow and post the results as soon as its done :bounce:

Cheers!

Peter C.

[Peter C.]

TemperalVision
When using normal scale, to my surprise, I couldn't deselect the Y axis. And useing the scaling tool with Y-axis deselected obviously does not work. I'll do a test using the iron plugin and post the render......and, my R8 just arrived!!! Woohoo!

[Peter C.]

Ok, heres my try at doing the water drops using your technique. Im not happy with the water material, so any suggestions are appreciated. Additionally, I had to settle with radial blur instead of DOF as I have not been able to get it right for this scene.

Merry Christmas!

Peter C.

[Peter C.]

Sorry about the poor quality of the image, but it's due to the 40k size limit!

[Akesson]

Hej Peter! Kul med fler och fler svenskar som använder Cinema 4D.

For the water-material i would recommend experimenting with the Bhodinut Fresnel-shader in different channels. Using it in the transparency and reflection-channels in different ways will give your waterdrops more substance and contrast. If you hand me the file (or a small part of it) i can give it a try and send the file back to you. I really like the picture BTW, is it for a commercial project?

Vänliga Hälsningar,

Peder Åkesson

--
Peder Åkesson - Kanon Produktion

www.kanonproduktion.com

[Peter C.]

Hej Peder! Tycker också det är trevligt att se fler svenska C4D användare :thumbsup:

Thank you very much for offering to help out. It's not for any commercial project, just an excersise for getting used to the program. I'll be happy to send you the file so you can take a crack at it, if you have the time (it's an R8 file now).

Do I send it to your contact mail at your site?


Cheers & Tack så mycket!!!

Peter C.

[Akesson]

Hej Peter!

Har inte riktigt fått igång alla mailadresser på kanonproduktion.com ännu så det vore bra om du mailade till min hemadress: peder.akesson@home.se

I´ll take a look at the scene this weekend. Are you working professionally with Cinema 4D or is it just a hobby?

Cheers,

Peder

[Peter C.]

Hej Peder....I have sent you the e-mail!

I am not at the moment working proffessionally, so cinema is just an expensive hobby for the time being. I have plans on doing proffessional projects as soon as I have learned the program and feel confident enough.

Cheers!

Peter C.

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