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View Full Version : Need help - Shattering a light bulb

AtomAndBrad
08-19-2008, 07:54 AM
I should preface this by saying that I haven't done a SINGLE thing with dynamics in Maya. However, I have a problem and I'm looking for a solution. I tend to learn things better when I have a specific objective and work my way through how to achieve it. But some help would be greatly appreciated since I'm on a time limit.

For my animation class, we're doing a Luxo animation (I'm sure I don't need to explain who Luxo is, but just in case, the Pixar lamp). We were tasked with coming up with a simple 5-10 second animation for the next week using Luxo (or basically, any desk lamp that looks kind of like him).

The idea I came up with was to have him sneezing and in doing so, his light bulb comes out and shatters on the floor. After recovering from the sneeze, he realizes what happened, bends down close to the debris, and hangs his head in shame.

As far as the body animation goes I'm fairly sure I can do it relatively well. However, the shattering light bulb is something that I have no clue how to approach. For one, I don't really know the best way to create a glass material (I can model the bulb just fine). Secondly, I don't know how to do the shatter realistically. I'd like to do it with dynamics to make the effect look nice and natural, as opposed to obviously done cookie-cutter style (like, for instance, the default Shatter effect in After Effects).

So, can anybody point me in the right direction? Are there any 3rd party plug-ins that might make the process nice and simple? Any help would be greatly appreciated! And I will of course post my progress.
Wick3dParticle
08-20-2008, 05:46 AM
Hey Atom (or Brad?),


I guess a place to start would be with the maya shatter tool. In the dynamics context, go to the effects menu. Its not the best shatter tool in the world...but it may just be what you need. Be sure to make the shards in to rigid bodies, and apply fields. As for the shaders...I recommend looking in to mental ray shaders if possible. If you are looking to do something more simple, try using a blinn or phong with ray tracing and refractions.

Best of luck,

~Ilan
tpalamar
08-20-2008, 04:59 PM
Maya's nCloth is perfect for this. Here is a link to show you what it can do. See if this is on the right track.

http://www.speffects.com/Files/nClothBasics/bottle.mov
Wick3dParticle
08-20-2008, 05:03 PM
Hey Todd,

The link you've posted seems to be dead....unless its blocked here at work.

~Ilan
Wick3dParticle
08-20-2008, 05:04 PM
My bad, it just worked...
tpalamar
08-20-2008, 06:28 PM
Ok cool. I did have the wrong link up there originally. Glad it is working.
AtomAndBrad
08-20-2008, 07:35 PM
Maya's nCloth is perfect for this. Here is a link to show you what it can do. See if this is on the right track.

http://www.speffects.com/Files/nClothBasics/bottle.mov

That looks great! Do you know of any tutorials online that might be able to lead me in the right direction to make this happen? As I said, I've never really worked with Dynamics before (or nCloth for that matter).
tpalamar
08-20-2008, 07:58 PM
LOL, yeah I made that bottle for an online tutorial. I just havent gotten around to writing it. I might be able to throw it together in the next couple of days. If not I will give you the Maya scene file and you can reverse engineer it.
wizlon
08-20-2008, 09:27 PM
not a lightbulb, but could be adapted>

http://www.realflow.com/n_cs_eggexplosion.htm

realflow - maya - mentalray.
AtomAndBrad
08-20-2008, 10:56 PM
LOL, yeah I made that bottle for an online tutorial. I just havent gotten around to writing it. I might be able to throw it together in the next couple of days. If not I will give you the Maya scene file and you can reverse engineer it.

That'd be awesome. I also need to be able to have the "base" of the light bulb (the metal part) to NOT break. I'm assuming what I'll need to do is just animate it independently after the shatter of the glass shatter begins.
tpalamar
08-21-2008, 03:08 PM
the base of the lightbulb could just be separate object. That way you dont have to deal with any per vertex attributes
AtomAndBrad
09-04-2008, 06:44 AM
Well unfortunately this thread didn't really deliver the responses I was looking for (but thanks to the guys that did respond, if only for moral support!). Figured I'd post my final product here.

Luxo Sneeze (http://www.amv101.com/misc/LuxoSneeze_FINAL.mp4) (440kb, x264 MP4)

I had to manually key the shards. I simply couldn't get the dynamics to work correctly :\ Oh well. Maybe someday!
mayaartist
09-04-2008, 04:12 PM
Dude,

that clip from the Real Flow site of the Egg being blasted is just incredible. I love that. The idea is simple but when you see all the work that went into that one shot it just blows your mind away.
mayaartist
09-04-2008, 04:14 PM
Oh i was also going to say if you want to have you bottle break try Blast Code. It has a fairly easy learning curve and is a great plugin for Maya, of course you would have to get the plugin. Very cool.
HillbillyKing
09-06-2008, 01:25 PM
I would suggest BlastCode as well. There are several video tutorials on their site and a couple that can be found easy enough online. Since you're a student, you could grab the trial and it would work perfectly for your project
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