CGTalk - Fluid Effects vs Fume FX

Cheesestraws

03-14-2009, 08:28 PM

Yes bazuka I know! I was a Maya user for 12 years.... Now I'm a XSI user.

What exactly do you want? You are not ever going to get a one-click solution. You will have to learn to tweak the settings and understand what they do, and then its just tweaking until you get the right look. It is not hard it just takes time.

Make sure to animate emission values and turbulence on the emitter. Turn high detail solve on the fluidshape, an option not even available when the visor examples were made, tweak the swirl and turbulence. spend time getting the ramps right, you will need sharp changes on the opacity to get the flames to look right and you don't want it ever to be fully opaque. Do not be afraid to crank the colour values above 1. If you have not had Maya warn you about the resolution of the container then it is probably not high enough. If things are too slow try changing one axis to just 3 voxels across and then extend when you are happy with the look. If you want to exagerate the look without tweaking all the settings then you should play with the scale attribute on the fluidshape. Always always make sure the render interpolator is set to smooth.

Maya's fluid solver is slow, though not as slow as Houdini's in my experience, but it can do what you want if you take the time to learn to use it properly. It has been used in many movies to solve effects such as this (http://media.comicmix.com/media/2008/09/04/ghost-rider-superhero.jpg).

spurv

03-14-2009, 10:24 PM

Tks Cheesestraws, I'll do what I can, it's a tight schedule I don't have time to learn all Fluid Effects tricks, I'm sure I've tried everything you told. It's not only the fire aspect that is hard to do.
For example I need to move the emitter in a big space, so I have do make a big container, unless I have a script or a plug that scales the container based on the density like cosku plug (http://coskuozdemir.com/blog/?p=40) that don't work for me, in my scene.
+10 years ago I made this (http://www.vimeo.com/1794429) with Pyro from Areté Entertainment (http://www.renderworld.com), it rendered fast and with no problems like that. Don't get me wrong, but I think Maya should help the users getting the job done, not the other way. I'm sure that the fire in Gost Rider or Fantastic 4 was done with huge amounts of code.

viki164

03-14-2009, 10:45 PM

I'm sure that the fire in Gost Rider or Fantastic 4 was done with huge amounts of code.

fire in ghost rider was done by Sony pictures proprietary tool. One of my friend who worked on it had told me tht sony guys spent two years on the development of fire. I doubt how much maya fluid was involved in creating fire effects?
but regardless of its use Maya fluid is very much controllable & predictable..!:)

Cheesestraws

03-14-2009, 11:05 PM

fire in ghost rider was done by Sony pictures proprietary tool

To my knowledge they used a custom front end to generate emission maps and values in houdini then ran that through the Maya fluid solver and finally rendered with their own volume shader. I just could not think of a better example of just flames in a movie at the time.

If you just want something fast and are not too concerned with accuracy you could look into using overburn (http://petershipkov.com/development/overburn/overburn.htm).

bazuka

03-14-2009, 11:46 PM

@Cheesestraws (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=117363)

yeah i know that i have to learn how to tweak it, but i dont want to loose best days of my life ;)

btw this is nothing new, but all big studios uses Maya as GUI for their in house, software

what happen with Arete? is there a some source codes if they dont work any more, or something?

1 more thing Cheesestraws (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=117363) did u saw the UI for fumefx and maya fluids?

u think u can get this times in maya too? quality and speed? may be im stupid and i dont know much about maya fluids, but i didnt saw any1 getting even the 10% of fumefx possibilities...

http://www.afterworks.com/FumeFX.asp?ID=4

plz dont fire up/flame this threat i just want the same thing in maya (fumefx)

Cheesestraws

03-14-2009, 11:58 PM

When it comes down to it if the application you are using can't do what you want then just switch. But there are very few commercial applications with fluid solvers so you don't really have much choice, and each of them has their own advantages and limitations that you will have to overcome.

For fire though one of the best ways is to just film fire and add it into your shot that way. And everyone enjoys watching things burn right? :p

bazuka

03-15-2009, 12:45 AM

if u have time plz look this

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1464&Itemid=316

so if AD continue to 'update' maya like passed few years, maya will soon die....

Giap

03-15-2009, 01:10 AM

if u have time plz look this

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1464&Itemid=316

so if AD continue to 'update' maya like passed few years, maya will soon die....

Oh my godddd. Their development is so fast >"<

spurv

03-15-2009, 01:29 AM

WOW Houdini!!!

Ice Particles and Krakatoa

http://www.vimeo.com/2435584

azshall

03-15-2009, 02:35 AM

Yes bazuka I know! I was a Maya user for 12 years.... Now I'm a XSI user.

12 Years? And you can't figure out how to meddle with some fluid attributes especially with all the tutorials, scripts and documentation that are out there? ...Rather, you can go after 12 years in a package and be frustrated with Fluids (which yes you can get those looks) and ditch it to learn another package? hahaha.. I'm playin the bullshit card.

viki164

03-15-2009, 05:38 AM

12 Years? And you can't figure out how to meddle with some fluid attributes especially with all the tutorials, scripts and documentation that are out there? ...Rather, you can go after 12 years in a package and be frustrated with Fluids (which yes you can get those looks) and ditch it to learn another package? hahaha.. I'm playin the bullshit card.

lol... I m in too for playing this. I might take this as a challenge but not to offend any other 3d package just for fun.
Lets get maya fluid on the show.
"Fire" ...I`ll start burning from now on!!
stay tune!!

Aikiman

03-15-2009, 05:51 AM

Im in right after a put the baby to bed.

Cheesestraws

03-15-2009, 08:02 AM

bazuka

03-15-2009, 11:20 AM

Cheesestraws

03-15-2009, 12:39 PM

well wavelet turbulence kicks ass man, dont know if u saw i just start one thread about HoudiniOceanTool (HOT) -> transferring to maya

so soon as i get this thing done, i hope ill will start making wavelet to maya too, if some1 doesnt do that before me ;)

i dont understand AD, people on Sigg publish great research stuff with source codes and they dont do shit abou it? i really dont understand the AD politics....

cheers

Well firstly they often don't publish code which actually frustrates a lot of people especially when a new technique claims speed increases, and secondly wavelet turbulence was presented at last Siggraph so there has not been time to include it in a release of Maya. Lots of research stuff also has large limitations they tend to gloss over that does not make it ideal for commercial applications so very few applications tend to implement them, and of course when they do they tend not to make it obvious where the feature came from. Wavelet turbulence however is very easy to recognise. :p

I would rather Many-Worlds Browsing for Control of Multibody Dynamics than wavelet turbulence to be honest anyway. :p

spurv

03-15-2009, 01:45 PM

12 Years? And you can't figure out how to meddle with some fluid attributes especially with all the tutorials, scripts and documentation that are out there? ...Rather, you can go after 12 years in a package and be frustrated with Fluids (which yes you can get those looks) and ditch it to learn another package? hahaha.. I'm playin the bullshit card.

In fact I'm not a Fluid expert, I'm a 3D Generalist so I think I'm not an expert at nothing :shrug: I try to do what the client gives me to do, the best I can always with a tight schedule, so I need a software that can give me that. Maya doesn't. I think Maya fits big studios, not small ones like mine. I changed app because Maya in general not because Fluids.

Remi

03-15-2009, 02:15 PM

I wonder if Michelangelo traded in his chisle for the latest and greatest when he mistakenly took too much marble off a section of one of his sculptures? I can't wait for the time when people can't blame the software, only themselves.

As for fluids vs. fumefx. I'm no FX guru by any means, but i'm willing to bet you can do whatever you want in either, you just have to take the time to learn it.

spurv

03-15-2009, 03:33 PM

I'm not Michelangelo man! :beer:

destruct007

03-15-2009, 06:51 PM

fire in ghost rider was done by Sony pictures proprietary tool. One of my friend who worked on it had told me that sony guys spent two years on the development of fire. I doubt how much maya fluid was involved in creating fire effects?

I'm pretty sure they used Maya's fluid solver exported the velocities into houdini or something like that. Anyway Maya fluids just doesn't look like Fume. You guys love fume so much, it looks cool but it has a fume look, swirly, wispy, stringy.

viki164

03-16-2009, 02:47 AM

Im in right after a put the baby to bed.

calling All Maya fluid Experts!!!
hello World (Aikiman,heavy,azshall,bazuka,destruct007...!)

lets have maya fluid showcase. wt say?
I cant bear people talking absurd abt maya fluid. Its my only source of income. I wuldnt have exist coz of maya fluid.
lets put up a gallery created with maya fluids without offending any 3d package.
I have seen people creating wonders with maya & its mostly unsung.

I can take fluid fire challenge infact I just started today & came up with these:
to me it seems a better lookin & realistic fire can be easily done with maya fluids. I just started with turbulent fire example & it gives better look when u assigned a wispy or space time texture on it.
I`ll attempt a large scalle fire with embers & smoke. This is just a starting point.
Stay tuned for more better results once I return from wrk .
till then
Cheers!!
Eager Yung Minds
Vikas

Aikiman

03-16-2009, 02:53 AM

calling All Maya fluid Experts!!!
hello World (Aikiman,heavy,azshall,bazuka,destruct007...!)

lets have maya fluid showcase. wt say?
I cant bear people talking absurd abt maya fluid. Its my only source of income. I wuldnt have exist coz of maya fluid.
lets put up a gallery created with maya fluids without offending any 3d package.
I have seen people creating wonders with maya & its mostly unsung.

I can take fluid fire challenge infact I just started today & came up with these:
to me it seems a better lookin & realistic fire can be easily done with maya fluids. I just started with turbulent fire example & it gives better look when u assigned a wispy or space time texture on it.
I`ll attempt a large scalle fire with embers & smoke. This is just a starting point.
Stay tuned for more better results once I return from wrk .
till then
Cheers!!
Eager Yung Minds
Vikas

Cool Vikas, I just working on an animtion now, will post a still or two later. BTW what are you're texture settings on that fire? Thats a nice touch there. /thumbsup

royterr

03-16-2009, 03:50 AM

can't wait to see works of Maya fluid gurus.
starting with a fire exemple is a great idea.

azshall

03-16-2009, 04:48 AM

calling All Maya fluid Experts!!!
hello World (Aikiman,heavy,azshall,bazuka,destruct007...!)

lets have maya fluid showcase. wt say?
I cant bear people talking absurd abt maya fluid. Its my only source of income. I wuldnt have exist coz of maya fluid.
lets put up a gallery created with maya fluids without offending any 3d package.
I have seen people creating wonders with maya & its mostly unsung.

I can take fluid fire challenge infact I just started today & came up with these:
to me it seems a better lookin & realistic fire can be easily done with maya fluids. I just started with turbulent fire example & it gives better look when u assigned a wispy or space time texture on it.
I`ll attempt a large scalle fire with embers & smoke. This is just a starting point.
Stay tuned for more better results once I return from wrk .
till then
Cheers!!
Eager Yung Minds
Vikas

Woo, this will be fun. I'll throw up some fire examples I've been playing around with as well soon!

Aikiman

03-16-2009, 07:19 AM

First attempt, not really happy with the flame shader. The animation should be interesting though.

bazuka

03-16-2009, 09:42 AM

looks nice people :) keep on kicking...

spurv

03-16-2009, 10:37 AM

This was my reference http://www.pato.tv/USERS/Posts/chamas.png

This was the best I could do with the time I had: http://www.vimeo.com/3685291

I wanted this: http://www.vimeo.com/1354006

DariuszLacheta

03-16-2009, 01:32 PM

Here is my try ;)

http://img01.picoodle.com/img/img01/3/3/16/weaponofultimatedestruction/f_firem_06bfff7.jpg

Video on Vimeo ;) (http://vimeo.com/3688080)

I'm no pro or anything just fooling around :P

And maya 2009 ASCII scene if someone want to take a look :)

KidderD

03-16-2009, 02:33 PM

This was my reference http://www.pato.tv/USERS/Posts/chamas.png

This was the best I could do with the time I had: http://www.vimeo.com/3685291

I wanted this: http://www.vimeo.com/1354006

I actually think yours, in terms of realism anyway, is much nicer. Don't get me wrong, I've seen some amazing fire from fume, I just don't think that is a particularly strong one.

I will post some stuff tonight. I unfortunately don't get to make fire for a living.

Cheesestraws

03-16-2009, 02:46 PM

This was my reference http://www.pato.tv/USERS/Posts/chamas.png

This was the best I could do with the time I had: http://www.vimeo.com/3685291

I wanted this: http://www.vimeo.com/1354006

The colours in your reference and the fumeFX piece seem more saturated than yours, they also have more glow. They both have a wider range of colours too. I think perhaps yours is not quite as transparent at the hottest parts when compared to the reference.

I might have a go at this later if I find time.

Giap

03-16-2009, 05:33 PM

I just get to Fluid couple days ago. I learned from presets in visor and discover that Fluid in Maya is really good. Please take a look at mine.

http://www.mediafire.com/?3yyzy2yaz2z
http://www.mediafire.com/?jlznmmmngij

@viki164: Would you mind if I asked you for the settings of the texture. I'm still confused of the attributes.

-heavy-

03-16-2009, 07:13 PM

Hey Guys 8]

i dont have the time to be involved here at the mom. but i found some references
a few days ago...

here:
http://www.rsp.com.au/portfolio/flv/hp4Flv.htm

RisingSun created cool fire for HarryPotter the Goble of Fire, here are some breakdowns,
as you can see , somewhere in between you see that its very complex Fluid system and a hell of passes.

cheerz and much fun.

(http://www.rsp.com.au/portfolio/flv/hp4Flv.htm)

Aikiman

03-16-2009, 08:41 PM

This was my reference http://www.pato.tv/USERS/Posts/chamas.png

This was the best I could do with the time I had: http://www.vimeo.com/3685291

I wanted this: http://www.vimeo.com/1354006

Yeah yours is looking good, as mentioned maybe throw in a blue somewhere in your incandescent ramp to mix the colors up a bit and try a texture as in Vikas example, gives it a nice fine defined edge like FumeFX seems to give.

As for the smoke, Ive managed to combine two container so I can texture the density completely different from the fire yet still get the velocity vectors to transfer over.

Attached, a little bit of texture could go a long way.

Giap

03-16-2009, 11:22 PM

I'm done uploading. This is my fire.

http://vimeo.com/3691429

and

http://vimeo.com/3693681

bazuka

03-16-2009, 11:26 PM

@-heavy- (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=184862)

yo man do u know what 3d app they use for the fire and other stuff?

is it maya? or some inhouse software?

cheers

found it :) its maya ;)

http://vfxworld.com/?atype=articles&id=2709

Once the Goblet of Fire (http://vfxworld.com/?sa=adv&code=1e242f07&atype=articles&id=2708) sets into action, things start to turn bad for Harry Potter, as he is selected to participate in the Triwizard Tournament. The Goblet fire-like effects were created in CG by Rising Sun Pictures, which created more than 50 shots. “Using Maya Fluids, we first built up a library of different flames that looked cool,” visual effects supervisor Tony Clark says. “We then defined a basic library of 3D elements and applied the different looks to a nominated ‘master’ shot — the one where the Weasley twins are thrown out of the Age Line. This shot contained around 40 different fire elements. Since those were created in 3D Voxel space, they consumed a large amount of memory. As we grew the size of the elements, we found that the level of detail diminished dramatically and we would loose the nice little ragged bits around the edges of the flames. Digital effects supervisor Will Gammon had to pour in all sorts of 2D techniques in order to build up the level of detail by combining multiple elements, noise passes, turbulence and such. The scenes were rendered either in Maya for the fire elements or in 3D Lite for the Age Line elements.”

Cheesestraws

03-16-2009, 11:35 PM

Well the viewport shot appears to be Maya, though they seem to be using at very least some extensions to the inbuilt solver. Maybe something like the adjoint method to goal the fluid.

viki164

03-17-2009, 02:27 AM

@viki164: Would you mind if I asked you for the settings of the texture. I'm still confused of the attributes.

hey dude,
No Problem at all! the texture settings are quite simple just have check with the my file below: coz I m too lazy & poor at explaining things. Hope it helps!

@ Aiki
Hey Jeremy,
apologize for late reply. office wrk + posting stuff on cgtalk = pain + no sleep,
have check with my file. I always enjoy shading fluids with texture. Its a good fun for me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yOeOh5HWiY

I also plan to add smoke & embers particle later.

Originally Posted by spurv
This was my reference http://www.pato.tv/USERS/Posts/chamas.png

This was the best I could do with the time I had: http://www.vimeo.com/3685291

I wanted this: http://www.vimeo.com/1354006

& hey all fume fx freaks : need lil more time to do tht but quite possible. will post soon by this weekend.
kick ass fume fx vs kiss ass maya fluids :applause:

rolling for now!
Vikas

royterr

03-17-2009, 03:18 AM

Aikiman

03-17-2009, 03:37 AM

noticed that in many maya fluid fire exemples, more than an emitter is used.
what's the purpose of this method?

when you you guys talk about texturing the fluid shader, are you talking about the built in procedural textures (perlin noise...), or do you use other textures?

More emitters gives more turbulent and detailed flame and the textures are built in, though you could try using textures in the ramps, something I havent tried before. Have a look at Vikas file he uploaded.

tokanohanna

03-17-2009, 04:26 AM

I must admit, FumeFx is quite a plugin, but I feel people don't give Maya fluids any love or enough credit. I think developers over at autodesk don't update Maya fluids year after year because they don't need too. Maya is very powerful and can give you nice results. People get discouraged by Maya fluids after one try because there is not an available UI like Fume to tweak your settings. You actually need to take your time and make a couple attempts at it. You will soon find out that the gap people think exists between Fume and Maya really doesn't exist. Here are a couple of quick tests I simmed last night. Took about 40 min to render 60 frames for each shot. Res was 100 200 100. I could of gone higher to get nicer results for the smoke, but this is just for RnD purposes. I'll try to post some hi-res sims next week.

Test 1: http://www.vimeo.com/3708042
Test 2: http://www.vimeo.com/3707754

thomwickes

03-17-2009, 09:07 AM

Nice work Wayne.

Would be interested to see the higher res...How much higher you planning to go?

-heavy-

03-17-2009, 09:52 AM

...
As for the smoke, Ive managed to combine two container so I can texture the density completely different from the fire yet still get the velocity vectors to transfer over.

Attached, a little bit of texture could go a long way.

Wow that looks "HOT" !

but how did you manage that - with get and setAttrib from the first to the second ?

that should work for a number of Containers putting the names in an Array
and for loop throught it to transfer specified atributes... hmmm
:bowdown:

DariuszLacheta

03-17-2009, 09:54 AM

viki164 wow great! BIG thanks for sharing scene!

tokanohanna looks really reallly cool! Can You say something about setup?

brassi

03-17-2009, 11:39 AM

and my little ugly test

http://www.vimeo.com/3714849

DariuszLacheta

03-17-2009, 01:39 PM

And me again :)

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/3/17/weaponofultimatedestruction/f_1m_a6064fa.jpg
vimeo (http://vimeo.com/3716412)

http://img06.picoodle.com/img/img06/3/3/17/weaponofultimatedestruction/f_1m_bb9431a.jpg
vimeo (http://vimeo.com/3716432)

And scenes files

viki164

03-17-2009, 02:45 PM

Hey dariusz!
Good Progress dude, Keep burning...!
hope to see more better results soon.
cheers
Vik

royterr

03-17-2009, 02:47 PM

More emitters gives more turbulent and detailed flame and the textures are built in, though you could try using textures in the ramps, something I havent tried before. Have a look at Vikas file he uploaded.

Ok, so how do you get the smoke look and the fire look in the same container?
i started with a simple white smoke test, and now i want to add the flame:
smoke (http://sor.typepad.com/files/fluid_exemple_2.avi)
but if i add another emitter it will look like the smoke since it's in the same conatiner

watti

03-17-2009, 03:02 PM

well i havent read the hole tread :P But this i made whit maya fluids:

http://www.themakingofafamily.com/randomupload/3d107c49171fe5dd133b48aada880d6e.jpg

// Simon

edit: to big filesize :) ops.

tokanohanna

03-17-2009, 04:31 PM

Thom: Regarding the res, I'm sure I can go alot higher. With the box I have I can prolly get to 4x the current res without maya starting to bog on me. I'll run a sim this weekend.

Darius: Glad you liked the sims. To achieve fume smoke in maya it's important to have a pretty high res. The container needs to be small, so you can maximize your res appropriately to the number of voxels you have. Some tricks I use. Under High Detail Solve under the Dynamic Sim tab. Turn All grids on. Set Grid Interpolater to smooth, and play with your Simulation Scale rate. Don't texture opacity under Texture section and set Coordinate Method to Grid. These settings combined with nice texturing and keying fluid emmision and opacity imput bias values, you can get a nice fume look. Hope that helps. I'll post some settings for you later this week.

Test 1: http://www.vimeo.com/3708042
Test 2: http://www.vimeo.com/3707754

viki164

03-17-2009, 04:49 PM

@ : tokanohanna (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=269569)

first of all thumbs up for ur explosion test with maya fluids :bowdown:, cant wait to see more from U.

Some tricks I use. Under High Detail Solve under the Dynamic Sim tab. Turn All grids on. Set Grid Interpolater to smooth, and play with your Simulation Scale rate. Don't texture opacity under Texture section and set Coordinate Method to Grid. These settings combined with nice texturing and keying fluid emmision and opacity imput bias values, you can get a nice fume look.

just have a doubt tht something I didnt followed well from ur tips

1> "don`t texture opacity under texture section & set coordinate method to grid."

if textures are not ON then howcum coordinate method set to grid will have any effect? So far i knew tht when coordinate is set to grid it pushes textures coordinates to corresponding voxels so tht it doesnt look floaty. plz ellaborate more with ur technique?

2>" These settings combined with nice texturing and keying fluid emmision and opacity imput bias values, you can get a nice fume look."

Did u mean to use inbuilt texture here?
plz put some lights here..coz the look of ur explosion luks very eye catching to me.
It wuld be of gr8 help if U share some technique on ur rising billowing smoke .
I guess it must be a combination of using high temp & temp turbuelence.

thnxs much & lets keep the excitement for maya fluids ON..

Cheers
vik

KidderD

03-17-2009, 06:10 PM

This is said to be Maya fluids also. If anyone wants more reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFa7v9MQn6w

tokanohanna

03-17-2009, 06:51 PM

Viki: Sup bro, you are absolutely right about the coordinate grid. I left out a few key pointers that may answer some of your questions. Regarding the coordinate grid settings. This needs to be turned on along with texture color. Texture incandescence can be turned on only if one wants to create an ignition effect within the fluids. For example my sim had the imput bias of the incandescence keyed to create the effect of an explosion. I use grid for the coordinate method because it makes the texture move with the movement of the density instead of appearing still. One can also animate the texture time which is great. I keep texture opacity unchecked because I find better control to have my texture defined by the color values instead of the opacity values. You tend to get softer and better dissapation with this unchecked. If one is creating a rocket trail, then I would suggest turning Texture opacity on.

Regarding texturing. Yes I do use inbuilt textures sometimes. Plugging in a noise or fractal 2d node in the Color Texture Gain can give nice variation within the smoke. But I most of the time just tweak the texture settings under the Texture tab.

Lights are pretty straight forward but important in giving you smoke volume. Real lights needs to be checked on with a simple 2 to 3 point lighting setup.

The Rising smoke is due to the swirl and the simulation scale rate. The higher the rate the more aggressive your sim will look. I usually accommodate the swirl settings to my Sim scale rate. I usually don't go over 1.75 for the rate and 20 for the swirl. But it all varies. I also use a volume axis field to create the movement of the explosion. Bouyancy should be at a low value, allowing the volume axis field to control the movement. There are many more little things that can be done. But these are the base fundamentals that I start with, then tweak from here. I will post more sims and settings this weekend. Hope this helps bud.

Aikiman

03-17-2009, 07:51 PM

Wow that looks "HOT" !

but how did you manage that - with get and setAttrib from the first to the second ?

that should work for a number of Containers putting the names in an Array
and for loop throught it to transfer specified atributes... hmmm
:bowdown:

Heavy ;=],

yeah I use get and set attrs using temperature as a test value and voxel height then set density and transfer the velocity values over from the 1st container to the second container. To be honest, its great in theory, in practice its a bit slow to sim especially with high res containers, probably doesnt help with only a dual processor and 4GB RAM. To keep it simple use container with the same resolution although it doesnt matter in Y, so I usually have the smoke container higher than the flame.

ill keep posting some shots and work on a animation.

BTW Heavy, have you cleared your mailbox yet? You have to clear it so I can send you some mail ;=] tar

EDIT: There can also be transparency sorting issues arise through MR when it doesnt know which part of which fluid is in front of the other. Even when I increase volume sampling to 100, it still isnt enuf, so Ill have to play around with that.

thomwickes

03-17-2009, 10:55 PM

This is said to be Maya fluids also. If anyone wants more reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFa7v9MQn6w

Yeah that main explosion looks a lot like maya fluids... i'm not sure if that's just cause i've been looking at random maya fluid explosions all day though.

God I love Nicholas Cage.

Aikiman

03-17-2009, 11:08 PM

Yeah that main explosion looks a lot like maya fluids... i'm not sure if that's just cause i've been looking at random maya fluid explosions all day though.

God I love Nicholas Cage.

It is Maya, Phildog worked on the movie, not that shot but sat next to the guy when he was making it. How about that for inside information, lol.

destruct007

03-17-2009, 11:10 PM

Regarding the res, I'm sure I can go alot higher. With the box I have I can prolly get to 4x the current res without maya starting to bog on me. I'll run a sim this weekend.

you're at 100x100x200 and you think you can go 4x higher? So 400x400x800? LOL I'd like to see you sim that, maaaaaybe possible but I'm not sure how much that will help. The over all sim will change at that rez. Try 200x200x400 and push the temp turbulence more. It already looks really nice, rez is pretty good as is imo.

Aikiman

03-18-2009, 01:01 AM

Okay heres a shot combining fire with smoke, not a great example but shows the general effect at work. Not sure why the movie has been enlarged on Vimeo, if anyone knows why please advise, it should be 400 by 200 px.

http://www.vimeo.com/3732269

tokanohanna

03-18-2009, 02:43 AM

Nice test Jeremy. Like the transition from fire to smoke.
David, did I say 4x? lol, 3x is a bit more realistic. A 300 600 300 container is possible on my box. Any higher I'm not sure. Haven't tried. Your right about the sim changing when you res up. I usually have to sim in resolution steps, rendering and then adjusting some settings, then going through the process again. As I go higher in res I also need to increase my density, and lower my sim scale. Thanks for the feedback.

Giap

03-18-2009, 08:04 AM

I have this weird problem and I don't know why it happen.

http://vimeo.com/3738395

YourDaftPunk

03-18-2009, 08:16 AM

Giap, your velocity is growing unstable. Couple things come to mind:

Are you using high detail solve for velocity? Did you set swirl? That dumps in extra velocity where vorticies normally dissipate so you might reduce it or not use it in conjunction with high-detail solve on velocity. Did you boost the sim rate scale high (that can make velocity unstable too)? Also, your boundaries for the fluid container are closed; if you open them, some of that velocity will leave the container instead of swirling back around where it is being amplified by one of the above forces. You can always add in more damp to stabilize things.

Also, there are probably ways clamp velocity to some max value, but I would look at the above settings first.

-shawn

Giap

03-18-2009, 09:26 AM

My solver is only 20. My sim scale is set to 2 and not swirl at all. This is my file. I don't know why I close Maya and open again, somehow it disappear :|

thomwickes

03-18-2009, 10:02 AM

I have this weird problem and I don't know why it happen.

http://vimeo.com/3738395

I'm glad fire doesn't actually do that.

I'm going to have a go at some stuff this weekend and I'll get posting.

I like the technique Aikiman posted, but sadly I too only have a dual core box with 4gb of ram (I thought that was good!!?).

I'm enjoying this thread, it's the new 'Fluids Smoke (http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=86&t=155001)' thread.

robozyt

03-18-2009, 11:11 AM

Here's my contribution (posted already in another thread some months ago):

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRaj94sRRTE&feature=channel_page)

I started with the fire preset of Peter Shikov's Overburn (http://petershipkov.com/development/overburn/overburn.htm) and tweaked it a lot (uprez, removed textures, increased sim rate,...).
The container resolution is 160*200*160, simulating one frame takes approx 30 seconds on my 4Gb x64 machine.
Maya 2008 ascii file attached!

Keep the good stuff coming!

-heavy-

03-18-2009, 11:20 AM

hell yeah robozyt 8]

i have seen this before on you tube. Very excellent work - i will take a look at da file,
to look at the emission. it look like you use a lot of small emitters on the ground...

and @Aikiman --> everthg is fine now , cleared the inbox and your welcome ;)

thomwickes

03-18-2009, 11:28 AM

robozyt

03-18-2009, 11:44 AM

@heavy: Thanks, and yes, there are multiple emitters, 31 to be exact :)

@thomwickes: It's not the same technique. It's only one container, the transition from fire to smoke is done with a with an incandescence ramp which takes temperature as input.

DariuszLacheta

03-18-2009, 09:17 PM

robozyt realy great stuff :) i love the effect, but it's little slooooow :)
Big thx for sharing your scene with us !! :)

I try something else :)

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/3/18/weaponofultimatedestruction/f_Fireballsm_244caa9.jpg

I made this rather quick compared to my fire tests ;)

Aikiman

03-18-2009, 09:32 PM

I've not used Overburn a great deal, I thought it was only a plugin for texturing particles with fluids but apparently not. I can't open the scene file where I am now, but is it effectively the same technique posted by aikiman?

yeah multiple emitters will give you a lot more turbulence detail and seems to burn off quite a bit of smoke too. At a guess I believe if you burn the temperature off before the density dies also you will get more smoke residue.

Aikiman

03-18-2009, 09:38 PM

My solver is only 20. My sim scale is set to 2 and not swirl at all. This is my file. I don't know why I close Maya and open again, somehow it disappear :|

Giap, your turbulent settings in your temperature grid is too high and as mentioned creating too much internal build up of velocity.

@Heavy, seems I cant send files in PMs so here it is. The expression has been commented out so my method of attack is usually to cache the fire then uncomment the code (make sure Always Evaluate is ON, sometimes I have to just copy and paste it into a new expression its easier). Then cache the smoke. Its really processor intensive so to see the effect faster you may just want to set up your own scene and use my code, up to you, have fun.

HowardM

03-19-2009, 11:42 AM

This is said to be Maya fluids also. If anyone wants more reference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFa7v9MQn6w

wow! great shot!

which studio did this, and is it all Maya Fluids or some practical fire/explosions too?

only thing that bugs me with almost every CG fire shot in any film is the lighters/compers dont add enough firelight to the rest of the shot to make it look like the fire is lighting anything in the shots....

oh and btw, thanks for all the fire tests and zips guys! :D

Giap

03-19-2009, 05:26 PM

Giap, your turbulent settings in your temperature grid is too high and as mentioned creating too much internal build up of velocity.

But I don't know how to make fluid move randomly without setting the temperature turbulent to very high number. I tried to use main turbulent (under Contents Details) but it doesn't bring the result I want.

I'm new to fluid so there are many settings that I don't know the meaning of them to the sim. Like there are 4 kind of turbulent that I don't know the differences between them. Like turbulent in Contents detail, turbulent in emitter, turbulent field and turbulent in tempature. I'm so confused :|

This is the video with low Tempeture turbulent

http://vimeo.com/3764552

and this is the video that I am trying to mimic (

http://www.vimeo.com/3707754

destruct007

03-19-2009, 05:53 PM

check that your fluid boundry is set to none and add some damp like 0.025

Aikiman

03-19-2009, 08:16 PM

But I don't know how to make fluid move randomly without setting the temperature turbulent to very high number. I tried to use main turbulent (under Contents Details) but it doesn't bring the result I want.

Turn on velocity draw is always a good idea to see what your velocity is doing in your container especially when it comes to seeing what turbulence is doing. With the example you are trying to achieve, I would say there are two emission points, one for the main blast and one for the ground blast. Perhaps the ground blast has a circle curve emitter that gets bigger.

Your sim scale rate needs to be lower as well. Also you are probably using a high bouyency where your example is using a field to drive the fluid up.

Giap

03-19-2009, 09:18 PM

Thanks, Aiki. Right now I am trying to mimic just the main blast. I turn on the draw and see the a very weird issue. I key the emitter's heat turn off after 10 frames but the velocity is still there after 10 frames and it starts moving crazy.

By the way, listen to you, I turn the turbulent down and use the animated texture to fake the movement of the fluid. I'm not sure if it's right but the test render (1 frame) gives me a good resulf. I will upload the vid and the file later.

tokanohanna

03-20-2009, 01:37 AM

Hey Giap,

Your sim is almost there. I think your sim scale might be a bit too high along with your emitter feul emission. But all of this is dependent on your container resolution. Try to start low and move up. Keep in mind if your turbulence is set too high on your emitter, it causes your sim to blow up on you. I try to keep that quite low along with the turbulence within the content details. I usually key the boyency, emission turbulence, and incandescence for the first 5-10 frames, and I then let swirl take over the sim. Hope that helps. Similar to Fume, keying parameters gives you nice control. I'll upload your file tonight and take a look.

Aikiman

03-20-2009, 01:48 AM

Hi tokanohanna,

just wanna say that your example is really awesome dude! Im having trouble trying to recreate it myself which probably isnt helped that I have a slow system. Just a question if I may...how did you do the secondary smoke on the ground, is this a second emitter?

Also the light setup, using real lights really flattens the look of the fluid quite a bit, are you using raytrace shadows? Cause that really kills the render times!

tokanohanna

03-20-2009, 03:35 AM

Hey Jeremy,
Thanks for the feedback. Regarding the secondary smoke on the ground, it is actually being controlled by an volume axis emitter. I just have 1 emitter in my container. Keying the buoyancy "on" when you key the axis field "off" can create this effect. It's quite difficult to have more than 1 emitter due to them both sharing the fluid container properties. You can use an additional container just for your ground plume, it just takes longer to set up. Also, cache it before you render both containers. You don't need to cache your main container since your res might be too high. Maya does not do too well trying to render 2 high res fluid containers at the same time. I have a sim I did a while ago with two containers. I'll post the sim when I get a chance. You should also play with the "Over Samples" settings within the Solvers drop down menu as well. This allows your fluids to render well together, if you are using 2 containers. Raising oversamples will slow down playback but it makes the sim quite stable. If your system can't handle two containers, then render them out in different passes.

Using real lights is optional depending on your shot. If your comp has real lighting in it, you may need to turn on "real lights". If the smoke seems flat, turn off "Enable default light and turn raytrace shadows on. Chuck a few more lights in the scene to create more shadowing for the fluids. I get good results with a 3 point light rig with raytrace shadows. Maya 2009 does a much better job of raytracing fluids than earlier versions. To help with render times, you can cheat a bit by keeping the quality at 1 under the Shading Quality tab. Under the anti-aliasing, in the globals tab, 0 and 2 does just fine. Guass for the filtering. Box speeds up renders as well. You can have your quality set to 2, but it literally doubles render time. You'll notice there really isn't a difference between the two. By the way, great site dude, your tuts are very helpful.

Giap

03-20-2009, 04:57 AM

@Jeremy: This is the shot that I lower my temp turbulent down. Somehow, the keyframe of temp buoyancy doesn't work at last. But the smoke is so smooth when I low the temp turbulent down. I'm not sure how I can get the random movement like tokanohanna's.

http://vimeo.com/3764552

@tokanohanna: Thanks for your suggestion. I'm making a new one right now and the playblast looks so good. I'm gonna upload the new vid with your suggestion when it's done rendering. Before that, I have 2 questions. When I lower my resolution, the sim is totally different compare to the highres one; although, I didn't change any settings. So the resolution doesn't relate to the quality at all, does it? Another one is that, what is the best value for texture time and texture origin? Did my expression set them too high for my scene?

Just finished the rendering. This is the shot that I made base on your suggestion. It doesn't look as good as yours but I will keep working on it to understand how fluid works. The texture seems to move really quickly although my expression is really low :(

http://vimeo.com/3773386

-heavy-

03-20-2009, 09:09 AM

Accordingly to these more container and more äh more emitter setup, does anyone
tried to have seperate emitter for Heat and Fuel/Density ?? anytimes tought about that ?

i ve seen that a while ago in the digTutors series where they use a seperate heat emitter to ignite a prePaintet fuelPath. Maybe its a good solution for turbulent explosions.

First - one emitter to create some density and fuel and a few frames later - it will be ignited by a small amount of emitters creating heat on the rightplaces...

Cheesestraws

03-20-2009, 10:02 AM

When I lower my resolution, the sim is totally different compare to the highres one; although, I didn't change any settings. So the resolution doesn't relate to the quality at all, does it?

Maya fluids suck at retaining their look when you increase the resolution, so an interesting trick is to reduce the voxels on one axis to 3 and scale it appropriately. This will not give you a perfect impression of what the fluid will look like at full resolution but it should help give you the general idea.

Another one is that, what is the best value for texture time and texture origin? Did my expression set them too high for my scene?

It will vary from scene to scene dependent on how your fluids moves, but texture time should be a fraction of time. Try to set one first without touching the other, so animate the texture origin to get the speed at which you want the texture to move and once you are happy with that adjust the texture time to introduce variety.

Just finished the rendering. This is the shot that I made base on your suggestion. It doesn't look as good as yours but I will keep working on it to understand how fluid works. The texture seems to move really quickly although my expression is really low :(

http://vimeo.com/3773386

This is looking much better, I am not sure about the glow at the start though. If you watch the leading edge you can see where the texture causes the fluid to pop. As you have a texture you will often find the texture will cut away at the edges of your fluid and cause isolated areas that look bad, tweaking your opacity ramp and your texture settings can help here.

TheNeverman

03-20-2009, 08:35 PM

That would explain the lack of updates on his website!
=o)

It is Maya, Phildog worked on the movie, not that shot but sat next to the guy when he was making it. How about that for inside information, lol.

tokanohanna

03-20-2009, 08:56 PM

Giap,

Nice sim bro. A bit more tweaking is needed, but the movement is good. I looked at your scene file last night and I noticed your emitter density is keyed too long. And your buoyancy is a little strong. I came up with a movement for the smoke you might like. Just need to render it to make sure the res is working. All you would have to do now is create a second container for the base of your explosion utilizing a field to get the motion you like.

@Jeremy: This is the shot that I lower my temp turbulent down. Somehow, the keyframe of temp buoyancy doesn't work at last. But the smoke is so smooth when I low the temp turbulent down. I'm not sure how I can get the random movement like tokanohanna's.

http://vimeo.com/3764552

@tokanohanna: Thanks for your suggestion. I'm making a new one right now and the playblast looks so good. I'm gonna upload the new vid with your suggestion when it's done rendering. Before that, I have 2 questions. When I lower my resolution, the sim is totally different compare to the highres one; although, I didn't change any settings. So the resolution doesn't relate to the quality at all, does it? Another one is that, what is the best value for texture time and texture origin? Did my expression set them too high for my scene?

Just finished the rendering. This is the shot that I made base on your suggestion. It doesn't look as good as yours but I will keep working on it to understand how fluid works. The texture seems to move really quickly although my expression is really low :(

http://vimeo.com/3773386

Giap

03-21-2009, 05:17 AM

tokanohanna,

I made a new one and low down the texture time and now it's too slow. But overall, I think this is the best I have done so far.

http://vimeo.com/3785921

Aikiman

03-22-2009, 12:33 AM

That would explain the lack of updates on his website!
=o)

Most likely, looks like we need to put a little bit of pressure on him before the year subby runs out! Must be coming up soon for me ;=]

@Giap Your last sim is looking great! Are you keying the bouyency so it is a lower value at the end?

Giap

03-22-2009, 04:24 AM

Aiki,

I didn't key the buoyancy. I leave the temp buoyancy to 300 and Turbulent at 160 or above, then use the diffusion to control the speed. I also add a negative number to Density buoyancy so it will mix with temp buoyancy. I only key the Density in the emitter and Temp Scale. I figured out that if I turn High Detail Solve from Grid to Off, the blackhole effect somehow disappear :|

azshall

03-22-2009, 05:42 PM

I'm workin on some stuff right now. Hope to have it up sometime today, we'll see how the weather outside pans out :)

Here are some useful bits of MEL that I use to toggle the fluids when editing. Code is probably a bit overdone but I want to ensure you've selected a fluid :)

This is a MEL script to aid in visualizing the Fluid Texture.
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/dynamics/Fluid-Texturizer-4629.html

This code is for toggling the boundary to help modify the resolution Once my res is set I like to work with the fluid in Bounding Box mode..

string $sel[] = `ls -sl`;
string $shape[];

if (`nodeType $sel[0]` != "fluidShape" && `nodeType $sel[0]` == "transform") {
$shape = `listRelatives -s $sel[0]`;
} else {
$shape[0] = $sel[0];
}

string $obj = $shape[0];

clear $sel;
clear $shape;

if (`nodeType $obj` != "fluidShape") {
warning ("Please select a fluid object.");
} else {
int $boundary = `getAttr ($obj + ".boundaryDraw")`;

if ($boundary > 1) {
setAttr fluidShape1.boundaryDraw 1;
} else {
setAttr fluidShape1.boundaryDraw 4;
}
}

This code is to toggle on/off the Fluid Evaluation so you don't have to dig for it in the AE.

string $sel[] = `ls -sl`;
string $shape[];

if (`nodeType $sel[0]` != "fluidShape" && `nodeType $sel[0]` == "transform") {
$shape = `listRelatives -s $sel[0]`;
} else {
$shape[0] = $sel[0];
}

string $obj = $shape[0];

clear $sel;
clear $shape;

if (`nodeType $obj` != "fluidShape") {
warning ("Please select a fluid object.");
} else {
int $eval = `getAttr ($obj + ".disableInteractiveEval")`;

if ($eval > 0) {
setAttr fluidShape1.disableInteractiveEval 0;
print ("Evaluation enabled for " + $obj + " ...\n");
} else {
setAttr fluidShape1.disableInteractiveEval 1;
print ("Evaluation disabled for " + $obj + " ...\n");
}
}

DariuszLacheta

03-22-2009, 07:11 PM

ah azshall i'm using your great Fluid Texturizer for some time now, in fact i'm using most of your script! :)
thx for all ot them! :)
Great job! :applause:

TheNeverman

03-22-2009, 08:49 PM

Your download seems to be broken Dariusz....
Corrupted file maybe?

robozyt realy great stuff :) i love the effect, but it's little slooooow :)
Big thx for sharing your scene with us !! :)

I try something else :)

http://img19.picoodle.com/img/img19/3/3/18/weaponofultimatedestruction/f_Fireballsm_244caa9.jpg

I made this rather quick compared to my fire tests ;)

azshall

03-22-2009, 09:39 PM

http://vimeo.com/3806585

Not thrilled with the compression vimeo put on it :(

DariuszLacheta

03-22-2009, 10:32 PM

TheNeverman i just download it and unpack no problem, try unpack it with WinZip that should work :)

thomwickes

03-23-2009, 10:38 AM

It's not working for me either

kdronez

03-23-2009, 11:59 AM

Hi all.I wont lie I'm new to fluids and my pc is too slow to experiment with it so my fluid containers are with (max) resolution of 33/33/33 :>,but I want to show you some of my work :>.
This are all fire and some smoke type simuation that I made with maya fluids (ou and 1 with nparticles xD).
For me the key to a good fire is colors (well I dont find that key yet xD ).
I saw some sims with fumeFX yea they are great,but I dont think that maya fluids are worse than them :>.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKoVVJhDj5k

-heavy-

03-23-2009, 12:26 PM

Very impressive for such a small resolution ! good color work
the particle thing - i think it was the last ?! - could get much improvement
with all that content in here i mean the whole dynamics forum - but rest
was kick a**.

Hi all.I wont lie I'm new to fluids and my pc is too slow to experiment with it so my fluid containers are with (max) resolution of 33/33/33 :>,but I want to show you some of my work :>.
This are all fire and some smoke type simuation that I made with maya fluids (ou and 1 with nparticles xD).
For me the key to a good fire is colors (well I dont find that key yet xD ).
I saw some sims with fumeFX yea they are great,but I dont think that maya fluids are worse than them :>.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKoVVJhDj5k

kdronez

03-23-2009, 12:37 PM

robozyt

03-23-2009, 01:31 PM

Here's another one:

YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yhq-3i7Tm6o&feature=channel_page)

Container: 100x50x50
This time it's a flamethrower. I only had time to do a quick playblast, so anyone is invited to take it further (scene attached)!

Scob

03-23-2009, 01:33 PM

Hi there ,

Here , my two cents ..
A fluid simulation test , done a couple years ago.

http://vimeo.com/3815953

Anyway thanks to all of you for share all this knowledge ! :thumbsup:

kdronez

03-23-2009, 01:42 PM

Both are great.
Scob your FX demo reel rules :>.

Scob

03-23-2009, 02:23 PM

Both are great.
Scob your FX demo reel rules :>.

Thanks !! :)

TheNeverman

03-23-2009, 03:12 PM

I'm on a Mac... (Winzip is windows only)

TheNeverman i just download it and unpack no problem, try unpack it with WinZip that should work :)

DariuszLacheta

03-23-2009, 04:27 PM

ok i pack it with Legancy compression Zip2.0 try now

azshall

03-23-2009, 04:50 PM

I'm on a Mac... (Winzip is windows only)

Doesn't the unarchiver work regardless? I have a Mini and haven't ever had problems...

TheNeverman

03-23-2009, 06:09 PM

Yatzee!
thank you...

ok i pack it with Legancy compression Zip2.0 try now

TheNeverman

03-23-2009, 06:10 PM

Nope, it was telling me it was an unknown compression type.
=/

New link works just fine though
=)

Doesn't the unarchiver work regardless? I have a Mini and haven't ever had problems...

Aikiman

03-23-2009, 10:57 PM

Nope, it was telling me it was an unknown compression type.
=/

New link works just fine though
=)

Stuffit Expander 10.0.1 on the mac works just fine.

BTW azshall, mac version maya still cant see a mel script inside a folder inside my scripts directory. God knows why but everything you make I usually cant use because you create it in a folder and just sourcing the script wont work.

azshall

03-23-2009, 11:12 PM

Stuffit Expander 10.0.1 on the mac works just fine.

BTW azshall, mac version maya still cant see a mel script inside a folder inside my scripts directory. God knows why but everything you make I usually cant use because you create it in a folder and just sourcing the script wont work.

****ing hell. hahahaha... I generally put things in a folder because there is multiple MEL scripts and its easier to maintain that way. What script(s) in particular.. I'll mod them specifically for you/mac users to live inside the /scripts folder only.

Aikiman

03-24-2009, 12:05 AM

****ing hell. hahahaha... I generally put things in a folder because there is multiple MEL scripts and its easier to maintain that way. What script(s) in particular.. I'll mod them specifically for you/mac users to live inside the /scripts folder only.

Mate, I know why you do it and I think its a great idea I only wish sourcing it was that easy, surely I can write an extra forward slash somewhere so it can locate the stuff?!

Anyways, theres been 2 or 3 but the most recent is shFluidTexturizer and crucutski, I think there was another one called SethsFolder but it must be on my computer at home, cant remember what it was now.

Hope its not too much of a pain?!

Aikiman

03-24-2009, 12:49 AM

My go at a nuke bomb. No where near as good as tokanohanna but thanks to his one, I picked up one or two nice pointers /thumbsup.

Resolution: 70, 140, 70
Playblast only sorry
Please excuse the nice square fluid when it reaches the boundary. ;=]

http://vimeo.com/3857391

(http://www.vimeo.com/3825791)

robozyt

03-24-2009, 01:22 AM

kdronez

03-24-2009, 12:59 PM

Awesome smoke,but its rly too fast I cant see the blast part.Can you tell me what density value are you using pls :>.

destruct007

03-24-2009, 04:40 PM

Scob I liked your reel too! Loved the Space/rocket launch stuff. Why was the crocadile shot only a play blast?

robozyt great sim with such a low rez container! That's not easy to make. just an air field to push it in a direction, simple and effective. If you need a little more control you can set specific velelocity... a simple version that pushes all the velocities on one side of the container

setFluidAttr -at velocity -xi 0 -vv 50 0 0 fluidShape1;

(and explanation for whoever is interested)
set what? (-at = atttribute) velocity.
Where? (-xi = xIndex meaning what slice of x you want. if you had a fluid container that was 10 voxels in x you could set that anywhere between 0 and 10) so we set the xIndex to 0 could be x y or z whatever you need.
How much? (-vv vector value) because velocity is a vector (density for example is a float) set the vector value the velocity. se set it here to 50 in x and 0 in y and z if this was going to be pushing fluids up in y it would look like this
setFluidAttr -at velocity -yi 0 -vv 0 50 0 fluidShape1;
and lastly on what? the fluidshape.

so put that in any expression node and it will work whenever the fluid is active. More examples of this little bit of code is in the fluid wind tunnel examples in the fluid example fiels in the visor.

OR just use the air field, lol. Maya it can be as simple or complex as you want, eh? I find this easier to control, but probably just about the same.

Scob

03-24-2009, 05:00 PM

Scob I liked your reel too! Loved the Space/rocket launch stuff. Why was the crocadile shot only a play blast?

Thanks a lot , I m really glad that you guys liked my reel ! :thumbsup:
Perhaps I should post it , on the "finished work animation" ... :D

And why the playblast , because i wasn't able to take the finales images.To be honest I forgot it before "THE backup"... :blush:

Anyway thanks again...
I will try to post few sim asap.

Aikiman

03-24-2009, 07:40 PM

Nice one Aikiman! I really like the thick smoke and the colors. I just think it's a bit too swirly and too fast for a nuke, but that would be easily fixed.

Great works guys, really love this thread!! :thumbsup:

Awesome smoke,but its rly too fast I cant see the blast part.Can you tell me what density value are you using pls :>.

@robozyt thanks, yes this action is too fast in the beginning, although theres something up with the video when played on Vimeo, it kinda jumps the first bit a little which doesnt help but I will have a play with it and fine tune.

@kdronez density is keyed from 30 to zero.

tokanohanna

03-25-2009, 05:00 AM

Scob

03-25-2009, 09:59 AM

Scob, great reel. Very inspiring work. Proves that maya is quite versatile. Your shuttle takeoff reminds me of the shuttle sim in Walle.

WOW !
Thanks a lot, ok it "just reminds" , it makes me really glad !! ^^
But I am light years from Wall E , it s the shuttle takeoff , of "Fly me to the moon". ;) :D
Cheers

Jerome

azshall

03-25-2009, 03:11 PM

Scob, great reel. Very inspiring work. Proves that maya is quite versatile. Your shuttle takeoff reminds me of the shuttle sim in Walle.

Jeremy, nice job on the nuke. Did you use a volume axis for the ground plume? It was well done. Looking forward to seeing the final render.

Been a bit busy, but I found some time to cook up another sim last night. The goal was to once again try and achieve a FumeFx based smoke. I double my texture scale this time and used temperature instead of speed for my incandescence. The res was 150x300x150.
Was thinking about going higher, but I was quite happy with this res.
Great thread guys, keep em coming.

http://www.vimeo.com/3834411

That sim looks fantastic. Very nice job on the rendering as well! :) ...If I tried to do a sim at that resolution on this machine I think it would explode... Ugh I need a new rig.

HowardM

03-25-2009, 03:17 PM

Been a bit busy, but I found some time to cook up another sim last night. The goal was to once again try and achieve a FumeFx based smoke. I double my texture scale this time and used temperature instead of speed for my incandescence. The res was 150x300x150.
Was thinking about going higher, but I was quite happy with this res.
Great thread guys, keep em coming.

http://www.vimeo.com/3834411

how long did that take to sim on what kind of machine?

destruct007

03-25-2009, 03:55 PM

LOL Wayne, I love that you comped that canon looking sim into a garden or porch. Like, this is my fireing my canon off my porch, LOL. Isn't that all of our dream? Great sim tho.

Aikiman

03-25-2009, 09:10 PM

Scob, great reel. Very inspiring work. Proves that maya is quite versatile. Your shuttle takeoff reminds me of the shuttle sim in Walle.

Jeremy, nice job on the nuke. Did you use a volume axis for the ground plume? It was well done. Looking forward to seeing the final render.

Been a bit busy, but I found some time to cook up another sim last night. The goal was to once again try and achieve a FumeFx based smoke. I double my texture scale this time and used temperature instead of speed for my incandescence. The res was 150x300x150.
Was thinking about going higher, but I was quite happy with this res.
Great thread guys, keep em coming.

http://www.vimeo.com/3834411

Yeah thats fantastic there, Im liking the transparency and nice velocity swirl, it looks like some toxic gas coming out of a drain pipe. What type of specs do you have on your hardware? My system chugs along but managed to cache out a 5GB.
@ your question, I couldnt get the volume axis to work. I had trouble with the whole timing thing and magnitude. I usually ended up blowing everything down first and had tro8ble to regather the temp and fuel back into a nice ball.

So instead Ive used another emitter and the motion field, seems to work.

tokanohanna

03-25-2009, 10:40 PM

Azshall, thanks for the feedback. The res I used was not too bad, any higher would be a drag.

Howard, the sim took about 4 hours. I am currently using a dual quad core, BOXX with 8 processors.

David, ....I was thinking the same think once I rendered the sim. Didnt feel like modeling an environment so I used a set I modeled some time ago. Chucked the big pipe in at the last minute. Seems quite hazardous with all those flowers laying around. Hehe.

tokanohanna

03-25-2009, 10:47 PM

Thanks Jeremy,
I have a pretty strong system, but like yours it does not like to cache. It will, but takes forever. Expecially if my res in the hundreds. I normally wont have any problems if I cache 1 single file for the cache format. That's a neat technique to set a negative boyancy then key the emission. I'm going to try that.

Yeah thats fantastic there, Im liking the transparency and nice velocity swirl, it looks like some toxic gas coming out of a drain pipe. What type of specs do you have on your hardware? My system chugs along but managed to cache out a 5GB.
@ your question, I couldnt get the volume axis to work. I had trouble with the whole timing thing and magnitude. I usually ended up blowing everything down first and had tro8ble to regather the temp and fuel back into a nice ball.

So instead Ive used another emitter and the motion field, seems to work.

Aikiman

03-25-2009, 11:31 PM

In terms of simulation scale rate or more to the point dealing with really large explosions that grow slowly, is it better to build a higher resolution fluid to simulate a large explosion, or can you lower the sim scale rate down to 0.5 and try to adjust other attributes to get the effect you want?

Basically at the moment all I have is a big explosion but not really a nuke blast because it goes too fast. But Im finding that Im having to lower my sim scale rate down to below 1 to get the correct speed but then it completely changes the fluid, the explosion doesnt rise and kinda flattens out. Upping the bouyency would seem pointless as this would make the fluid faster, then maybe I need to increase fuel and temp attributes so that the explosion is hotter and therefore rise by itself and get bigger.

Is this the best plan of attack for this, or is it just easier to build a denser resolution fluid to achieve the same thing?

BTW Ive updated my previous explosion, slowing it down a bit, but for a nuke its still too fast I feel.

Duncan

03-25-2009, 11:46 PM

You might try caching then retiming the cache. With Maya 2009 you should be able to simply retime the cache as a trax clip. With earlier versions you needed to cache as a single cache file and then reconnect to the currentTime attribute on the fluid from a new time node, then key the time values.
It does a linear interpolation between cache files, so it should still be smooth when you slow down. In general the simulation is optimal when the fluid moves about one voxel a time step. Simulating very slow motions can result in diffusion as can very fast motions( with highDetail solve the fast motions can also cause instability).

Duncan

Aikiman

03-26-2009, 12:14 AM

tokanohanna

03-26-2009, 02:03 AM

Jeremy,
When creating a nuke I find success having a moderately high sim scale. Roughly between 1 and 2. The control of the smoke is defined by the bouyancy and the fuel emitter's density/voxel/sec settings. I normally create a volume(sphere for my emitter) and then tweak the fluid drop off. Giving it a value between 2-4. This specifies how much the emission drops off as you move away from the volume axis. If you wanted more control you can use an omni and adjust your min max settings under the emitters basic attributes tab.

Regarding really large explosions its vital to have a sim scale over 1. Keep in mind as you increase your res and sim scale, the density emission rate may need to decrease. If the rate is too high the sims sometimes may break. I think Giap was having this issue. If the movement of the nuke is too agressive, trying a low sim scale may work. But this is where bouyancy can come in quite handy acting as an igniter. I normally have bouyancy keyed for only 5 frames, letting the sim scale drive the motion.

High Detail Solve set to all grids is helpful, there's more detail in the movement of the smoke, resulting in a nicer sim. I noticed you mentioned increasing feul and temperature attributes. I don't normally use feul. Only temperature here. But I have seen some nice sims with feul being used. I think you can play with feul scale to multiply the strength of the explosion if you take the feul route. I also stay away from turbulence keeping it non existant in my container. If I need more turbulence I would use fields. Hope this helps.

In terms of simulation scale rate or more to the point dealing with really large explosions that grow slowly, is it better to build a higher resolution fluid to simulate a large explosion, or can you lower the sim scale rate down to 0.5 and try to adjust other attributes to get the effect you want?

Basically at the moment all I have is a big explosion but not really a nuke blast because it goes too fast. But Im finding that Im having to lower my sim scale rate down to below 1 to get the correct speed but then it completely changes the fluid, the explosion doesnt rise and kinda flattens out. Upping the bouyency would seem pointless as this would make the fluid faster, then maybe I need to increase fuel and temp attributes so that the explosion is hotter and therefore rise by itself and get bigger.

Is this the best plan of attack for this, or is it just easier to build a denser resolution fluid to achieve the same thing?

BTW Ive updated my previous explosion, slowing it down a bit, but for a nuke its still too fast I feel.

Aikiman

03-26-2009, 02:21 AM

^^^^^ Thanks tokanohanna, there are some useful tips there, I didnt even think about keying the bouyency to zero, also I assumed you were using fuel which goes to show you dont necessarily need it and it would probably speed up the caching process a little bit too!

As for the turbulence, do you use any temp turbulence at all?

thanks again :]

tokanohanna

03-26-2009, 04:51 PM

Keying bouyency is a great way to control the sim. Your right about caching, definetely saves time.

I don't use any temp turbulence. If any it's normally .01-.03. Turbulence I think is can be the containers enemy at times. I have found that it does work great when trying to sim rocket engine or shuttle smoke. If you want soft dissipating smoke, then turbulence can cause problems. Creating nukes can be difficult if turbulence is too high as well.

^^^^^ Thanks tokanohanna, there are some useful tips there, I didnt even think about keying the bouyency to zero, also I assumed you were using fuel which goes to show you dont necessarily need it and it would probably speed up the caching process a little bit too!

As for the turbulence, do you use any temp turbulence at all?

thanks again :]

netsu

03-26-2009, 08:11 PM

I'm actually sitting here at work tweaking robozyt's flamethrower a little just to see where i can put it in a little bit of time i have in between some work junk today. i hope you dont mind. i'll post something when i get a render.

aside from that i was looking at some flamethrower references like this one
Flamethrower-Real-Life (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE9XEXClDGo&feature=related)

havok3DZ

03-26-2009, 09:10 PM

This I made with Maya fluids.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjFuqoFqMSM
resolution 100х200х100

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5pRjnVU2W8
resolution 90х180х90

I don't spend much time with fluids but I think it is more efficient way to achieve the good result is looking for Numeric display and than make some adjustments in shading & texturing TAB.When understand what is going on . than the result been more predictable.

destruct007

03-27-2009, 12:19 AM

this is kinda re the tornado example from a few posts back. I was re-reading one of Ducan's blog posts and he said this,
"Another method that can be very controllable is to keyframe the rotation of a drag field that has a magnitude around 10 and inherit motion set to 1.0."
so simple and works really well w/o getting crazy, maybe this plus the volume axis field... but do a simple test and you will see how simple this is to do specific movements.
I added this expression to the drag field to make fome some more interesting motion
dragField1.rotateY = time*360;
dragField1.rotateX = (sin(time*2))*10;
dragField1.rotateZ = (cos(time*2))*10;

Aikiman

03-27-2009, 03:04 AM

tokanohanna

03-27-2009, 04:41 AM

I think I'm going to try that expression myself. The flamethrower is Brilliant!!! Sweet sim Jeremy.

looks interesting there, will try that expression and see how it goes.

heres my attempt at flame thrower...

http://www.vimeo.com/3876162

havok3DZ

03-27-2009, 08:56 AM

Somebody know how to make fluid emission travel by object like in first post (piece of wood burn)?

Aikiman

03-27-2009, 09:38 AM

Somebody know how to make fluid emission travel by object like in first post (piece of wood burn)?

Theres a piece of code you need to build in a compiler that allows you to emit fluids from a texture, ie allowing you to emit from white from an animated ramp for example. This is called "simpleFluidEmitter" and can be found in the devKit > plugins folder in your Autodesk application folder. Goodness knows why its not in the fluids menu?!

With a few basic mel commands you can hook it up and make magic!
I pulled off a simple demo here.. http://www.vimeo.com/3879228

Cheers Tok for your comments! ;=]

viki164

03-27-2009, 11:09 AM

Hey Folks,

I hv been quite inactive to this thread from last week coz of poor health & mentally sick with health & also by animal abusers but I have been watching this thread activity quite closely,
You guys rock!! this is becoming like a 2nd FLuid Smoke thread with loads of tricks & tips. My learning curve is rising subsequently.

I like tokanhanna`s test its a masterpiece. being Inspired by him I made a couple of quick test but its a first try I will polish it later with more elements. C&C are welcome :

plz have a look at :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SqKJVwcBqM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-oDXkCOkpQ

or for better resolution have check with :

http://www.vimeo.com/3878442
http://www.vimeo.com/3878503.

I`ll upadate more for this thread by this weekend.

ok!

I know this is not place to share personal views instead of techincal views & tricks, But I cannot stop myself to express my thoughts.
Millions of animals being slaughtered everyday. Do they dont have rights to live?
I know I m not talking anything new here but keeping global warming & animal extinction in mind It makes me to do sumthing for the welfare of animals.
I think that all animals should be free and that humans don't give a crap about them. People think that animals don't expierience physical and emotional pain but they are far more like us than everyone thinks and everyone should know that. We need to fight against animal cruelty and let animals be free. I think animals would be a lot better off if no human ever ate meat because we're not carnivores and we can live without meat.

Anyway my idea is to create awareness thru our medium as we deal a lot with nature & wild. their are many others who have created awareness & expressed their views thru their art & skills. plz have check with these links : plz watch every part of it.
& let me know if we can do anything to bring a change in every one of us.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLyppFpfuM8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqXu3XH_1wI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rRWLTGSNvg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5dU1kA4KBg&feature=response_watch & many more...

I apologize for writing a lenghty mail But I culdnt to stop myself to express my views.
Thnxs much for reading this.
I m just a enthusiast.
Vikas

thomwickes

03-27-2009, 11:23 AM

eeeek. while your hearts in the right place, that could easily be a thread killer.

I like your texturing - I think fluid texturing is such a hard thing to get right - I really hate when fluids look overtextured and it distracts from the actual simulation itself. Were those rendered in the hardware render buffer?

I'm going to have to pull my finger out and make the effort this weekend to get some work up in this thread.

viki164

03-27-2009, 11:45 AM

hey thomwickes!
Nope these are just playblast preview. I m still wrkin on texture part to make it luk gud.I m tryin to find a good balance between texture co-ordinates & with sim. AS like I said its a first pass.

eeeek. while your hearts in the right place, that could easily be a thread killer

Oh I know how I sound here.I got little senti but I m quite determine to create sum change.
I dont expect a mail trail for these but I m expecting a help from others.
Interseted folks can contact me on iamvikas20@gmail.com (http://forums.cgsociety.org/iamvikas20@gmail.com). so tht We dont mess with these current thread. I once again apologize for my personal views posted here.
thnxs much

havok3DZ

03-27-2009, 01:23 PM

Theres a piece of code you need to build in a compiler that allows you to emit fluids from a texture, ie allowing you to emit from white from an animated ramp for example. This is called "simpleFluidEmitter" and can be found in the devKit > plugins folder in your Autodesk application folder. Goodness knows why its not in the fluids menu?!

With a few basic mel commands you can hook it up and make magic!
I pulled off a simple demo here.. http://www.vimeo.com/3879228

Cheers Tok for your comments! ;=]

Can your explain more full how to do this? Look`s cool!

erikals

03-27-2009, 02:54 PM

@viki164

i guess we cannot escape from who we are, but we can still change,..
here in Norway some scientists are working at making meat, just the meat, nothing else.
it is simply done by making it gro over time inside a special refrigirator

the benefits are actually enormous if they finalize the process

-animals can live
-fish can live
-eliminates dangerous meat (as good as)
-supercheap
-less global warming
-nature can be preserved

there are differences in cultures/ countries when it comes to the ones that want to use it,
i feel though that it is a step in the right direction.
(no, u r not going to become a zombie)

(thought u might find it interesting) :)

(sorry, often skip the first lines, hope you feel better, it is just a process, sometimes long, sometimes short, i've had some loong ones, but it's a matter of getting the right state of mind :) )

erikals

03-27-2009, 03:07 PM

as for the shortfilm, focus on the positive, as ppl tend to avoid the negative, you'll get a broader audience, one will also get more energy by working on something positive/fun, compared to the other way around.

KidderD

03-27-2009, 03:34 PM

thomwickes

03-27-2009, 04:35 PM

Ohhhhh... this thread started so well too.

azshall

03-27-2009, 04:43 PM

Damn. This thread got real weird, ...real fast.

kdronez

03-27-2009, 05:12 PM

Further to the shortfilm. I think you should tackle, more of an animal cruelty angle, as opposed to a ban of human consumption of meat. Way too much history.

Back to the flame though, I did a few tests, the first two are just flame tests based on what I saw here. More of a physical simulation. The last one is python trickery that doesn't use a fuel or temperature. I have alot to learn about texturing though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nduPcUX4ZA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGBtIrMhcGM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl2rXC7P6F8

Wow preaty clean can you tell me the res of your fluid container pls :>.

Guys how you make that super cool thick puffy looking smoke?I try all day with no luck T_T.
Did you use billow for texture?

After countles fails to make thick smoke I change some of the colors and this is what I get :>.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItuO3daBDdc
Hope you will like it :>.

havok3DZ

03-27-2009, 07:23 PM

kdronez
run the simulation and stop in frame where the fluids looks well. Then turn IPR render and tweak the texture settings. I think you have high frequency.. I usually do this way to adjust

Aikiman

03-27-2009, 07:41 PM

Good stuff people, keep up the good work. @ kdronez make sure you check out the samples in visor for colouring thick smoke, things like puffball and nuke blast will show you some things or 2.

Can your explain more full how to do this? Look`s cool!

Im not 100% sure about PCs sorry (because I use Mac), but you will need a compiler something like VisualC++ which can be found here http://www.microsoft.com/express/ (http://www.microsoft.com/express/)http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/bb980924.aspx and Windows SDK (info thanks to Phildog). Once you've done that and installed your software you need to locate the project file in MAya>Devkit>plugins>simpleFluidEmitter.vcproj open it and build it. This will spit out a .mll file which you will then need to place into your plugins folder.

Thats the compiling and installing bit done, now how to use it.

Open Maya and go to your plugins manager and you should see simpleFluidEmitter.mll, load it. Basically it works like a normal particle surface emitter with texture rate turned on but instead of using the interface you have to use a couple of lines of code.

// Create emitter
createNode simpleFluidEmitter;

// Hook it up to surface
addDynamic fluidEmitter1 pCube1;

Create a normal ramp and hook that up to the emitter by using the connection editor. Fluid emits from white so make it a BW ramp.
Connect ramp outColor > texture rate simpleFluidEmitter
Now use the dynamic realtionship editor to connect the emitter and fluid and make the emitter a surface emitter.....that should do it!

To help you visualise the ramp, dump it onto your color input on your shader and animate it along the match! Burn baby burn!:buttrock:

kdronez

03-27-2009, 08:26 PM

Alright thx guys will try harder next time :>.
Btw my frequency was 2.6 with texture time=time*.5 .

Aikiman

03-27-2009, 10:07 PM

Alright thx guys will try harder next time :>.
Btw my frequency was 2.6 with texture time=time*.5 .

You should aninmate the texture origin in Y also like = time*-.05; so your texture climbs up.

kdronez

03-27-2009, 10:23 PM

You should aninmate the texture origin in Y also like = time*-.05; so your texture climbs up.
Alright thx again I will try that too :>.

KidderD

03-28-2009, 03:43 AM

Wow preaty clean can you tell me the res of your fluid container pls :>.

Guys how you make that super cool thick puffy looking smoke?I try all day with no luck T_T.
Did you use billow for texture?

After countles fails to make thick smoke I change some of the colors and this is what I get :>.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ItuO3daBDdc
Hope you will like it :>.

Woo.. I'm such a professional. No, I don't quite recall the container res. Judging by the rendering time though ~15min/400 frames, I'm going to guess 30x30x30 at the maximum.

kdronez

03-28-2009, 09:26 AM

Woo.. I'm such a professional. No, I don't quite recall the container res. Judging by the rendering time though ~15min/400 frames, I'm going to guess 30x30x30 at the maximum.
Awesome man same here max res 33/33/33 in my pc xD.

cgbeige

03-28-2009, 10:46 PM

ok - here's my problem. I can't seem to get volumetric wispy smoke with Maya (2D is easy but I need volumetric light). It all looks puffy. Is there some way of getting FumeFX's wispy 3D smoke?

BTW azshall, mac version maya still cant see a mel script inside a folder inside my scripts directory.

not sure what the problem is but I've never had a problem. make sure they are in:

/Users/YOU/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/2009/prefs/scripts

one nice thing about Maya's fluids vs Houdini's:

http://www.3eige.com/ars/mayafluidmp.jpg

16 threads on a Xeon Nehalem Mac Pro saturated. I gave up trying to use Houdini for print-res smoke because it barely does 2 threads. Soooooooooooooooooo slow.

kdronez

03-28-2009, 10:54 PM

cgbeige

03-28-2009, 11:12 PM

this is the type of smoke I need but can't get in 3D.

http://www.3eige.com/ars/volumetricwispy.jpg

Aikiman

03-29-2009, 10:41 AM

not sure what the problem is but I've never had a problem. make sure they are in:
/Users/YOU/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/2009/prefs/scripts

Wow thanks didnt know where my script directory was.. just being sarcastic there :-] So you are telling me you can source a script from within a directory that is in your scripts directory?

Im not sure why it doesnt work my end, Ive tried all 3 script directories with same results, must be user fault.

Re: your smoke, is that FumeFX smoke? Id say not just by looking at it....I cant get that with Maya fluids, I got the shading fairly close but the sim itself is lacking. I think Ive gotten better with multi points and motion blur. Attached is my fluid attempt.

viki164

03-29-2009, 10:58 AM

@ cgbeige :

have check :

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=86&t=155001&page=28&pp=15&highlight=particle+fluids

results for tht type can be achieved thru particles also :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLOjUXw5ymA

but with fluids can be little tricky I can give a try but not sure how close it wuld be with the ref.

hope the particle method might do a trick
Thnxs!

kdronez

03-29-2009, 11:57 AM

cgbeige

03-29-2009, 04:50 PM

thanks viki164 - I'll check that out. The incense looks good but my problem is that it all tends to fall apart up close. I do this stuff for print and it doesn't get the detail of that real image smoke above. It feels very solid tube-ish where you can see the real smoke thins and stretches more dynamically while still staying together. It's much the same effect as ink in water, which is why I considered doing this another way.

but I do agree that nparticles are probably better for this since I need to eventually direct them towards attractors.
(http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=331957)

cgbeige

03-29-2009, 05:33 PM

this is the closest thing I can find to good quality wispy smoke in Maya:

http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/blogs_duncan/blog_detail/ink_in_water_using_maya_fluids/

but again the problem is that it lacks detail. I think I'm going to just Photoshop this one. It's for a still image so it's probably a lot easier. I was just hoping to do this in one sim

is there a way to make something like the ink scene but with very little breakup of the smoke? What controls that?

Aikiman

03-29-2009, 10:49 PM

Damn I just cant make that smoke(cant make fluid emitter to emite it).The closest I get was with Opacity->center gradient and after that animate the texture time so I can get it moving.If some one make this only with fluids pls make tutorial after that rly want to learn how to do it :>.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4vrS2v-YEI&feature=channel_page

kdronez, you really have to use an emitter and the fluid dynamics to simulate this effect, have a look at something I came up with...
http://vimeo.com/3912682

Basically use a hi res container and emit density with a low bouyency and no turbulence but with small velocity swirl. I also placed a turbulence field up the top to break the fluid abit as it rose, this again has very low settings.

The rest is in the shader settings, use NO texturing. You want to create something similar to the flame presets in terms of opacity ramp but with a couple of spikes in the graph. The color graph I set to speed and mixed blue with a super white (8) to get some nice hot spots. Good Luck!

kdronez

03-30-2009, 04:38 PM

kdronez, you really have to use an emitter and the fluid dynamics to simulate this effect, have a look at something I came up with...
http://vimeo.com/3912682

Basically use a hi res container and emit density with a low bouyency and no turbulence but with small velocity swirl. I also placed a turbulence field up the top to break the fluid abit as it rose, this again has very low settings.

The rest is in the shader settings, use NO texturing. You want to create something similar to the flame presets in terms of opacity ramp but with a couple of spikes in the graph. The color graph I set to speed and mixed blue with a super white (8) to get some nice hot spots. Good Luck!
Alright thx man I will try it and if I made smth that look avarage or good will post it here xD.Good work tho (like that flame thrower too):>.
I hope that res 30-33/30-33/30-33 is high enough for this smoke :> (my sim slowdown alot after that res xD,even with cached fluid).
Btw when I saw KidderD's sims I tryed to make some cleaner low res sims.This is what I came up with-both are with res 30/30/30(actualy 2nd one is with 25/25/25 xD).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THLJt1120OE
Thx guys that you answer my(probably noobie for you)questions.

Cheesestraws

03-30-2009, 06:23 PM

Basically use a hi res container and emit density with a low bouyency and no turbulence but with small velocity swirl. I also placed a turbulence field up the top to break the fluid abit as it rose, this again has very low settings.

One thing to note here is that the turbulence field and the turbulence on the volume axis field are different. So it is sometimes worth playing around with both when trying to get the look you want.

In maya we have a vector noise class that models an incompressible turbulent wind. Currently it is used for the turbulence on the volume axis field (the actual turbulence field uses a different method), as well as the turbulence on fluid nodes and paint effects brushes. You can see the effects of it by assigning a volume axis field to particles that have zero conserve. On the volume axis field make the awayFromCenter = 0 and then set the various turbulence attributes as desired.

It is based on a Siggraph paper by Jos Stam and Eugene Fiume:
http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/sig93.pdf

The version we have does a spline interpolation over both space and time, which results in better motions than in the original implementation of the paper, which did a linear interpolations.

I suppose it would be good to expose this via a mel command. There are several attributes for building the noise table that are not currently exposed in the current UI.

Duncan

http://www.highend3d.com/maya/list_servers/maya_general/web_interface/88489.html

Aikiman

03-30-2009, 07:56 PM

One thing to note here is that the turbulence field and the turbulence on the volume axis field are different. So it is sometimes worth playing around with both when trying to get the look you want.

cool thanks Cheesestraws, I didnt know the 2 used different math. Looks like the paper on it requires a cup of coffee and a spare half an hour. ;o]

@ kdronez, your resolution is a little on the low end to be honest but if thats all your machine can handle then by all means stay at that res. (i know my machine at home is just like yours). As for your fire sims, they are nice for a flame burning a match, if you want something a little more fierce, pump up the temperature turbulence to 5 for example and increase the simulation scale rate to 2, try that.

tokanohanna

03-31-2009, 04:29 AM

Made an attempt to create wispy smoke. Used similar settings to Jeremy. No turbulence field. Dissipation needed to be over one to get the lifespan of wispy smoke.
Container was 200x200x200. Prolly better off using particles. Starcraft 2 trailer (marine soldier) had great wispy smoke in several shots. Looked like fluids though.

http://www.vimeo.com/3934264

ok - here's my problem. I can't seem to get volumetric wispy smoke with Maya (2D is easy but I need volumetric light). It all looks puffy. Is there some way of getting FumeFX's wispy 3D smoke?

not sure what the problem is but I've never had a problem. make sure they are in:

/Users/YOU/Library/Preferences/Autodesk/maya/2009/prefs/scripts

one nice thing about Maya's fluids vs Houdini's:

http://www.3eige.com/ars/mayafluidmp.jpg

16 threads on a Xeon Nehalem Mac Pro saturated. I gave up trying to use Houdini for print-res smoke because it barely does 2 threads. Soooooooooooooooooo slow.

Aikiman

03-31-2009, 05:40 AM

tokanohanna

03-31-2009, 05:59 AM

Smoke rings...... What you have in mind?
Man I wish I could go that high a rez! Hey tok you gave me an idea for the next challenge....smoke rings! ;+]

Aikiman

03-31-2009, 06:12 AM

Smoke rings...... What you have in mind?

Say somebody smoking a cigar and blows a smoke ring, fairly easy to do with particles, Im guessing virtually impossible to do with fluids unless one combines both fluids and particles together maybe?

kdronez

03-31-2009, 03:10 PM

I cant get good sim so I will just post some pics.I like the shape tho xD(I try with turbolence and turbolence field,but I didnt like the shape after that,I mean when I try with emitter :> ).I'm trying with emission from particles and some turbolence (fluid turbolence) now.If I get good result will post it :>.
http://img4.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=asdddy.jpg
Edit: fluid res 30/30/30

azshall

04-01-2009, 09:36 PM

Say somebody smoking a cigar and blows a smoke ring, fairly easy to do with particles, Im guessing virtually impossible to do with fluids unless one combines both fluids and particles together maybe?

You could try a Torus Volume Emitter with the help of a Volume Axis field to help push it out in the ring shape... Do like, burst puffs so its not a constant stream...

Aikiman

04-01-2009, 09:51 PM

You could try a Torus Volume Emitter with the help of a Volume Axis field to help push it out in the ring shape... Do like, burst puffs so its not a constant stream...

What are you waiting for? ;=] im not sure this would creating the rolling smoke like a smoke ring does though.
BTW, does the smoke in a smoke ring roll inwards going forward or outwards? I cant tell you cause I dont smoke. :=P

azshall

04-01-2009, 09:59 PM

What are you waiting for? ;=] im not sure this would creating the rolling smoke like a smoke ring does though.
BTW, does the smoke in a smoke ring roll inwards going forward or outwards? I cant tell you cause I dont smoke. :=P

Hahahah, well .. I am at work and would probably get my lights punched out if I stopped doing what they WANT me to do and do what I WANT to do :)

I don't smoke either :(

darktding

04-02-2009, 12:01 AM

problem is all fluid sims these days look like jelly fish flying up in the air...
initially I was impressed at the result of maya's or fumefx fluid simulators, but these days they all look gimmicky and don't actually look like the real effect.
I am still looking for a nice elegant artistic method of doing smoke/explosions... and haven't seen any good setups yet; the cop out is to slap a fluidbox and upres the shit out off it and simulate; and one ends up with jelly fish flying in the air...
maybe im just jaded and bored with this technique...

Aikiman

04-02-2009, 01:36 AM

Hahahah, well .. I am at work and would probably get my lights punched out if I stopped doing what they WANT me to do and do what I WANT to do :)
I don't smoke either :(

Ok I may give it a go, I have an idea that MAY work but i wouldnt hold your breath.

problem is all fluid sims these days look like jelly fish flying up in the air...
initially I was impressed at the result of maya's or fumefx fluid simulators, but these days they all look gimmicky and don't actually look like the real effect.
I am still looking for a nice elegant artistic method of doing smoke/explosions... and haven't seen any good setups yet; the cop out is to slap a fluidbox and upres the shit out off it and simulate; and one ends up with jelly fish flying in the air...
maybe im just jaded and bored with this technique...

Do you think its the Navier stokes solver itself or the lack of skill by people who use it? You can only do what you can with the tools that are out there.

darktding

04-02-2009, 02:43 AM

Do you think its the Navier stokes solver itself or the lack of skill by people who use it? You can only do what you can with the tools that are out there.

No I am not questioning the skill of artists, however I feel the look and the animation of fluid looking effects have become very consistent and lacks the "bend" of the artists touch.
All I am saying is the simulator has been used so many times in various effects in movies, that even my mom can recognize a fluid simulation ( not really I am just exaggerating :P) .
It is almost like looking at sub surface scattering for the very first time, and now these days it is cliched to over use it.
Personally I am trying to break away from using the fluid simulator; yes it is an awesome little tool, but there has got to be other ways to do fire, smoke, explosions with the complete artistic control.
End of the day, effects is all about entertaining the audience... it don't matter what you use, but I am here in a dynamic forum :)

edit:
yes artists ARE limited by the programming knowledge and the artistic eye. But that shouldn't mean imagination and thinking out off the box must shut off. If people have ideas and other ways to imagine how one could pull it off and even draw it on paper, coming up with a way to implement in a 3d package isn't far off....

Aikiman

04-02-2009, 03:15 AM

No I am not questioning the skill of artists, however I feel the look and the animation of fluid looking effects have become very consistent and lacks the "bend" of the artists touch.
All I am saying is the simulator has been used so many times in various effects in movies, that even my mom can recognize a fluid simulation ( not really I am just exaggerating :P) .
It is almost like looking at sub surface scattering for the very first time, and now these days it is cliched to over use it.
Personally I am trying to break away from using the fluid simulator; yes it is an awesome little tool, but there has got to be other ways to do fire, smoke, explosions with the complete artistic control.
End of the day, effects is all about entertaining the audience... it don't matter what you use, but I am here in a dynamic forum :)

edit:
yes artists ARE limited by the programming knowledge and the artistic eye. But that shouldn't mean imagination and thinking out off the box must shut off. If people have ideas and other ways to imagine how one could pull it off and even draw it on paper, coming up with a way to implement in a 3d package isn't far off....

Okay so you are bored with fluids, people here are not as good as you are and want to learn them, I guess thats why this thread exists.

BTW your demo reel has always inspired me espeically the fluids ;)

So do you think you could nail a smoke ring using fluids or is that just not inspiring enough for you? :-P

AFisette

04-02-2009, 04:11 AM

Hey guys,

I just started learning Maya this week and im working on a particle setup but i have a problem shading the particles with fluids. I checked the help menu and this is what it gave me:

http://download.autodesk.com/us/maya/2009help/index.html?url=Texturing_and_shading_fluids_Shade_particles_using_the_fluid_shape_shader.htm,topicNumber=d0e436338

Can anyone guide me step by step through the process? I tried in a fresh scene to create a particle emitter, set their render type to clouds (s/w), right clicked on the particles and assigned a fluid material and it showed nothing on the render.

BTW I'm using Maya Unlimited 2009 x64.

Also, is there any way to emit fluids from particles or instanced particles?

Thanks,

Anthony.

havok3DZ

04-02-2009, 10:28 AM

Thanks Aikiman for help on simplefluidemmiter :bowdown: all work like you say(special thanks to Bazuka for compiling .mll)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxgSrQJ2eec

Aikiman

04-02-2009, 10:34 AM

Thanks Aikiman for help on simplefluidemmiter :bowdown: all work like you say(special thanks to Bazuka for compiling .mll)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxgSrQJ2eec

Nice job! /thumbsup

kdronez

04-02-2009, 03:54 PM

havok3DZ

04-02-2009, 07:04 PM

Originally Posted by AFisette

Also, is there any way to emit fluids from particles or instanced particles?

Thanks,

Anthony.

Try to use this script
http://highend3d.com/maya/downloads/mel_scripts/dynamics/voxelMaster-5201.html

Aikiman

04-02-2009, 07:40 PM

btw Aikiman tell me too how to do that wood burning effect(you can send me PM if you want xD )pls :>.

Compile the plugin first and setup your scene then let me know what you like to know. Info on plugin a few posts back, cheers.

darktding

04-03-2009, 02:46 AM

Okay so you are bored with fluids, people here are not as good as you are and want to learn them, I guess thats why this thread exists.

BTW your demo reel has always inspired me espeically the fluids ;)

So do you think you could nail a smoke ring using fluids or is that just not inspiring enough for you? :-P

I am not bored, the point is technique and coming up with new methods to do effects. Fluids has that simulated look and even in my reel the stuff I have there isn't awesome. I did that in school, and working in production and looking at various demands in shots for movies it has opened my eyes that perhaps going simulated doesn't always end up looking right.
Sure learning how to push buttons and getting a simulated fire is great but the whole point of the thread is getting a fumefx look into maya and I am saying maybe taking the obvious route of using maya fluids might NOT be the way and that there could possibly be other ways to achieve the same look with greater control...

Aikiman

04-03-2009, 03:30 AM

Bonedaddy

04-03-2009, 05:20 AM

I am not bored, the point is technique and coming up with new methods to do effects. Fluids has that simulated look and even in my reel the stuff I have there isn't awesome. I did that in school, and working in production and looking at various demands in shots for movies it has opened my eyes that perhaps going simulated doesn't always end up looking right.
Sure learning how to push buttons and getting a simulated fire is great but the whole point of the thread is getting a fumefx look into maya and I am saying maybe taking the obvious route of using maya fluids might NOT be the way and that there could possibly be other ways to achieve the same look with greater control...

I generally agree. Even with the improvements that have been made on the method, it has a very homogenous look to it, which cannot be adequately shaped or controlled.

The way forward, as far as I'm concerned, has to do with better/deeper user control. I realize how mathematically difficult it is to achieve this, but allowing for fine-tuning of shape, hand placement of vortices, and predictable results when increasing resolution are all things that I'd very much like to see. Combine this with the ability to add lots of small-scale detail (necessary to establish anything on a large scale), and it gets pretty difficult to put together.

As it stands now, particles are still the most user-controllable method of doing fluid-type effects. They are integrated to a certain degree with fluids (in terms of fields, emission, etc), but I think that they could be more so (say, intelligently converting fluids to rgb-and-opacity-pre-set particles, using particle velocity as a field, better volumetric particle shading via fluids, etc).

And all that's to say nothing of changing the animation properties of Maya Fluids to be less homogenous. To be honest, I'm not sure that's possible, short of some new technology breakthrough.

Cheesestraws

04-03-2009, 08:28 AM

Bonedaddy

04-03-2009, 01:59 PM

Of course there is some interesting work (http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/mwb/) being done for rigid body dynamics right now, so perhaps we will have to wait till fluids become as run-of-the-mill as rigid bodies before we get cool ways to control them.

That does look cool! Kind of a "quantum mechanics" visual simulator.

darktding

04-03-2009, 03:47 PM

Cool what do you have in mind?

right now I am researching it... once I am done i will post here :)

Aikiman

04-03-2009, 08:06 PM

Ive always thought Autodesk most cost saving approach would be to develop its particle system further. Ive liked Realflows multitude of particle inter-relational options, if Maya went this way Id be quite happy. That way things like incompressible gas models could be explored more, particles could transfer attributes from one to another rather than based on lifespan or events. At the moment even nParticles appear to be pretty crude.

azshall

04-03-2009, 08:19 PM

http://physbam.stanford.edu/~fedkiw/

I'm sure everyone has seen Ron Fedkiw's stuff... Not just exploring Liquids and Gaseous stuff, ... Nice nonetheless

Cheesestraws

04-03-2009, 08:27 PM

Well at the moment they are slowly replacing each part of dynamics, with nParticles they seem to have just replace the core solver behind everything leaving instances goals collision events and such alone. I guess the next step is to replace each part of those, with the hope that they would all work with each of the various parts of nucleus. One of the fun things I was playing with the other day is instancing onto nCloth objects. As Duncan said on the forums they are planning on adding full expression support to nCloth so one would imagine it would extend to the other eventual areas too, this is the thing I like about nucleus once it is all added to Maya in theory it should reduce the amount of code they need to write to add features because it all works based off the same solver. Duncan also once talked of the possibility of adding some node-based system to work alongside current things. I would like to see something like the attribTransfer node of Houdini for moving data between different systems. They will have to add some form of attribute transfer between particles because otherwise SPH is crippled, currently we can have multiple interacting liquid simulations but they can not mix it is like oil and water.

Hmm, this is a messy post.

Aikiman

04-03-2009, 09:40 PM

It seems, from reading papers on the subject, that at the moment most research is going towards faster methods for simulating and achieving better interaction between solvers. There has been some research towards controlling fluid simulations, these (http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/control/fluidAdjoint.pdf) two (http://grail.cs.washington.edu/projects/control/smokeControl.pdf) papers even involved Jos Stam, but right now I think any advances in control of simulations are going to have to come out of companies like Autodesk or from work on big productions.

Of course there is some interesting work (http://graphics.cs.cmu.edu/projects/mwb/) being done for rigid body dynamics right now, so perhaps we will have to wait till fluids become as run-of-the-mill as rigid bodies before we get cool ways to control them.

Looks like your prayers are being answered Dark. Would be interesting to see how long this dev takes o cross over into Maya, BTW is Jos still working for AD? From reading the papers a lot of Fedkiws stuff is being used but there it seems like there is still a lot of dev yet to come based on optimising large complex sims. Very interesting stuff there! In the meantime I guess we are stuck with Navier Stokes.

Cheesestraws

04-03-2009, 09:48 PM

BTW is Jos still working for AD?

He wrote the SPH solver in nParticles and gave a talk on nucleus at last Siggraph so I would imagine he is still at Autodesk.

I think one of the things that frustrates me is that I see a paper like this (http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/people/stam/reality/Research/pdf/qtEG.pdf) which Jos was involved in and implemented into Maya yet we never got access to it in any release of Maya. In fact Softimage implemented it in version 5 I think.

Aikiman

04-03-2009, 10:20 PM

He wrote the SPH solver in nParticles and gave a talk on nucleus at last Siggraph so I would imagine he is still at Autodesk.

ok Im a bit behind the times. Regardless its not like its ground breaking stuff here, he probably found the code on some scribbled piece of napkin at the back of his sock drawer.

I think one of the things that frustrates me is that I see a paper like this (http://www.dgp.toronto.edu/people/stam/reality/Research/pdf/qtEG.pdf) which Jos was involved in and implemented into Maya yet we never got access to it in any release of Maya. In fact Softimage implemented it in version 5 I think.
Yeah whats up with dat shit? We're living in a conspiracy here...I guess you get used to it after a while seeing all this great dev stuff but not being able to play with it, a really common event for mac users a while back.

netsu

04-07-2009, 06:09 PM

This a playblast of an effect im working on where the person steps into a cube that is controlled by a holographic projection and then the holo cube thing fills with this power smoke stuff and then ends up coming to one point and entering the person. the idea is that the person steps into it and gets powered up. i have another effect im testing and i want to post that in a few minutes. am i not great with adjectives? this is all for a side project thing im messing with.
Test-Fluid (http://vimeo.com/3947959)

cgbeige

04-07-2009, 07:31 PM

if you're in the Toronto area, this could be interesting to check out:

Join us for a technical evening at our Toronto office. Discussion will cover the addition of exciting new fire and smoke tools in Houdini 10. Topics to be covered include a powerful new fluid up-resing technique, advanced noise and turbulence control, and a highly tweakable custom fire and smoke shader.

Presenters for this event include FX TD Coen Klosters (our talented intern from Bournemouth), special guest Mario Marengo (advanced shader writer), and Side Effects' senior developer (fluids) Jeff Lait.

Take the opportunity to chat with your peers and meet with some Side Effects' staff.
The evening will conclude with refreshments.

Houdini 10 Introduction to Fire and Smoke
Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
7:00pm - 9:00pm
Side Effects Software
123 Front Street West
Suite 1401
Toronto, Ontario
(in the Citigroup building at York and Front St. - right beside Union Station)

* Please RSVP directly to me before this Thursday, April 9 if you would like to register in advance and to better guarantee a seat. You can also pass this invitation along to others who may be interested.
After April 9 registrations will only be accepted on our website, where the event will be posted.

Hope to see you then. :-)

kdronez

04-07-2009, 08:26 PM

netsu

04-07-2009, 08:46 PM

No I used boujou and did a lot of tweaking to get it to look as good as i could as far as movement. Here is the other thing I was talking about

This was me messing around with the paint fluids tool. I quickly comped it together but the idea will later be to apply this effect to some footage i will record myself to kinda use the idea from the night crawler effect from x2. the idea i want to use later for my side project is to have someone or someones appendage turn into a smoke like inky kind of fluid and then come back together.

Kid-Poof (http://vimeo.com/4047582)

netsu

04-08-2009, 05:52 AM

while these are not fluid sims. i thought they would make good reference. you know try to re-create these effects in a fluid sim or even for shading ref.

Explosions (http://detonationfilms.com/free_stuff_page_2.htm)

destruct007

04-08-2009, 06:39 PM

Kid-Poof (http://vimeo.com/4047582)

Oh the Humanity! That poor child :(

On another note, I think the comping transition could use more love. Then make the smoke a bit more "puff" magicy by making a few more passes of similar setup and comp them over each other for more detailed looking smoke.

ah-fx

04-09-2009, 05:37 PM

Great Thread,

I am familiar with FumeFX and I've just started working in Maya. Lost of useful information in here for people trying to make the switch.

Thanks everyone.

Don3Don

04-09-2009, 08:36 PM

Great Thread,

I am familiar with FumeFX and I've just started working in Maya. Lost of useful information in here for people trying to make the switch.

Yes, really great thread here, but u must be kidding me that u want change to maya's fluid from fumeFX. Although I still love and stick to maya.. but fumeFx is still more easy to get richer details with same amount of voxel (even I turn on high-Detail in mayaFluid). In maya, I always get a pretty great result in playblast/viewport, but after render out the image, I usually get frustrated that the result is less detail and blurry than viewport, I have to fire up voxel to get sharper image.. (I didn't use texture mapping for the sim). FumeFx, always gave me details, sharper, and more happy result.

But this is not the most critial issue, I mean, with certain high-Res voxel still can get awesome result from maya's fluid. But FumeFX is built-in and naturally a "Fire and Smoke" sytem. Which it can emit smoke from Fire....natually... all the shading settings are separate, WE can only fake or cheat that in maya fluid, it is no way to get that fume's kind FireAndSmoke's look in Maya. (may be writing api can transfer fire container to one overlapping smoke fluid container to emit smoke and get some similar effect, but that's is doubling container, double effort...I can imagine how slow is it, even worst is, overlapping fluid means higher shading quality value), need to use fumeFX directly for that kind of situation.

I feel that fumeFX is easy or trend to have more wispy swirling sim, while maya's default is trend to swirling with a bigger scale looks.

I really hope coming up maya fluid would have more improve and more change to the core of the system. When first time seeing "what's new in fluid" in maya2009's doc, it was just changing the cache method..... I am pretty depress..

OR if fumeFX can plug into Maya, ......That would be so nice.
somehow I am sick of switching the whole software. I want stick to maya.

::p pls forgive my english..

viki164

04-09-2009, 09:31 PM

I feel that fumeFX is easy or trend to have more whispy swirling sim, while maya's default is trend to swirling with bigger scale looks result.

I feel both have their own good value with their respective look & feel. Like david (destruct007) said fume has its own stringy, wispy look which might not require in some cases but maya fluid has got good billowing nature of real smoke..refer to tokanhanna`s test & (u can see few mine test also..lol).!
which might be useful in most cases..!
So guys lets try n have sum good test or result here, the thread has been boring to me frm past few days.
All I see sum false promises for posting sum fluid test here so far.
may be people are too busy with thier routine wrk but anyway hope to see sum real kickass stuff from all fluid experts.
thnxs
Vik

Don3Don

04-09-2009, 09:58 PM

here are some of my study....

http://www.youtube.com/user/3donwong

Remi

04-09-2009, 11:22 PM

That particle emit to fluid one looked great!!! Nice work.

viki164

04-10-2009, 01:38 AM

here are some of my study....

http://www.youtube.com/user/3donwong

gud stuff But I noticed ur fluid sims are simply lilttle hi-res & are hardly doing any gud swirls or there is no billowing effect in it.
I believe u can still make lill more better with proper swirl settings. just have check with tokanhanna`s tricks. Hope u dont find this offensive.:-)
thnxs

cgbeige

04-10-2009, 05:32 AM

Don3Don (http://forums.cgsociety.org/member.php?u=821) - great work. Any chance you can post your blast code script? It would be great with the the voronoi shatter

kdronez

04-11-2009, 03:49 PM

here are some of my study....

http://www.youtube.com/user/3donwong
Awesome good stuff :>.
BTW whats better for that thick puffy clouds exept billow,becouse that slow my sim aloooooot,and most of the time I just use Perline Noise :>.
Ou and this is what I'm doing lately :>.Its not as good as Don3Don,but.... xD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7RqrKpsjUA -res 30/30/30
This is 2 sims from the same scene,but I put on most of the attributes random values so almost everytime when I play it I get little different result xD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4gq0Jy8wNo&feature=channel_page -res 30/60/30
Hope you will like it :>.

essencedesign

04-11-2009, 05:02 PM

your relying to much on texturing , you need much more res in those sims , texturing should be VERY minimal to add fine details.

I agree Don3Don , would be interesting to see your shatter script

Don3Don

04-12-2009, 12:24 AM

Remi, viki164, kdronez, essencedesign: Thx for ur comment.

gud stuff But I noticed ur fluid sims are simply lilttle hi-res & are hardly doing any gud swirls or there is no billowing effect in it.

viki164: u mean "Maya Fluid Rocket Launch" shot? It's an old work by few years b4, I didn't familiar with fluid at that time really well. That's really lack of swirling and billlowing as u said, and it is not a Hi-res container either.But, for the rest test, it does swirling for the smoke, for sure I can push it more, and actually, I don't have problem of pushing the swirling or billowing effect if I want.
But you know, I don't think more/over swirling and billowing is equals to better, it depends on the scale of the explosion and smoke, right?
And I know u understand maya's fluid, only simply hi-Res voxel is not enough to make a great simulation, it needs a lot of parameters settings come's together to get the result u wants. You have to fully understand every single parameter's meaning, then u would know what's going on... otherwise, we would own by maya's Fluid.
I know u want to give some suggestions for me, I don't feel offensive, thx for ur comment and tips from tokanhanna,destruct007 and others...

cgbeige, essencedesign:
About the mimic "blastCode" script, It won't handle the shatter part, it needs to pre-shattered the wall or objects, and it just handle the break and secondary debris.I'm sorry that this script is for work, I don't have right to share it...

Don3Don

04-12-2009, 01:14 AM

Awesome good stuff :>.
BTW whats better for that thick puffy clouds exept billow,becouse that slow my sim aloooooot,and most of the time I just use Perline Noise :>.
Ou and this is what I'm doing lately :>.Its not as good as Don3Don,but.... xD
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7RqrKpsjUA -res 30/30/30
This is 2 sims from the same scene,but I put on most of the attributes random values so almost everytime when I play it I get little different result xD.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4gq...re=channel_page -res 30/60/30
Hope you will like it :>.

THx kdronez, and I agree with essencedesign said about ur fire test, but for ur question about the thick puffy clouds, if u are saying to make a 3D cloud, (I mean the cloud in the sky), I usually use "space time" noise, and never use billow (duncan mention that is way slow). The different between "spaceTime noise" and "perlin noise" is the look of noise pattern's changing over time, "perlin noise" is just traslate each noise level pattern, while "spaceTime" is really chaging the whole noise pattern's look. So, if u are making a still, or no need to key the cloud's pattern, "perlin" and "spaceTime" are similar to me.

If u are talking about swirling and billowing smoke, got to be rely on real simulation, get away from using texture, except, u can't afford the time and it is not aim for physical correct/ real looks of smoke.

And one thing, I would say, if u just want to try and error, or just for testing, random value for testing attr of fluid is fine. but if it is about working on real shot, I would make my sim identical every time I play it again. Otherwise, it is a big trouble......
Tune the value to improve ur sim, but u need to know what it is going on, to control it...
if not, it is being to be control by fluid.... :)

I learned a lot from David Schoneveld (destruct007) fluid tutorial DVD.

viki164

04-12-2009, 01:27 AM

viki164: u mean "Maya Fluid Rocket Launch" shot? It's an old work by few years b4, I didn't familiar with fluid at that time really well.

:) yup! my comment was on ur rocket launch I was expecting to see more rolling instead of rising up..but like u said they were ur first tries..NeverMind it was a gr8 start though infact my first fluid test were pretty bad & I learned a lot from my mistakes. I m glad tht i made mistakes just to get familiar with bad setiings so tht I dont reprdouce them again!

rest of ur study on fluids look cools!
keep up the good wrk & if possible share ur experience or tricks with us..as I believe sahring helps us to learn more from each other..thts wt this thread is meant to be.
hope to hear more from u on ur rest of the fluid wrk.

In the spirit of Maya Fluid I share my explosion tries of wt I did few weeks back.
the video for the same of what I already posted earlier can be seen here :
http://www.vimeo.com/3878442

hope to see more better results on explosions from all!
cheers!
thnxs much!

kdronez

04-12-2009, 07:42 AM

My computer cant handle high res thats why I'm trying to make smth with low res, and why I'm depending on textures T_T.I used random values just for fun :> most of the time I'm using random values to 1 option to check how it will look and when I like it I del the expression and take that value xD.
BTW I try space time 2-3 times,but didnt like the result so I stop to use it :>.
Can you tell me the name of that DVD that you mention pls :>.Can send me PM if you want :>.
THX for advises tho :>.
EDIT: NVM about the DVD found the name :>.

stooch

04-12-2009, 06:25 PM

That way things like incompressible gas models could be explored more, particles could transfer attributes from one to another rather than based on lifespan or events. At the moment even nParticles appear to be pretty crude.

heh. there is no such thing as incompressible gas. by its nature, gas has to be compressible. water and other liquids are incompressible however.

some nice examples here. i started playing with this effect a while back, but ran into some maya limitations. I have alot of experience using particles for effects and in many ways i prefer the control particles give me. (alot of lightwave hypervoxels in my past)

Here is what i have:

http://www.stooch.net/outgoing/dmFX_test10.mov

this is a low res simulation (30x30x30). its initial burst is driven by force fields, however it gets its turbulence through fuel/heat reaction. Most of the detail you see is in the texture settings. Obviously there is an additional emitter for debris, using instancing (broken maya feature!! the item instances dont seem to advance their index value when batch rendering :( ).

entire effect is scripted, so all animation curves are mel generated to allow for a more intuitive interface. the light source is actually a point light in the center of the explosion. so you simply type in the frame when you want it to start. edit some general intuitive parameters and place it where you want.

my next idea that i wantt o play with is to emit traditional particles to get the overall behavior and then use that particle simulation as the density emitter inside a fluid shape. (to achieve those nice burning debris with trails effect)

personally i feel that the ultimate limitation of fluids is that they must be contained. to me this is a HUGE obstacle that dooms fluids. If there was only a way to do away with a container. maybe by expanding by the required container cells as soon as some density threshold is achieved at the boundary of the outer most cell. and internalize the whole concept of containers, so that as far as the artist is concerned, there is no perceptible boundary.

Aikiman

04-12-2009, 11:48 PM

heh. there is no such thing as incompressible gas. by its nature, gas has to be compressible. water and other liquids are incompressible however.

personally i feel that the ultimate limitation of fluids is that they must be contained. to me this is a HUGE obstacle that dooms fluids. If there was only a way to do away with a container. maybe by expanding by the required container cells as soon as some density threshold is achieved at the boundary of the outer most cell. and internalize the whole concept of containers, so that as far as the artist is concerned, there is no perceptible boundary.

mmm I got my language mixed up there it seems, correct me if I am wrong though, I thought the Navier Stokes method calculated incompressible solutions only?

Reading some of the very interesting research papers ppl have linked, it looks as though voxels are here to stay for a while anyway. I dont know if you have seen it or not but Cosku made a plugin that builds the fluid boundary based on voxel/density. The only problem is you cant cache a fluid where the boundary keeps changing.

stooch

04-13-2009, 12:47 AM

mmm I got my language mixed up there it seems, correct me if I am wrong though, I thought the Navier Stokes method calculated incompressible solutions only?

Reading some of the very interesting research papers ppl have linked, it looks as though voxels are here to stay for a while anyway. I dont know if you have seen it or not but Cosku made a plugin that builds the fluid boundary based on voxel/density. The only problem is you cant cache a fluid where the boundary keeps changing.

well physically speaking what defines gas is the fact that its compressible by nature while liquids like water, etc are not. so if you are going to make a solver based on reality, then gas has to compress. heat of gas is directly related to its expansion/compression :) just ask mr pipebomb.

yeah i tried expanding boundaries with mel too. i thought i was really clever until i realized i couldnt cache it lol.

but maybe its possible to cache it if they figured it out? that would be cool. ideally id like all this boundary stuff to happen under the hood though. and by expanding i dont mean increasing the row/column count. I want to see a solver that generates individual cells.

viki164

04-13-2009, 06:18 PM

hmmm...Looks like No one is intersted in doing or discuss about Explosions here:curious:
it was a waste for me to post my stuff here :-(
NeverMind!

erikals

04-13-2009, 06:23 PM

i am, i'm just superbusy atm,.. don't have the time just now...
hopefully i'll get into fluids shortly... [crossing fingers and toes]

kdronez

04-13-2009, 07:32 PM

hmmm...Looks like No one is intersted in doing or discuss about Explosions here:curious:
it was a waste for me to post my stuff here :-(
NeverMind!
What do you mean we all love explosions boooooom! xD.
Btw I was wandering what light did you use for that explosion ?Real light or...?
I ask this becouse I realise that you can get lots of detail (after render) only with self shadow options :>.
Ou and 1 more question what indirect lighting option did you use for render with mental ray (if you use it ofcourse xD ) ?
Aaaaaaaand 1 last thing how can I do that booooom! effect like lots of light and after that smoky stuff :>.I key my glow intensity from 1 to 0,but the effect was horrible T_T.Do I have to key other options or smth ?

stooch

04-13-2009, 07:42 PM

hmmm...Looks like No one is intersted in doing or discuss about Explosions here:curious:
it was a waste for me to post my stuff here :-(
NeverMind!

i just posted an explosion like 2 posts back...

Aikiman

04-13-2009, 08:33 PM

hmmm...Looks like No one is intersted in doing or discuss about Explosions here:curious:
it was a waste for me to post my stuff here :-(
NeverMind!

looking good Vikas, I particularly like your tornados the most /thumbsup! Are you still rotating your container so X axis is up? There are the best tornados Ive seen yet!

erikals

04-14-2009, 01:58 AM

i just posted an explosion like 2 posts back...

i like the speed/pof effect,... but i think it should not be bouble, but rather whispy smoke, as the dimension of it looks to be small. either that, or the other way around, way more boubles/curls (bout x10 more)

viki164

04-14-2009, 02:55 AM

Well!..thnxs everyone for attention I thought like tornado thing my explosion test will also get refused As I was expecting more tornado results or further improvements from other people..
But no results yet so far So I decided I`ll continue on my own. I tried all sort of things like drag technique & multiple volume axis field but nothing gave me decent & stable results.

The reason for rotating d container was as the default nature of fluid`s buoyancy is set to Y & in most of my test keeping Y straight up gave some breaking in tornado & some mushroom eddies which I wanted to avoid hence rotated in X & letting my fluid rise up in a rotational manner with Volume Axis Field instead of Using Buoyancy..
At the moment I m going crazy with resolution But the sim takes allmost lik 10 - 12 hrs to simulate at 300 150 150... as my scale of the fluid is also little big as compared to my previous test.

Cuming to explosions...I m planing to a detail study on mushroom explosion to powdery explosions. Have any one used radial field with fluid so far???
coz I m getting sum good spread or burst out feel with radial field by keying its magnitude for first few frames & then later swirl taking over the sim. If the excitement in this thread is still active.. I`ll post sum results soon!

@ kdronez : No real lights I have used yet in my test so far..have check with the file I have uploaded. they are with default lighting & those videos are playblast. In most cases when we are time crunched in production I tend to use HW renders or playblast for most of the smoke effects.
I agree rendering gives more detail & cumin to indirect lighting If I were U, I`ll start of with sun & sky lighting & doing some gamma corrections as to avoid washed out look.

On a personal note.. Kdronez ur most of the test are not impressive..sorry to say tht But trying to be honest & real. But on the other hand u been constantly improving :-) I wuld rather avoid using maya`s glow at this stage, Infact I might do it in post to enhance the glow. For the boom or base fire I might use another small fluid container & then try to gel with the bigger smoky fluid.

@ Aiki : thnxs mate I love ur new Avatar. those tornados are only good for personal Rnd`s..As U know We cant apply a bend, deform or choreograph the fluid according to director`s view. So its not 100% production ready technique! :-(
but some cheat can be done in post with 2d grid wrapping or mesh wrapping. have check with my recent improvements & soon i`ll post sum videos..

thnxs
Vik

Aikiman

04-14-2009, 04:55 AM

Hey Vikas Im loving the detail you are getting with your tornado's! I was just thinking from recent info you have the Stroika plugins? You could always try the flow field example and extract the particle velocity to create your velocity flows in the fluid. That way you can animate the curve and maybe parent the fluid emitter to one end, just an idea not too sure how succesful that would be though.

Im trying to do a tornado myself but its looking a bit weak atm, if I have the guts Ill post a lame animation up on Vimeo.

thnxs mate I love ur new Avatar.

ty, her name is Sophia and turned 7 months last week. Most of my spare time is taken up by her now but shes worth every minute ;)

kdronez

04-14-2009, 03:53 PM

@ kdronez : No real lights I have used yet in my test so far..have check with the file I have uploaded. they are with default lighting & those videos are playblast. In most cases when we are time crunched in production I tend to use HW renders or playblast for most of the smoke effects.
I agree rendering gives more detail & cumin to indirect lighting If I were U, I`ll start of with sun & sky lighting & doing some gamma corrections as to avoid washed out look.

On a personal note.. Kdronez ur most of the test are not impressive..sorry to say tht But trying to be honest & real. But on the other hand u been constantly improving :-) I wuld rather avoid using maya`s glow at this stage, Infact I might do it in post to enhance the glow. For the boom or base fire I might use another small fluid container & then try to gel with the bigger smoky fluid.

Vik
Dude I cant offend from a pearson who is pro and do this from a loooong time (probably xD).
I'm learning(trying to learn xD) maya when I'm free its not my job,so I'm glad that you and (if theres some one else xD) like some of my stuff it makes me happy ^^ xD.
Thx for the advices tho :>.

Don3Don

04-14-2009, 04:44 PM

hmmm...Looks like No one is intersted in doing or discuss about Explosions here
it was a waste for me to post my stuff here :-(
NeverMind!

I think many of us are interested in doing explosions or all kind of nature phenomenon here, and we did share some of our stuff here too.... (u mean the scene file? I appreciate that), but your stuff is not waste for sure.

No real lights I have used yet in my test so far..have check with the file I have uploaded. they are with default lighting & those videos are playblast. In most cases when we are time crunched in production I tend to use HW renders or playblast for most of the smoke effects.

I did posted and asked duncan about this issue, playblast give us the fastest way to render (hardware render) out fluid, it trade off a lower qaulity of final image (maybe more details than software render out), but it is limited to 45 degree of bluit-in internal light (real light button off in fluid), so most of the case can't be match for the lighting of the shot to me, but it still a choice. Duncan did mention about he would like to add the ability of tunning the rotation of the internal-light direction, I still waiting for that.....
but software render/ MR render is getting faster and the speed is not that bad to me thru.

My most concerning and next studying area is the initial burst of the explosion, so far using the particle to set velocity to the voxel at the beginning seems most workable, other than that maybe using field, or even re-time the cache. My test is missing the initial burst or still not burst out naturally.... needs to have a better initial burst shape...

Actually, I am going to re-create the tank explosion shot in ironman for personal study, if I have something new, I would like to post. I have my missile test ready, right now is the hard part, cg explosion. :)

kdronez: my early attemps are totally worst than yours, and I know my sim is still far away from looking realistic even now. let's keep studying. The best tutorial of making explosion is learning from live explosion, I downloaded a lot of it form youtube, I guess u may have some too, try to figure out how the real things look like.

The most realistic tornado I've seen so far are ILM's one, day after tomorrow and david's nike commerial one, viki164 yours tornado looks great, but is not about that kind of scale (may be it can apply to that scale of tornado...needs to test it). I hope David could give us some breakdown or more details in nike's commerial tornado.

Aikiman: beside Stroika, up in my head have other choice like, goalU goalV stuff (old tricks), deforming particles? and maya 2009's curve field (not test by myself yet).

cheers.

Don3Don

04-14-2009, 05:33 PM

and back to the topic "Maya Fluid Effects vs FumeFx"

I would like Maya Fluid can add some wonderful feature from FumeFX or from others Fluid Engine:

1. change to fire and smoke base, or 2 medium base, which we can tune the fire shading like "opacity curve" without affecting smoke. And the smoke actually is emitting from the fire.

2. expanding voxel as simulation needs, many of us mentioned before. (I know there are one plugin to do that), but I want it offically to do that. Or do eactly as fumeFX, first, u define the container's resolution, then it will take voxel into account just as needs and keep expanding that, to speed up the simulation.

3. I have no idea why maya's fluid don't have a built-in "emitFromTexture" function. It should be there from day one. I did some tricks to mimic this, but yes, hell slow for Hi-res voxel. And I can't write api to speed that up.... I just know how to script. :sad: :banghead:
I mean emitFromTexture for every attr like, density, color...etc.

4. up-res the simulation, this is new to me. I saw it from some paper, and latest houdini's fluid engine, which sounds so great. Basically it is start sim a low-res, and use this low-res sim cache, to up-res to a Hi-res container. I suppose this up-res process is a lot more fast than real simulation for that HiRes voxel.
http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1464&Itemid=316

more ideas?

viki164

04-14-2009, 08:41 PM

@kdronez:
Dude I cant offend from a pearson who is pro and do this from a loooong time (probably xD).
I'm learning(trying to learn xD) maya when I'm free its not my job,so I'm glad that you and (if theres some one else xD) like some of my stuff it makes me happy ^^ xD.
Thx for the advices tho :>. __________________
Maya Fluids own xD.

haah! dude ur test were so pity tht it made me to comment like tht..lol. I especially uploaded my test for U. I know its not the best e.g though it might give u a good start. btw I m not pro I m just a fluid freak at age of 24. trying to get more out of a box. Like Don+3Don said " lets keep studying or learning" So as I do all the time learnign from both bad & good experiences.hope to see sum kickass stuff from U. btw Wt does XD means??

@ Don3Don :

My most concerning and next studying area is the initial burst of the explosion, so far using the particle to set velocity to the voxel at the beginning seems most workable, other than that maybe using field, or even re-time the cache. My test is missing the initial burst or still not burst out naturally.... needs to have a better initial burst shape...

tht sounds very promising to me..coz I hav often seen in maya fluid explosions tests lacking those intial streaky burst. I have been cracking my skull on achieving tht inital burst & I end up cheating in comp or covering with glow. I m too curious to know how to achieve tht intial burst with those fine streaky fluids for doing powdery explosions. I thought using particle layer will help me to get tht feel but later it doesnt get gel with rolling fluid smoke. your help in these regard will open up many doors for us to achieve a good expolsions or blast. So u think emitting fluids from particles for the start few frames will help us to get those fine streaky edge in fluid explosion sim??? Do let us know How U plan to achieve tht.

I think many of us are interested in doing explosions or all kind of nature phenomenon here, and we did share some of our stuff here too.... (u mean the scene file? I appreciate that), but your stuff is not waste for sure.

may be Yes but not exactly the scene files it can be more on trick of doing & achieving particular effect as many people dont find it comfortable for sharing thier files. But to Me I m always open for sharing coz my assest are my skills which resides in mind not with the scene or test files.
"Some people don't want to help other artist because they feel they compete with them. I feel we can all help each other and all be better, learn more, push each other to excell." thts not my line its been told by David (destruct007) So as I believe.

I have no idea why maya's fluid don't have a built-in "emitFromTexture" function. It should be there from day one. I did some tricks to mimic this, but yes, hell slow for Hi-res voxel. And I can't write api to speed that up.... I just know how to script.

If its really getting slow as hell then u must try simplefluidemitter plugin. Its fast as heaven & reads value from texture & emits into fluid container. have a try I m sure U`ll love the speed. or mail me "iamvikas20@gmail.com" or ask Aikiman about simplefluidemitter!

thnxs
Vik

Aikiman

04-14-2009, 09:50 PM

I have no idea why maya's fluid don't have a built-in "emitFromTexture" function. It should be there from day one. I did some tricks to mimic this, but yes, hell slow for Hi-res voxel. And I can't write api to speed that up.... I just know how to script. :sad: :banghead:
I mean emitFromTexture for every attr like, density, color...etc.

You can build and activate the plugin for a texture rate surface emitter but thats all it can do AFAIK. Unfotunately Maya isnt as procedural as we would like. Why you cant connect the red value for the outColor into the density emission rate while you have a red ramp beats me. This is the kind of stuff that is backwards Maya for me, all the power is there waiting to be unleashed but all you get is a brick wall >> :banghead:

Duncan

04-14-2009, 09:51 PM

How Do i get streaky motion in fluid explosion in the start like for first few frames.??

The fluid node models the "air" part of the blast, which is more or less incompressible. However the streaks are a result of the complex interaction of dirt chunks with the air. As the dirt chunks move through the air parts break off. The smaller bits float passively in the air(like smoke), but the larger bits are heavier and move through the air with less drag(and thus also fall to the ground at different rates based on the size). To model this I would combine a particle system with the fluid node. One might have an initial blast of particles that then in turn acts as a particle emitter... as a particle emits particles it would lose mass until its size went to zero and it dies. Inside a particle expression one could have the secondary particles emit into the fluid node(there are expressions for doing this on some threads here), simulating breaking up into fine dust. One could emit into the fluid velocity from the particles(inside the expression).

For rendering the dirt particles one could use the software cloud method, although thickCloud(i.e. fluid shader) might look better for larger chunks. Also one will typically need to increase the fluid volume samples override to get good integration of the fluid and particle render.

One of these days I'll create a tutorial for this on my blog.

A fake for the streaks is to use noise with the implode attribute( see the puffball fluid example).

why is it taking swirl more than 20-22 value makes most of my sim unstable..

Swirl adds energy to the fluid simulation to try to increase small scale vortices, which typically get overly damped by the simulation. Large swirl values will always be unstable. The fluid is only guaranteed to be stable when highDetail solve is off and there is no swirl. I would generally recommend, however, using high detail solve with swirl zero or low and as high a resolution container as you can manage with no texturing. The high res fluid may actually render faster than a low res one with textures. With highDetailSolve you need to be carefull that the velocities are not too large relative to the voxel size or it will become unstable. When high velocity and high resolution are required, one can cache with oversampling to avoid instability.

To get good billowing I've found it useful to use the fuel grid. The fuel can release heat into the temperature grid as it burns, and in this fashion a mushroom cloud can continue to get energy to drive the vortex. The temperature should have high dissipation with high buoyancy and turbulence, so that it is locally hot and turbulent where burning. (the overall simulation is more complicated with fuel, however... it would not be of use for a simple dirt explosion like the one your streaky example).

Duncan

thomwickes

04-14-2009, 10:38 PM

One of these days I'll create a tutorial for this on my blog.

that...would be amazing.

Cheesestraws

04-14-2009, 10:59 PM

One of these days I'll create a tutorial for this on my blog.

This would indeed be great, though I like to believe that the reason you have not updated your blog in some time is that you are working extra hard on cool new features. :)

Junaidishtar

04-15-2009, 09:09 PM

tokanohanna

04-16-2009, 06:11 AM

I would always prefer FumeFx over Maya fluid. Ffx results are much accurate and appealing to the end user. The great thing is the interaction with the particles and the use of textures.
Maya fluids are also cool esp when it comes to compete with Houdinis crappy fluids.

By the looks of it, soon Houdini will be hard to beat when it comes to Fluids. Fume definetely executes specific styles of smoke better than Maya. But I strongly believe that Maya has advantages in other areas. Rocket or shuttle smoke, nukes, things of that nature. When it comes to fine detail smoke, wispy smoke, and quick explosions, that require fast dissipation, Fume has the edge. (or does it?........I 'm sure I'll get a debate from those maya fluid experts). Guess it all depends on the user.

Had a few hours to play with some fluids. This sim was driven by fuel. Don't like to use fuel much, but it can be good. Textured using temperature. Prefer speed though.
Res for containers where 230x345x230(top), 225x75x225(base).

http://www.vimeo.com/4177703

Cheesestraws

04-16-2009, 07:47 PM

Houdini's new fluid features do look amazing, and the ability to distribute the solve over a network is a feature I have always wanted in Maya. Although, the penultimate clip in this video just proves that you really can't get away with using a very low res and up the res really large amounts.

http://www.sidefx.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&Itemid=322&id=1487

We really need to get some similar features in Maya. Being able to define different regions within the simulation to split into separate shaders, so we can have a different look for flames thick smoke and whispy smoke all from same simulation. An easier way of visualising how of each of the component parts affect the simulation without having to change the entire shading setup.

cgbeige

04-16-2009, 08:16 PM

nice to see SideFX trying to make Houdini more accessible - it still scares the shit out of me. I tried to get some smoke done before with 9.5 but it takes so long to get up and running with that app, and it didn't help that the fluid solver can only get 2 out of 16 threads on my Mac Pro. Maya 2009 saturates 16 threads. Downloading 10 now to see if it's any better.

thomwickes

04-17-2009, 08:52 AM

Although, the penultimate clip in this video just proves that you really can't get away with using a very low res and up the res really large amounts.

That big grey blobby thing? yeah, I threw up when I saw that.

Cheesestraws

04-17-2009, 09:06 AM

That big grey blobby thing? yeah, I threw up when I saw that.

Yeah it looks like they have increased the resolution far far too much, it will be interesting to test what kind of percent increase you can get without it looking terribly fake

It is something I noticed when I first read through the wavelet turbulence paper, in some examples you have all this secondary motion but because it is not a real simulation it does not affect the overall shape.

thomwickes

04-17-2009, 09:57 AM

It looks like overly textured fluids in maya with just the animated texture movement. Looks gross. There's no substitute for a hi-res sim.

netsu

04-19-2009, 09:03 PM

Aikiman

04-19-2009, 09:12 PM

Im working on some effect for an independent film and i have been staring at things too long.any suggestions to make this look better would be awesome. any at all even if it means starting over from scratch.

Test-Boom (http://www.dougvfx.com/test-boom.mov)

Not bad...but the explosion appears too large all of a sudden, it needs to start smaller. Also try knocking back your opacity texturing a little or dont use any at all. Theres a lot of density being eaten away on the edges of the fluid ecause of it.

Apart from that its a good shape, I wouldnt start from scratch unless you really have to.

tokanohanna

04-20-2009, 02:42 AM

Im working on some effect for an independent film and i have been staring at things too long.any suggestions to make this look better would be awesome. any at all even if it means starting over from scratch.

Test-Boom (http://www.dougvfx.com/test-boom.mov)

Hey netsu,

I agree with Jeremy regarding your opacity settings. The overal shape is quite nice, but due to you texturing opacity the nuke's dissipation is not behaving correctly. What are your swirl, turbulence, and sim scale settings? Trying playing with those a bit. Otherwise nice job. It's almost there.

netsu

04-20-2009, 04:33 AM

Hey netsu,

I agree with Jeremy regarding your opacity settings. The overal shape is quite nice, but due to you texturing opacity the nuke's dissipation is not behaving correctly. What are your swirl, turbulence, and sim scale settings? Trying playing with those a bit. Otherwise nice job. It's almost there.

sweet,
when i go in tomorrow i will make those adjustments and see where it goes. on a related note. as it stands right now the ring around the mushroom is a separate sim. im having an issue trying to get the look of the way i looks in an atomic explosion. in all of the footage i have seen there is the white light and then the ring looks like it just appears. how do you think i should go about recreating the ring on the ground around the explosion?

netsu

04-20-2009, 04:40 AM

i just saw a good example of how to maybe pull that off in one of Aikiman's examples.
im gonna try it but any comments would be that much more helpful

fomal

04-20-2009, 07:50 AM

Yeah it looks like they have increased the resolution far far too much, it will be interesting to test what kind of percent increase you can get without it looking terribly fake

It is something I noticed when I first read through the wavelet turbulence paper, in some examples you have all this secondary motion but because it is not a real simulation it does not affect the overall shape.

Just on a little note, all the examples shown in the blast off video have been upressed. All of them don't use wavelet turbulence, but curl (I'm not a big fan of wavelet). And the low res sims didn't go higher then 70^3, upressed to max 250. The big blob was just to demonstrate a 1k sim distributed on a farm. Normally you would never do this unless you have a higher resolution base sim

Next to that, It is totally possible to reshape your sims at the up res stage, depending on your initital turbulence settings and velocity update and field advection settings. Once you understand the data that get's passed through, almost anyhting is possible (redistributing your fuel by pumping it through a secondary layer of noise etc) You just have to accept the fact that no external forces or initial field calculations update the velocity, just your hand. And why is that a bad thing?

But it does save you a hell lot of time, and you get away with way more iterations of the same effect.