Lava animation

[jjburton]

Displacement map with a procedural?

[zaam]

Hypervoxels can make great looking lava. I think there's a preset available if you look around a bit — maybe presetcentral.com? As for the difference in top and bottom layers, you could apply some drag to the hypervoxels as they interact with the surface below, or you could use 2 emitters and apply less gravity or less mass to the one beneath.

[SplineGod]

It depends on the shot really. Is it lava coming out of a volcano, a a lake of lava, lava flowing etc?
You can do some interesting effects with (bump)displacement maps, normal displacement and/or gradients and procedurals. You can also use a texture map on a plane of just vertices and use to activate HVS on them and do your lave flow that way.
You can also use strings of points that are conformed to an objects surface as guides for HVs like THIS (http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/ooze.avi) or use guided particle emiiters to have tendrils of lava grow like THIS (http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/vine.avi)
You can also use shift spline transform and geometry to get a lava object to flow and bend and its easier then the bone/morph trick. :)

[scroll-lock]

well, i tried with HVoxels already... they don`t look too good. I`m trying to make it with with Bones and Serpent modifier, to follow a path... i`ll see what can it do.
10x for the help.

[SplineGod]

I wouldnt use serpent, theres much faster ways. Do you have an idea of how you want the lava to look?

[scroll-lock]

yes, it must looks very real :) : For example something like this:

http://www.sokerov.com/web_animation/lava.zip

But!!! I have to make it with complex movements - like falling down the stairs. It has to spill, to gather again... etc. I think the difficult thing is the texturing...What do you suggest?

[scroll-lock]

anybody? with other suggestion?

[HowardM]

Wow, thats nice lava...whats it made with?
It looks like you could pull that off easily using polygons and a surface...morphing the polys to roll like that...along with the surface...

[SplineGod]

That lava avi file looks pretty good. The only thing that bothers me is that it looks like an image map. The crust on it bends and distorts like the rest of it when it should be more rigid. :)

[scroll-lock]

yes it`s made with morph. But it is very difficult to make such thing falling down the stairs, having complex movements, etc. I`m trying different variants, but it`s just not so good :(

[HowardM]

ahh...then definitely use HVs and PFX to make particles slowly moving down stairs...
You can use a similar lava texture on your HVs...

[zaam]

I see what you mean by the crust moving at a different rate than the part below. That's what's not happening in your avi, but the surfact you created looks good. I still think HVs are the way to go. Even combining HVs with the technique you used could be more convincing and saving on render time, although the options for movement/interaction may not be quite what you need or what you could get with HVs alone.

[Facial Deluxe]

Wow, your lava is real good.
Keeping your shader setting, I would try to drop the "lava band" on stairs using MD, could fall nicely.
Would be worthy to try with some HV too.

[scroll-lock]

NO! but that`s not my lava :) My lava is falling. This one is made by A.Sokerov.

[Neoklassik]

hmm.. have you tried metaballs?

[scroll-lock]

yes, but the textures are difficult to make with metaballs, because the texture must rotate.. The best i`ve done so far is a Lava /mesh object/ with bones combining it with HV. But i`m still workin on it.

[Mike Pauza]

Originally posted by scroll_lock
Please someone give me a suggestion about a lava animation. I wonder what is the best way

To do just one specific animation I would listen to the great advice you've already gotten. To do lava animation in general you really want to use a smart particle system. If you have a budget and have to do it now, look at RealFlow. I'm guessing LW8 with have smart particles though if you can wait.

-Mike

[HowardM]

Here (500k QTSorensen3) (http://www.3dink.com/lava1.mov) is a HV test with the lava preset tweaked a little...depending on your shot, and need for realism vs style, this could totally work..and is simple to set up using PFX and Collision Objs...

[scroll-lock]

hm.. yes HowardM very good one! I already did it that way.. But i must tweak the settings in the next few days. I will see what i can do. Thanks to all of you! I hope this thread will be in use of other people too, because i didn`t found any like this on anyone forum or tutorial. Good luck everyone in 3 dimensional worldzzzz :PP

PS: Just one question: It seems that the stairs you used are a collision object. What did you used: Bounce or Stick option? And what settings at all?

[SplineGod]

I think you need to look at several methods that can be used in various combinations on a shot by shot basis.
1. You can use animated textures to turn HVs on and off depending on the grayscale value of the texture. Textures can give very precise control over how and where the HVs are created.
2. Particle Emitters as in Howards example.
3. Motion designer
4. Morph targets
5. Particle guides, these are splines used as particle emitters but the nozzle is set to object vertices. This allows particles to be created based on the point order. Gradients can be used to control all kinds of aspects such as thickness over time. surface texture over time and so forth. The advantage of using splines as guides is that the flow, direction and when certain branches start can all be precisely controlled. HERES (http://www.3dtrainingonline.com/examples/lavatest.avi) and example (It plays quickly because I didnt want to wait for it to render alot of freames but you get the idea).
When you use blending groups all of these methods can be used together and the HVs will blend. :)

[Facial Deluxe]

I agree, using texture in an emitter, even a basic procedural, breaks the regular flow of particles. Since I discovered this, my particles are much better.
Didn't know about the Spline emitter, that's just great :)
Thanx Larry :)

[clifford]

Once again : http://www.nextlimit.com

Take a look at Realflow gallery ...

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