Rocks ????

#1

Hi, I have a project where I have to place hundreds of small rocks in a project.
I’m trying to work if I should do it in EI (and if so how???) - or try comping it later in Photoshop.

Anyone got any suggestions as to how it could be done in Animator?
The rocks have to be placed as a type of loose foundation for a structure.
Thanks,
Michael.

#2

I guess you would model the rocks then drop them on either manually, or using rodeo?

Of course, ubershape has a built in ‘rock’ along with the usual cubes spheres and planes, so you could use that?

#3

Except that I have to place hundreds of rocks. Not a task I want to attempt individually.

#4

What i did in a similar situation:

i placed simple spheres on a plane (around 1000) cope-paste only in Animator (very fast),
then i used them with rodeo to have the random placement effect (only falling down a bit),
than i changed the fact file from the original sphere to a rock.
Because of the rodeo rotation of the 1000 spheres, it looked like 1000 different rocks.

Works in 10 minutes.

fantomaz

#5

Wow, you did all that in 10 minutes! I’m impressed.
Do you think it would work for an scene like this?

#6

Hm, tricky!

I think in that picture are more than 100.000 stones and there are
no flat planes where you can place the spheres. So you have to find an
other way than using rodeo to place the stones. But with a little
geometrie which can “hold” the stones and than export the fact
and reimport it, maybe it will work.

In my example i used only around 1000 spheres, so be sure that your
stunt spheres dont have too many polys, otherwise your solving
will cost hours…

After changing the fact from sphere to rock its ok with hipoly, EI will
manage it, i am sure.

Too bad, tomorrow we start in our holidays, so we are three weeks
from now on offline.

Good luck!

fantomaz

#7

[QUOTE=fantomaz]Hm, tricky!

I think in that picture are more than 100.000 stones and there are
no flat planes where you can place the spheres. So you have to find an
other way than using rodeo to place the stones. But with a little
geometrie which can “hold” the stones and than export the fact
and reimport it, maybe it will work.

In my example i used only around 1000 spheres, so be sure that your
stunt spheres dont have too many polys, otherwise your solving
will cost hours…

After changing the fact from sphere to rock its ok with hipoly, EI will
manage it, i am sure.

Too bad, tomorrow we start in our holidays, so we are three weeks
from now on offline.

Good luck!

Hi, when you say ‘changing fact from sphere to rock’, what exactly do you mean?

#8

Definitely particle object and dynamics as Fantomaz mentioned.

#9

I think the change from ‘sphere’ to ‘rock’ refers to the settings in the Ubershape plug-in.

#10

Still or animation?

I will model the base ground and bring Placer Deposit so you have as many rocks as Animator can handle into the scene, second i will call for manual placement of the rocks.
If you have C4D try http://www.c4d-jack.de/html/downloads/surfacespread/en/downloads.php
Wonderful and affordable plug in that will get you started(really works with the sample scenes), from there you can export your entire scene as FBX.

Edgard

#11

Now hurry up, our airplane is waiting :wink:

Changing the fact goes as follows:

  • modell a sphere, save it with the name: sphere.fac (lowpoly)
  • import it in EI
  • place it somewhere
  • copy and paste and place as many as you like, so you have a ground full of spheres
    (here you can add Rodeo if you like for the spheres and the randomness)
  • save the project and close Animator
  • modell a rock with the same dimensions like the sphere (hipoly)
  • save it with the name: rock.fac
  • go to the folder where the two modells are
  • change the name of the modell ‘sphere.fac’ to something else
  • change the name of the modell ‘rock.fac’ to ‘sphere.fac’
    open your project in Animator and voila, there are hundreds of rocks
    instead of spheres because Animator loads the factfile with the name ‘sphere.fact’
    and this is right now the stone.

fantomaz

#12

Thanks for all the suggestiions everyone.
Great looking plug in for C4D! Unfortunatly I don’t have C4D so…
Same with Placer Deposit. This is a comparativly small stills job and I really can’t justify the expense of the plug. Although, having said that I may end up getting it anyway.
I did a quick test last night going the manual route as Alexander had suggested and it wasn’t as bad as I expected, (and cheaper if you don’t count the time:).
Michael.

#13

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