Saliva strands

#1

Could someone help me figure out a way to create saliva strands with dynamics in XSI using ICE.

So I have two spheres right next to each other. I want to be able to move them around and within a given tolerance having strands/saliva stretching and appearing in between the two of them, but once the objects move far enough apart and over the given tolerance the saliva will then break into 2 separate strands.

I look forward to hearing back from you guys thanks.

john

#2

Did you think of Lagoa? Don’t you need some sort of fluid behavior?

This might be helpful too http://vimeo.com/36009186

#3

Yeah Kinda like that.

I guess first of all is there a way to connect two ends of a strand in xsi to two separate objects, but Make each end remain attached to each targeted surface its on when the objects move?

#4

You need to make the particle itself stick to a position at a location on one surface, set the last value in the StrandPosition to the position of a location on the other surface, and the rest of the StrandPosition array values should be interpolated between those positions.

But honestly I would go for Lagoa as Bullit suggested. It was actually an alpha version of Lagoa that was used for the hellhound drool and other effects in Predators, and Thiago Costa (the developer of Lagoa) worked closely with Hybride.

#5

Yeah i never really heard of Lagoa
After watching some videos on it I do recognize seeing it a while back.
I’m relatively new to XSI. I’m originally a Max guy.
I looking to venture more into XSI and I was looking to the forums for guidance.

About 2 minutes into this video https://vimeo.com/13457383 is exactly what I’m after.

Would you guys be able to give me any direction on how to go about setting a simple scene like one in the video up? I’m not to crazy familiar with it yet. I’ve done a few things inside of ice with momentum though.

Thanks guys.

#6

I’m not super familiar with Lagoa either, but the general approach would be:

  1. Create a volume object for the initial position of the saliva.
  2. Create the objects that the saliva will interact with/stick to, and put them in a group (that’s the equivalent of what I think is called a named selection set in 3ds Max).
  3. With the volume selected, choose ICE > Particles > Create > Lagoa Particles > Sticky Paste (that’s the preset I would start with) and when prompted to pick something, pick the collision group in an explorer view.
  4. In the ICE tree on the point cloud, explode the compounds or drill down to the Lagoa Main Material node so that you have access to all the settings. I think that the important ones for this type of effect are surface friction (for sticking to stuff) and elasticity/plastic flow (for how it stretches and eventually breaks). And of course Resolution in the emit node and Time Step in the simulate node will control the overall quality.
#7

Thank you Grahame for the quick explanation/breakdown.
I’ll begin messing around with it and see what I can achieve.

It looks like I’ll be able to achieve the saliva look with this tool. It’s just what I needed. I’m excited to see what I can do with it.
Ill be sure to post some results.

#8

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.