Charley,
Wow… that is impressive. But complex for my level of Data Operator knowledge.
Is there any training available for BOX3 (and Data Operator in particular) anywhere?
John,
Any chance you could upload your Data Operator loft experiment so I could dissect that too.
Thanks again.
Here are a few.
http://www.orbaz.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=6
It is fairly straight forward once you learn the ‘language’ of connecting the nodes. A good way to learn is to do simple things like what you see in these tutorials, playing with the data you have access to. From there find simple mathematical formulas and start recreating those using the SubOps. Once you learn what you have access to and how to reproduce the math formulas necessary, it all starts to fall in place.
It is built in max2009, if that is ok, else it will take a minute to rebuild it 2008 but haven’t got access to that machine at the moment.
Charley,
Thanks very much for those links… I was unaware of those. I will definitely do those tutorials shortly.
John,
Ahhh. I forgot about the version issue. I do have 2009 but haven’t installed it yet (and don’t really plan to for a while) because changing to a new MAX version is always such a hassle what with updating MAX & plugins across 20 systems in the production pipeline and 2008 is working so well for me at the moment. I’ll do those tutorials Charley mentioned and see what I can pick up.
Do any of the CG Academy DVDs cover the BOX3 stuff?
Thanks again.
Totally understandable, just testing 2k9 myself and happended to build this there, I rebuild it tomorrow when I get back to my workstation.
Chris Thomas has been talking about doing some Box#3 dvd’s for a little while. Been trying to get Charley to do one too 
but as we all know free time is hard to come by. I tell you I’ll bounce on those in a second:)
John,
Yea… I’d definitely buy those immediately if they were available. As well as some TP3 DVDs too!
Thanks again.
I’d love to see into these files too. Unfortunately I’m in max9 
so if anybody has time and motivation to recreate these things for max9, would make me very happy 
It’s a pitty that the things that have no update in newer max can’t be opened in older versions.
No worries:), it is still pretty rookie, but maybe something useful will come out of it.
That´s awesome! i wrapping my head around tornados for weeks now (but i dont work on it every day…)
my approach was for an AfterBurn setup. I tried Krakatoa too but couldnt get the nice volume look i was after…probably because my notebook is only core duo cant go too crazy on the particle count John helped alot here too!!! :love:
for the krak part the neat thing is the PRT loader´s ability to be modified after caching. so i cached a vertical vortex movement without and fany bending. then loaded it into a prt loader and used a path deform for the typical tornado beding…
im running max9 still too…hurts to see all the nice posted files without being able to open them
cheers,
anselm
Here is the R9 version of what I posted earlier.
Enjoy
Edit: On another note, R9 is now two version back…
lol, nice thread…
i wish to learn about PFtool box and TP …
one of you knows a good links and tutorial to start with both ??
and if is possible,
tell me a method using standard PFLow to get a Vortex.
i´ll keep my eyes in here.
---- *EDIT -------
i remember my first Vortex tutorial :
http://www.computerarts.co.uk/tutorials/premium_content/3d__and__animation/assisted_twister
=P
haha…
i´m not sure if it is a good idea to start learning two strong particle tools simultaniously…
to get a vortex motion going u need a fore operator and obviously a vortex fore. then add this in the GUI of the fore operator. there are plenty of scene files around. i did some r&d and afer an hour i had about 5-10 max files people posted. search forums…
cheers,
anselm
OK… after a long hiatus, I’m back in vortex-ville.
I have done the Box3 tutorials that Charley mentioned (and gained a bit of insight from them) and I have examined Charley’s tornado example closely. I have reorganized the data flow to make it easier to look at and understand for my meager abilities. I have also renamed some items as well (again… to make it easier to understand). But I’m at that brain-fried point of the day where I feel like I understood more several hours ago than I do now.
The vortex setup is working pretty well (thanks Charley for this example!) but I am trying to grasp all aspects of how it works.
I am currently trying to grasp how the B/W gradient ramps influence where the particles go. I understand how the nearest surface point to the particle location is sampled but do particles always want to go in a particular luminance direction? Like from their current dark position to a lighter position next? Or is there a setting that says which luminance value defines the next direction?
I don’t really understand the difference (or need) between the ‘Point Color’ op and the 3 ‘Point Color Gradient’ ops. I know the point color gradient ops are to sample the gradient and build vectors but I’m not sure why the ‘Point Color’ is needed to do this?
I understand what Charley was saying about the need for 2 circumference maps to avoid stopping at the seam but I’m having a hard time visualizing how the passing off between the maps makes for infinite travel around the cone.
Any layman’s explanation of how some of this stuff works would be very helpful.
Attached is my MAX2008_32 modified version of Charley’s file.
Thanks!
Thanks for the compliments.
Ok, I will see how many of the questions I can answer.
First off, Point Color returns the point3 color value (normalized, if you will, to 0-1 rather than 0-255). It returns this using a Vector data type (point3)
Point Color Gradient returns a direction vector pointing from dark to light (there is no setting to change this, but you can mathematically change it as needed). This is the data necessary to send the particles around as well as up the funnel.
In order to get a continuous rotation around, there needs to be two maps to gather data from. The first map is used if the Point Color data is within a specified threshold and once exceeded (gets too close to the seam) it is sent to the other map (rotated offset to the first map) with a similar threshold. By switching between the two, the particles are constantly in motion.
So the breakdown
The Point Color subOp gathers the color data from Sub Material2 (MatID2) and sends to the pipe to determine which sub Material is being used. If the value is less than or equal to .5, then it uses sub material 2 and if greater, then sub Material3
The first Point Color Gradient is set to subMaterial2, the second to SubMaterial3, both go into the pipe and are sent as according to the Point Color data
The third Point Color Gradient is using sub Material1 which is the gradient used to send the particles up the funnel.
It is essentially that simple, however there is a scalar multiplier (Circum Multiplier) which determines the Radial Pull (to barrow from the Vortex SW). If this is exposed you can get some pretty cool randomization to the radial path. And it can be mathematically adjusted based on distance from geometry to determine speed and get the more central particles moving faster than the ones further away.
I hope this clears up some things.
Charley,
Thanks very much for this explanation… greatly appreciated. I will chew on this while I re-examine the flow.
Thanks again.
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