Winchester FX Tool

#21

I know that… but it doesnt work AT ALL now… first times i tried the script it worked… but no fractures were made … and that is obviosly because of low segements (1,1,1) …
but since late yesterday… the script started to f**k with me… it doesnt work AT ALL
… it makes all the stuff at 0,0,0 in world space… no lights… no displacements … no nothing…
just an uncomplete particle flow… its very wierd… and i get the same problem on two VERY different PCs (Desktop and Laptop)

EDIT: This is me Bardur … and not jogge… sorry for the “mixed user” … hehe
its just that i forgot to log out as jogge… a class mate of mine :wink:

Regards
Bardur

#22

Sorry for the mixup above :wink:

But i just got to informe that i had the same problem on YET another computer…
the problem that you see in the video… wich i posted earlier

Regards

#23

that would be awesome! just working on an mocap guy running from gunfire…currently only the wall behind him reacts on “winchester” obviously :frowning:

maybe you might be able to choose if the target is animated or a non moving object like a wall. if so certain options checked e.g. animated shape or subframe sampling…

kind regards

anselm

#24

I noticed that Laszlo (meshtools) Sebo has written a Maxscript extension which allows some extra stuff with Deflectors and Maxscript.

http://www.maxplugins.de/r9_files/laszlo/deflMxs_10.zip

Not sure if this is helpful for your tool, which is looking awesome BTW.

Cheers,

Steve

#25

Cool stuff!
When you have all the basic features working, I think it would be cool to try to break holes through geometry. Hopefully the booleans in Max work now better than a couple years ago. :slight_smile:

#26

Barbur,I attached the first test scene I did, I guess see if it works, it should the script has already been run, but maybe helpful to debug???..

  BTW I looked at your file (when I first post I didn't have access to depostfiles it is blocked by our network :( )
  You have two instances in your flow of "small fragments" for some reason? The particle seed also does not have a Collision emitter object. No deflector was created, really strange. Something wierd going on for sure.

I tried rebuilding you scene by deleting all associations and leaving just the base objects, and rerunning the script, no luck.

The script didn’t like your primitive as the “gun” object. I used your scene and built a new gun, reran the script and well it worked.? Maybe something in your copy of the script is buggered up?

#27

Thanks *JohnnyRandom for you “helpness”
but… i havent had the moment to test the file you sent… because i am running a simulation… but ill test it in a moment :smiley:

What i dont get is that i have even tried to download the script several times… also using different primitiv’s such as Box, Cylinder, sphere, pyramid etc etc…
no luck…

Regards

#28

The problem is that the Z axis on your “gun” is facing out the back of the pyramid instead of the front. I have no idea how that happened, but change the coordinate system to local and you’ll see what I mean. If you rotate the pyramid around 180 degress it works fine.

So, for anyone else using this, once you define the gun and target, you should see a green line going between the two whenever the gun’s pointed at the target. If you don’t, there’s a problem and you should check the local axis on the gun object.

Steve: Yeah, he sent me the maxScript extension earlier today. It works great and will remove one manual step from the process.

Everyone else: Thanks for all the suggestions for improvements. I’m adding them all to the wish list.

#29

a checkbox if afterburn should be added would be nice too! if checked the script then simply adds a PFlow-ABurn node to the impact event and uses the debrils for further AB calculation or something like that… :slight_smile:

kind regards

anselm

#30

New version ready.

Script: winchester_002.ms
Movie: winchester_002.mov

Updates:

  • Multiple targets
  • Gun projectiles, pick either bullets or laser beam
  • Gun recoil, define how far back it goes and how long it takes to recover
  • A couple check boxes to turn off the warning messages and to either show or hide the set up process (more interesting than useful)
  • Redesigned the layout slightly.
  • Some behind the scenes code changes

Also removed the Tesselate or Turbosmooth option. It now just uses a Meshsmooth modifier. The stack is not collapsed on the target objects so you can modify the meshsmooth settings to get more detail in the displacement areas if you want.

As Steve mentioned earlier, there’s a maxScript extension now that removes the necessity to manually add the ground object to the deflector space warp. Download the zip file, and copy the appropriate version of the plugin to your Max plugins folder. Here’s the link: UDeflectorMXS

But you still need to reconnect the PFlow wire. I’ll deal with getting rid of that step later.

Enjoy. I’ll start working on some of the other suggestions next.

#31

Hey James… looking good… however…

>> MAXScript Rollout Handler Exception: – Unknown property: “wireFrame” in $Plane:Plane02 @ [0.000000,0.000000,0.000000] <<

Changing that line to emitObj.wirecolor seems to work. That’s what happens when you stay up late! :slight_smile:

…for an addition: the ability to deselect targets as well would be nice.
Also… the Cylinder aim shows in the render when bullets are selected…

Lovin’ the laser beam btw. :thumbsup: Keep it up!

#32

after modifying the code as SoLiTuDe suggested it works perfectly. SoLiTuDe- to deselect objects if all else fails create a simple cube or dummy and select that:)

#33

amazing update!

so i have to replace “emitObj.wireframe” with “emitObj.wirecolor” in the only line it appears?

maybe i will use winchester in connection with thinking particles for the next production! from monday on i will have to set up serveral particle effects for a comemrcial :slight_smile: one shot will include shooting. actually Explosive-Arrows shooting at a character who explodes a few seconds after he got hit…hell lotta fracturing work ahead :smiley: :smiley:

kind regards

anselm

#34

Oops, you caught me. Guess I should have run it one last time. :slight_smile:

I updated the file so you can re-download it for the fix. Plus, I made one quick change. Since PsychoSilence mentioned arrows, I thought someone might want to change the mesh on the bullets. So they’re all instances now. You can just add an edit mesh modifier, or whatever, on one and they will all update with the change.

#35

:bounce::love::buttrock::applause::thumbsup: well, no hugging button available :smiley:

#36

:slight_smile: Thanks.

Oh, and about deselecting target objects, do you mean if you accidentally selected objects you didn’t want? You can always click on the pick button again and select different objects before you run the simulation.

#37

Hiya.
Cool tool…coming along nicely.

One thing I noticed, possible bug:
If I add my own omni light in the scene after running winchester, that light’s effects will not be shown in the viewport.
Cycling with ctrl-L only switches between Max’s default viewport “lighting” and the scene being black.

If on the other hand, I create my Omni before running the script, the viewport will continue to display my light’s effect on the scene.

When picking the target(s) in this version, a dialoge comes up (the select dialoge, not the pick one)
It works fine, no biggie, but I was just wondering why it can’t still use the standard picker and just pick them out from the viewport.
Because of being able to make multiple target selections, I presume? And therefore you would need to turn off the pick target somehow? Just curious.

Also, with the current version, I am not getting particles breaking away from the target as I did in the first version. My target mesh is very well tesselated to begin with, and yes I am unlinking and relinking the PFlow.
I’m still playing with it though.

#38

Oh! Sweet! Thx

#39

You’re right. There’s a hardware limit of 8 lights that can affect a viewport at one time, and it depends on the order they were created. Bobo has a script that lets you change the order of lights on his page, Max 4 section: http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/

Yeah, I changed the behaviour so you can pick multiple targets. I know it’s kind of a pain if you’re just using one target.

Edit:
If anyone wants to turn off the warnings permanently, search for “warnings_CB” in the script, and change the “checked:true” part of the line to “checked:false”.

Also, if anyone is having trouble with anything not working, try sending me the file if you can so I can check it out.

#40

thanks for the info James :slight_smile:

what i do lately is to add a shape mark with a blackish material with a radial gradient ramp in the opacity with a huge amount of noise to get a gunshot residue kinda effect around the bullet entrance area:)

in guess blood splats can be done this way easily too. then you should add shape marks to the debrils event as well to get ground splats. and you should change the debrils shape from tetras to modeled drops and change the rotation to “speed space follow”.

haven´t tried all that yet but should work out with a little modification of the flow...will try that when i´m at work :)

 don´t know if that´s interesting for anybody...just wanted to share. :)
 
 kind regards
 
 anselm