Dissolve Effect

#21

Right. A PFlow with a default Position Object Operator distributes particles randomly on the surface.
You could even use a planar emitter and no plane at all (you don’t really need geometry to make a plane out of particles since the default PFlow already creates a planar distribution - the size controls are in the Emitter).

In a PRT Volume, you can change the number of particles with its controls without the need for partitioning. If using Regular Grid mode, change the Subdivisions value (2 means 8 times more particles - 2x2x2, 3 means 27 times more particles and so on). If you are using Random In Cube, the Number value controls the actual count per voxel. Finally, the Spacing value controls the Voxel Size and thus the base number of particles, too, but it is a bad idea to decrease that one because it eats up more memory.

#22

Here is my scene file in two steps.
I’m having problems related with the forces.
Don’t know which one is better to apply and create that dissolve, “smoke trail” from left to right, effect.
In here that same resolution problem maintains because I didn’t see your last post.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/4a5blp

Hope you can see it.
I’m now rendering it. I’ve used that >Use Emission option but I only see an image when, after rendering, I activate the alpha.
Cheers

#23

I cannot use file sharing sites from the office (IT policy). Will try tonight from home.

Did you copy the Color channel into the Emission channel as instructed using a MagmaFlow?

#24

It’s ok Bobo.
Well this was what I’ve done:
Probably something is wrong.

#25

That is correct for copying the Density into the MXSFloat.
But you need to add a SECOND KCM (press the Add button, change output from Color to Emission) to copy the Color into Emission channel to turn the particles into self-illuminated (emissive) ones.
You can have any number of KCMs in that Override Set.

#26

Btw, if you are using the PRT Volume approach, the PRT Volume will acquire various channels including the Texture Mapping Coordinates. So assigning a material with a bitmap texture to the PRT Volume will color the particles immediately. Thus you don’t need to use Camera Map Per Pixel in that simple case. The Camera Mapping makes sense when you are rendering through a perspective camera and want to project a Scanline or mental ray rendering onto the particles in Krakatoa through the same camera. But for an image dissovling into points, just using a plane, PRT Volume and a material with a bitmap will be enough to create the basic PRT files before you animate them in PFlow.

#27

But you need to add a SECOND KCM (press the Add button, change output from Color to Emission) to copy the Color into Emission channel to turn the particles into self-illuminated (emissive) ones. You can have any number of KCMs in that Override Set.

I do this after what you saw you in my attachments right? Or after that process you described a few posts ago?
Sorry for asking but how can I had a SECOND KCM?

So to achieve somthing similar to this:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bank508max

I should use an particleFlow instead of an PRT Volume at the begining?
I know this is 3D and my objective is “2D” but this is just an example in terms of look.

#28

No, to achieve this, you
*Render in Scanline or mental ray from the given camera
*Use PFlow to distribute particles onto the mesh and project the images rendered in the previous step using Camera Map Per Pixel
*Save to PRT sequence
*Load in PRT Loader
*Load into a new PFlow and blow them away

In this case you don’t have to deal with the Density channel at all because there are no particles in the scene that do not get a full Alpha image.

I was talking about your quest to blow a 2D plane with an image on it. In that case, if the image contains alpha channel and not all pixels are alpha > 1.0, you

*Create a Plane
*Assign a material with a bitmap texture containing the image or image sequence in the Diffuse AND Opacity map slots
*Create a PRT Volume and assign the same material - particles will show the same image if “Show Maps In Viewport” is checked.
*Save to PRT sequence - Density channel will contain 1 for colored particles and 0 for particles with Alpha = 0
*Load in a PFlow and blow away (including all the tricks for getting the Density info over).

I am not sure if the language barrier is the problem here, or I am not explaining myself correctly.
Try to understand the PRINCIPLE behind it, not the exact steps. There are several ways to skin a cat in Max and Krakatoa, and you don’t have to remember what I am doing, but WHY I am doing it.

#29

See that “Add…” button in the Global Render Values rollout underneath the KCM list that shows ==base object== and the first KCM? Press it and a NEW modifier with its own flow will be created. Change that flow, now you have both Emission and Density global overrides.

#30

I am writing a detailed tutorial with illustrations to post on the Krakatoa documentation page later today. Stay tuned.

#31

It will probably be best.
Really appreciate that Bobo.
I’ll stay tuned.

The language it’s not a problem really. The main problem is my lack of experience with Max. That is the major problem but I’m persistent and I’ll do this the right way.

I was talking about your quest to blow a 2D plane with an image on it. In that case, if the image contains alpha channel and not all pixels are alpha > 1.0, you

At the moment my main objective is to create that effect like in the video I post before but based in a 2D plane cause the person I’m working doesn’t have the time to create the animated face in 3D and to track it exactly like in the image sequence. So I’m working directly on the image sequence, following what you are saying.

#32

I finished the example of dissolving an image plane.

http://software.primefocusworld.com/software/support/krakatoa/image_plane_dissolve.php

It will look similar to the car animation, but it does not involve 3D particle distribution - the car and the particles in that example were actually in 3D and that required camera mapping. For an image plane, the UVs are already there and you can map ANY animation to the plane and look at it from any angle, then convert the pixels to “3D pixels = particles”…

I used a simple teapot animation (bending from 0 to 180 degrees just to show some motion) and used a Wind to blow the particle plane away as usual… Particles that would normally show the black background were set to Density (Alpha) of 0 so they did not render - I set the Krakatoa background to blue to demonstrate that.

Note that the demo images I rendered were under a certain angle to the plane, so this produced double-transformation in the perspective. Normally, you would align the plane to the camera’s image plane to you would render the particles frontally.

#33

That is pretty sweet technique, from the pics it actually gives the illusion of some depth too. Nice Work :slight_smile:

#34

I definitely have to say you are the man.
Don’t know how to thank you Bobo.
Really I don’t.
The best thing I can do at the moment is to test it.
I’ll try to increase the number of particles to get that ink or smoke look.
I’ll post my results in a couple of few hours.
Huge thanks once again Bobo.
This is fantastic.

#35

lol thats great.

#36

The most comprehensive help on forums I’ve seen :slight_smile: Bobo should be paid :slight_smile:

#37

Newsflash: I am being paid. It is part of my job, even have a field in the time sheet for Krakatoa Support. When supporting prospective customers, it is a form of advertising :slight_smile:

#38

I’m glad you are.
You really deserve it.
I’m still testing but my problems at the moment are related with the increase of details Bobo.
Don’t know how many partitions should I do to get that ink look to the dissolve.
Won’t I loose detail in the image if I mess around with the density in the krakatoa?
Probably that can be fixed within post production.
Well still testing

#39

… and it works! Cheers!

#40

Well, unfortunately, the setup I posted does NOT support partitioning at any stage of the process, unless your final PFlow contains an operator with a Random seed (mine doesn’t).

In order to be able to partition something, you need a random factor that is controllable by MAXScript - usually these are the Position Operator, the Speed Operator, the Spawn Operator and so on. The PRT Volume itself cannot be randomized (it will be possible in v1.6.0 but not now), and the PFlow I used was loading explicit positions from a saved file, so that cannot be randomized either. The Force operator I applied the Wind with doesn’t support randomization. I am not sure if the FumeFX operator you might be using can be randomized.

But in general, if you want more particles, you should be making more particles in the PRT Volume. This of course will slow down the PFlow a lot, but I assume it will work for around 10 million particles (I was using only a million in the second run of the example).

If you could post details about your setup and where exactly you expect the Partitioning to make changes to the system, it would be helpful. As it is now, if you don’t have anything with a random seed, all partitions will end up exactly the same and no new detail would be introduced. At least that’s the case in the setup I illustrated on our site.