Particle Flow Discussion

#4955

Awesome Loran! Bookmarked ur blog right away :slight_smile:

i had some waiting time today at work and messed with ragdoll setups…


Particle Flow Toolbox#2: Ragdoll Jackass

#4956

Ahhh, so that’s what you were doing with those ragdolls :smiley:

#4957

LöL! Wiked. I like the last one when the arm falls down n then has a slight pop when hits the leg.

#4958

Neat and more importantly brutal tests! That physx glue seems so promising, can’t wait!

#4959

i added one more test to the QT above :smiley:

#4960

Great :slight_smile: Important question - can you make the plastic objects plastic, except ellastic? I mean, can the keep their deformation instead of bending back to their original shape? We need that for mangling metal :slight_smile:

#4961

Why is the simplest collision test leaking? I am really going crazy, it is not an advanced scene, just a 3 click test, with all default settings, and the number of particles is around 10000, then why is that happening?

video: http://ezstudio.eu/videos/player.php?file=0905-leaking1.mp4&w=640&h=480

#4962

10k particles i would say is enough to make the particle system have to think, and maybe its just missing the collision so it can work optimally. Besides that i can only suggest a way to fix it.

Increase the step size for you particles.

This will decrease view-port performance but increase the dynamics accuracy :slight_smile:

Hope that helps.

Kieran.

#4963

I do not have any step size, where should it be? I have Birth, Position Icon, Speed, Collision, Force, Delete, Display

Actually by luck I could solve the problem, the problem was that the collision was before Force (Gravity) and not after it, changing the order solved the leaking.

Is there any rule of thumb for order the operators? Before this example, I didn’t meet anything where the order did matter (OK, I mean order which is not trivial).

#4964

Ahh cool, yeah the order fixed it.

Yeah a sort of a rule but only cause weird shit that like that happens.
I’d go something like this:

birth
position
speed
forces
other operators (like roatate, spin, keep apart)
shapes
material (or with the other operators, or in the very top event)
tests
display.

Also the step size is located in the “PF Source” (top node that begins the pflow). My bad before its actually called “intergration steps” there’s on for viewport and one for render, this is also why you may see diffrent results on rendering, from what you see in your viewport.

Anyways i hope that helps!

:slight_smile:

Kieran

#4965

Hey guys, what would you suggest for a good practice in exporting-importing pflows between scenes in a heavy production environment?

#4966

Hey Hristo, in a heavy production environment I have no idea, but what I do know…If you rename your sources, events, and more importantly operators with semi-descriptive name, merging them into your scenes is waaaay easier. IE you don’t get the “there is something with this name do you want to rename or replace” dialog.

This is what I do for flow that I want to reuse in other scenes, probably a little overdone but anyway…
Example for a basic flow:

PFSource 01 = 01_ABC_PFSrc01
01(descriptor, not nessecary but this thows everything to the top of the merge list)(and/or)_ShortName(ie “StdFlw” would be Standard Flow)_PFSrc(PFSource)
Add a description in the comments.

Render 01 = 01_ABC_Render 01

Event 01 = 01_ABC_ev01_Birth
Descriptor_ShortName_eventLabel(so everything within event01 will be listed by order of event)_Function of event

Birth 01 = 01_ABC_ev01_Birth 01
01_ShortName_eventLabel_Operator Name

Position Icon 01 = 01_ABC_ev01_Position Icon 01

TIPS:
1.don’t forget to rename all the helpers like the PF Engine, also there are “PF Arrow 01” these are what link event to event, it is possible to rename these as well (01_ABC_ev01_ev02_PFArrow) if you do not want to link all of you events after merge. Same goes for any Pflow Icons.
2. Tick “select influences” at the bottom of the merge dialog, when you click on a “PF Engine” it will select all its dependencies for you (except Arrows)

You probably already know this… If you have access to it, use pflow presets, like you would a blackbox, strip the scene down to it’s essentials, and rename all of the above mentioned, and save.

#4967

OK that’s comprehensive :slight_smile: I actually didn’t know that the arrows are also an object, thanks man! But renaming all operators, that’s gonna be hard typing work :smiley: I think the classof and superclassof functions can be used to identify pflow components and put prefixes on their names, I will look into making such a script after my current project. But what about ParticleEngine and ParticleView, I don’t think you need to merge these? Even you need not to merge them, if you also have other pflows in the recieving scene?

#4968

Hey guys is that new or it’s me that’s slow?

http://orbaz.com/products/particleflow/box2/

Just read that, the ‘more info’ links! Oh my god awesome things there! If it works half as good as described, i’ll be straightening my socks off :slight_smile:

#4969

It’s getting there :slight_smile: the bug hunt is still on tho. Version 0.7 will be out next week so I asume 1.0 will be the release update. In connection with box3 that will have serveral box2 related subops it will be super powerful. Unfortunately they don’t come out together I think. Too much to tackle down with box2 so box3 v1.5 is on hold-ish. I can’t carve out enough how essential the chanon of all boxes together is.thats why I buy bundles :smiley:

#4970

Yeah it probably could be a bit of overkill then again you shouldn’t have any issues with merging.

 If I have to do this copy/paste works real well on small to medium size flows, for something larger it should be fairly easy to write up a renaming script.
 Something like this:(obviously this is a fully simplistic way to do it)


     $Pf_Engine_01.name = "PF Engine Renamed"
     --and
     $PF_Source_01.name = "Easy to Rename"
     --and
     $Event_01.name = "Event 01 Renamed"
     

 Particle View isn't really necessary unless you haven't defined one yet. ie by opening the particle view it gets defined.
 
 There are a couple of things you can do for the Arrows, sort them to and array and rename them (for that matter you could do this with the Engines too). 


     PFArrow_arr = #()
     PFArrow_arr = $PFArrow* as array
     
     for i in PFArrow_arr do
     (
     	oldName = i.name 
     	newName = "_Look_a_New_Name" as string
     	i.name = oldName + newName
     )
     

 You could get jiggy with it somehow and try to store which event each is starting from and going to and use that to rename them (take a bit of time for me to figure out how to get that rolling...if it is even possible) I figured out how to create the Arrows but not how to determine the points. It may have to be done by determining which are tests
 
 For instance a Send Out Test to Event 02 would look like this:

$'Send Out 01'.setNextActionList $'Event 02' $'Send Out 01'

 As far as I have gotten with that.
  
 If you do write one up please share :) I suppose a badass scripter could write up a script that reads the flow and creates a creation script for it...that would be interesting.
 
 Thanks Anselm I was going to drop that in while I was writing this up :D

BTW Anselm nice work you guys got the cover pic :thumbsup:

#4971

@Johny - great stuff dude, I think I can take it from here, I’m veery busy now though, maybe in a few weeks :wink: But we need to get this nailed. Or maybe Oleg can make a robust import/export system, but when I read Anselm’s post he’s way busy with flashier stuff :slight_smile: Anyway - great things coming, some of the stuff that the box 2 hype describes is off the chart!

#4972

Thanks man, I know you are more than capable of writing up something sweet :wink: :slight_smile: (I kept rambling on for the benefit of others who might find it applicable too) If I have some extra time I’ll look into it some more.

Box#2 is getting some serious love, this has come so far since the early alpha days, you were walking on eggshells, it is so much better now, I really can’t wait to see what ideas people start coming up with. The Home Depot of PhysX as Oleg so eloquently put it :smiley:

#4973

Stumbled upon this:

Best Tutorials For Cinematic Visual Effects

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/04/best-tutorials-for-cinematic-visual-effects

some nice stuff among them. thought might be worth sharing :slight_smile:

#4974

Galagast figured it out…