RayFire Tool

leefree · 2010-06-11 16:08:19 UTC

ThallDesign:

Do you have Deactivate Static Impact Objects checked? It’s in your Simulation properties:
http://www.mirvadim.com/onlineHelp/2_2_PxProp.html

Either that should be Unchecked, or ‘Activate by Geometry’ should be Unchecked. Research to figure out what works best.

Fracture your building

Select the top half of the building. This is the part you want destroyed by the sphere, and the part you want to fall afterward. Add them to Impact Objects. Also add the sphere to ‘PhysX Simulation Properties’ (see the link) and check the box ‘Activate by Geometry’

Invert-select the bottom half of the building and add them to Unyielding objects, along with your ground, and the sphere (if it is unyielding).

Do what you’ve already done, but don’t check Deactivate Static Impact Objects.

The top half of your building will be pushed out of the way of the sphere, and the very top will collapse because they are activated, but the bottom of the building will not collapse because it is unyielding.

The only issue you might face is ‘Activate by Geometry’ you will need to experiment to figure out wether this works best when it is on or off. Remember that it will not work AT ALL unless the sphere is added to the PhysX Simulation Properties list.

Thanks for the tip man. I’m gonna try it out

mir-vadim · 2010-06-12 11:34:43 UTC

Yes man.
But at this moment I am accumulating ideas for next version and use current version for freelance job. ))
Actually in a couple of weeks I will relaunch new website for RayFire and there will be a lot of new stuff.

jimmy4d · 2010-06-15 04:51:20 UTC

:applause:

sweet Mir…good hear that man.

Debneyink · 2010-06-23 02:10:13 UTC

its been a while since i used rayfire and have forgotten how to use it!

all i need to do is have a piece of ice fall or be shot to the ground and have it shatter,

whats the basic steps to get this done?

cheers…

Wicked · 2010-06-23 05:26:47 UTC

Also forgot about the tutorials?
http://www.mirvadim.com/index.php?id=tutorials
http://velevfx.com/topics/tutorials/rayfire/

Basically you 1 unyielding plane, that will be your ground. And 1 impact object, this will be your piece of ice (don’t forget to choose the ice-preset). I think this all there is to it. But for me too it’s been a long time since I worked with Rayfire…

Debneyink · 2010-06-23 06:08:01 UTC

so i got my plane on its side (ie a wall) and am animating a mesh heading stragiht through it
when i play my preview the mesh just drops to infinity.

even if my unyielding plane is on the floor, the mesh just drops and lands doesn’t break and doesnt seem to use the key frame move I’ve set. Just uses the gravity built in to rayfire

if i fracture it before hand the fractured peices just seperate as it flals to the ground

how do i get my mesh to smash toward a wall and break up when it impacts the wall?

Wicked · 2010-06-23 06:15:28 UTC

Check “Interactive Demolition” (or something like that). Remember you should bake the sim to get a preview of the demolition. I think it was the button right next to the Play-button…

Debneyink · 2010-06-23 12:21:28 UTC

I’m probably boring everyone… but i cant see the interactive demolition switch…

I just want to throw my mesh at a wall and watch it explode into pieces!

Debneyink · 2010-06-23 14:00:50 UTC

so basically my problem is that i wnat a solid ice cube to fall or be fired at a wall and smash, if i fracture it before hand then…

it breaks and begins to crumble before it imapacts
the ice material on it doesn’t look right because you can see all the prefracturing I’ve done as its a clear material.

so is it possible to throw a solid clear object at something and have it shatter?

I’m sure it is!..

help much appreciated…

adom86 · 2010-06-23 14:27:47 UTC

Hey

What version are you using? You could just activate the ice object to fall by using a piece of geometry which passes through it as an ‘activator’ if your wanting specific timing that is.

So just have an unyielding plane (box) then your ice object in ‘impact objects’ (do not fragment). Then animate a seperate box which passes through the ice object. Add this dummy object to the Physx Simulation Properties tab then tick ‘deactivate static impact objects’ and ‘activate by geometry’ within the ‘Activation Options’ tab.

The key thing is to also have Demolish object switched on and up the depth, this is all found in the ‘Physx Demolition Properties’ tab. Make sure your impact object is ice. Simulate and it shud fall at the time the geometry passes through and then break into fragments when it hits the floor! If you need to see it I made a very quick scene in the last minute!

Here

Simples!

PS: set your fragment options as you desire!

Debneyink · 2010-06-23 15:34:30 UTC

you know what… I got it, thanks for the help…

jdrouse · 2010-06-24 19:11:23 UTC

While simulating with PhysX, 3ds Max 2010x64 crashed. Now the RayFire plugin kills Max upon startup. If I uninstall/remove RF from the plugin directory everything is fine. If I reinstall RF 1.5 then Max craps out again.

Has anyone had any issues like this before? I think I just got unlucky this once and borked 3ds Max royally.

update: I’ve ruled out RF actually (I think) its RF using PhysX x64 thats getting screwed on startup. sigh.

naik · 2010-06-25 06:31:39 UTC

hmm good one.

I have heared that many guys have problems with pflow box 2 and rayfire.
They told me that they can not create a pflow physx flow - after that max crashes immediately.

Maybe there is something strange happening - rayfire - pflow box 2 - nvidia physx

Glacierise · 2010-06-25 06:35:01 UTC

I wouldn’t do that - probably they create conflicting PhysX World helpers or sometihng. You can do it in separate scenes

PsychoSilence · 2010-06-30 20:08:33 UTC

Might be hardware related too! Does the graphic card suppord cuda, what physx dirvers/nvidia drivers are installed, what chipset on the motherbord etc. etc. etc.

I have Box 2 and Rayfire installed parallel on multiple machines with different OSs even and never had such an issue.

adom86 · 2010-07-01 05:03:52 UTC

I have the same problem with regards to having Rayfire and box 2 installed. Can not create a new physx pflow as instant crash with max. :S

JohnnyRandom · 2010-07-01 13:07:58 UTC

Don’t know what’s wrong with your guy’s installs but it works fine for me too.

As Ansi said, check you drivers, your PhysX driver versions, your PhysX Plugin version, your Box#2 and Rayfire versions.

In fact, I can run both Box#2, Rayfire PhysX, and TP’s PhysX all at the same time. It would be the shit if they all ran off a unified world, you could get some insane interaction.

That said the issue is more than likely your setup as opposed to the software itself.

Of course a more proper way to work with each of the three would run each of the simulations in separate scenes, bake, and combine them on top of each other with the final using say a baked Box#2, a baked Rayfire, and a live TP or similar.

Debneyink · 2010-07-05 10:11:20 UTC

Ive built an iceberg out of a box fractured it a tiny bit into four pieces and scaled down the pieces so it looks decent.

then reset that to a mesh

i then want to have a bomb explode in the middle of the iceberg but when i click to fracture my pieces they wont fracture. im guessing its something to do with the mesh?

how would I go about exploding an iceberg from the inside out as though some dynamite is bored inside it? preferbbly so it blows to pieces

just fitted in a new nividia quadro 4800 gcard so am keen to get blowing things up!

cheers

floopyb · 2010-07-05 16:44:46 UTC

Finally got my hands on a trailer for some work I did last year… heaps of fumeFX and Rayfire stuff in there!

This work was done at ZeroOne Animation as a Stereoscopic museum installation.

Debneyink · 2010-07-11 05:28:47 UTC

Ive been using rayfire for a good couple of weeks and im finding it completly unpredicatable…
a few issues im having are:

Is there a definate scale I need to set my scens and models as?. Sometimes ill start a new scene and do some tests and my object flies away over one frame and diasppears. I’m guessing thats due to scale, so what scale do i need to set my max scene at and what a good size for my meshes.
sometimes i’ll do a quick test and it works!
im finding that I’ll set my scene up and run my sim and see the results, sometimes i want to tweak something (say the power of the bomb blast) and run it again… so i go to manage and delete the previous sim. Try to run it again…and nothing happens it won’t sim or it sims in an unpredicatble place or just doesn’t do anything, or it sims for ten frames then stops…or…eveything but simply sim properly again…
So im finding that I’m having to keep saving new scenes everytime i change something. then when my scene just stops working properly, as it usually does, I have to go back and open a previous scene where all i di was pick my objects or fracture my impact objects etc.
sometimes when i run my physx sim it goes through the motions of the sim but then nothing is key framed.
sometimes when i run my physx sim nothing happens at all. which is my biggest problem:
The rate of success is unpredicatble, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn’t.

I’m sure I’ve got more questions and I’m sure some of them are me missing things out but after building a scene of a box a wall and something flying at it over fifty times im sure its not just me! anybody else finding the same issues or solutions to my problems?

I’m on windows xp64 bit,16gig ram with a quadro FX 4800 graphics card…