Vortex Methods

#21

Cool method with the PRT loader, going to try that out :smiley:

#22

lol, nice threadā€¦

i wish to learn about PFtool box and TP ā€¦
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.

iĀ“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
hahaā€¦

#23

iĀ“m not sure if it is a good idea to start learning two strong particle tools simultaniouslyā€¦

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 forumsā€¦

cheers,
anselm

#24

OKā€¦ after a long hiatus, Iā€™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 Charleyā€™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 (againā€¦ to make it easier to understand). But Iā€™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 donā€™t really understand the difference (or need) between the ā€˜Point Colorā€™ op and the 3 ā€˜Point Color Gradientā€™ ops. I know the point color gradient ops are to sample the gradient and build vectors but Iā€™m not sure why the ā€˜Point Colorā€™ 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 Iā€™m having a hard time visualizing how the passing off between the maps makes for infinite travel around the cone.

Any laymanā€™s explanation of how some of this stuff works would be very helpful.

Attached is my MAX2008_32 modified version of Charleyā€™s file.

Thanks!

#25

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.

#26

Charley,

Thanks very much for this explanationā€¦ greatly appreciated. I will chew on this while I re-examine the flow.

Thanks again.

#27

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