Lanceromance's Weblog

Journal Entry for 2/20/08

lanceromance — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:36:24 +0000

Today we learned how to use the particle collision event editor in which you can make different particles emit from other particles in the event of a collision. To do this you select particles>particle collision event editor. This creates another particle system which is completely editable. For instance, you can create spheres when something collides with points. This is helpful for creating effects such as splashes.

Journal Entry for 2/19/08

lanceromance — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 19:42:43 +0000

Today we did our critiques for our rocket project. This was my first full render for this project so I got to see for the first time some things that I could only imagine in my head. For instance, I applied a runtime expression with a changing radius on the rocket fire trail. I imagined that it would create a sort of blinking effect (like fast moving rocket fire IRL) because of the runtime expression recalculating the radius of each particle for every frame. I also learned how to render out your scenes without having Maya open which is a much faster way to render because the computer doesn’t have to use processing power on the program itself. To do this, make sure that your render settings are correct, cache your particles, and save your scene, then close Maya, and right click on the scene file in windows explorer, and select the “render” option. This will be very helpful on future Maya projects. We also began learning about soft bodies which we will continue learning about tomorrow.

Journal Entry for 2/11/08

lanceromance — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 17:08:16 +0000

I found out that when writing MEL scripting expressions in Maya 2008, it is not necessary to write the particleShape tag before attributes because Maya will do it for you automatically after you press the create or edit button and close the window.

Journal Entry for 2/8/08

lanceromance — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 19:48:38 +0000

Today we discussed how to randomize the attribute variables of particles using MEL (Maya Embedded Language) scripting. We accomplished this by creating “expressions“. We learned about 2 types of expressions today. The first type, the creation expression, calculate the expression (something such as a random radius, or color, etc.) only when the particle is created. The second type, the runtime expression, re-calculates the expression every frame. We also went over the different types of variables which are float variables (a single number) and vector variables (a set of 3 variables separated by commas – to describe such aspects as X,Y,Z positions, or rgb color values).

An example of an expression using a float variable would be: particleShape1.radiusPP=rand(.001,1);

*the above script would be used to randomize the radius of particleShape1(.001,1);

An example of an expression using vector variables would be: particleShape1.rgbPP=<>;

*the above script would be used to randomize the colors of particleShape1(.001,1);

In addition to learning the above, we also covered particle instancing which allows you to create your own geometry and use that shape as a particle type.

Journal Entry for 2/7/08

lanceromance — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 19:57:46 +0000

Today in class we delved further into ramps for particles and software rendered particles – specifically smoke. We also learned how to import an image sequence (video) into Maya to create simple particle effects to add to video scenes. To do this, you have to select a camera then click on view>image plane>import image then select the first image frame of the sequence, then go into the attribute editor for the selected camera and open up the image plane tab and click on the “use image sequence” box. This is all very exciting stuff to me because this is really what I wanted to do (video with computer driven 3d effects) and I’m finally learning about it. We also used After Effects to composite the video clip and 3d particle animations together and I feel as though I’m getting even more familiar with that application which will be very helpful to my chosen coursework. We also learned a good “recipe” for setting up a particle cloud shader for realistic clouds. Here are the settings for that shader: Density = .5 , Blob Map: (click on checkered box, and select the 3d cloud texture) , Roundness = .5 , Translucence = 1 , Noise = .75 , Noise Frequency = .150 , Noise Aspect = .2 , Solid Core Size = .250 , Diffuse Coeff = 1.0 , Translucence Coeff = 2.0

Journal Entry for 2/5/08

lanceromance — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 18:59:12 +0000

Today we did a 30 frame test render, and covered a few basic rendering steps, and how to import rendered image sequences into After Effects. It became more apparent that test renders are a very important step towards successful 3d projects when I immediately noticed a few minor details that needed fixing.

Journal Entry for 1/29/08

lanceromance — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:03:15 +0000

Today we covered the different types of emitters and particles more in depth. I figured out how to make more realistic splash effects without the use of the “make collide” function by using multiple emitters. Make collide is a way to make simple dynamic collision effects automatically, but should not be used in complex simulations as it becomes unreliable and may cause errors due to the fact that it is processor intensive.

P.S. I rule! >:O

Journal Entry for 1/28/08

lanceromance — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:25:10 +0000

Today we learned about the roles of constraints in the Maya dynamics world. It was very interesting to me! We also covered particles briefly at the end of the class. I am very excited to go further into the subject of particles. We were also assigned 3 chapters of reading and one of them covered the issue that I had on the first day of class with interpenetration and provided helpful hints to avoid this in the future.

Journal Entry for the weekend of 1/26/08-1/27/08

lanceromance — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:17:33 +0000

I did the assigned reading in the book (Lesson 15) and most of it was beyond me. I had questions about MEL which was mentioned in the reading. It appears to be a scripting language that Maya uses. I deduced this only because I am a super-genius! LOL!

Journal Entry for 1/25/08

lanceromance — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:15:10 +0000

Today I learned how important good geometry is to have successful dynamics in Maya. I can see how this could be a cause for frustration further on in the class.