View Full Version : Some particle help needed.
Mattykins
05-30-2009, 06:42 PM
Hey guys,
For my quest fest film, I have a final sequence where a superweapon is activated. It is similar to the Ion Cannon from the Command and Conquer franchise.
http://www.dvxuser6.com/uploaded/17064/1243730290.jpg
Or even closer to the drill laser thing from Star Trek. Any ideas how this can be created? I am using Maya. I have some ideas, but nothing concrete yet.
http://www.benjaminbloodworth.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/romulandrill.jpg
dory_breaux
05-30-2009, 11:24 PM
Dont know aboot maya but Max that would be pretty easy with Afterburn...
Mattykins
05-31-2009, 10:44 AM
I've been considering getting parallels on my mac just to run Max to get afterburn and fumefx.
In maya, it's just long narrow cylinder with an incandescent shader who's pattern changes rapidly over time. Here are links to a few interresting (free) shaders.
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/shaders/ED---Lava-Flow-1664.html
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/shaders/ChinaFire-1945.html
http://www.highend3d.com/maya/downloads/shaders/Burning-Lava-787.html
Mattykins
05-31-2009, 12:57 PM
Dzip, I never even looked at the shader angle. You just saved me a great deal of time. I was diving into particles and I wasn't happy with any of the results. I'll give this a shot.
TheRealMe
06-01-2009, 07:07 AM
I would try a combination of both (shaders over cylinder + smallers fine particles) in a 2 passes render.
dory_breaux
06-01-2009, 07:51 PM
Yeah, I bet a combination would look soooo clean. Now I kinda want to try it :D
Steve_C
06-03-2009, 01:58 AM
You can also do this in Softimage.
However its $4k
You can also spend about $149 for FX lab Pro which does particle effects. (They have a mac version)
If you have more of a budget than $149 then you can go for Particle Illusion for $399.(They have a mac version)
Just the same. get an app that will do the job and it will take some time for figureing out the programs settings to get what you want.
Ironman
06-07-2009, 12:22 PM
Okay I'm not really good with shaders and rendering but here's a my go. I set up a lambert and linked a blinn and a brownian node. I then linked the brownian node onto my contrast node Then I linked the contrast node on the ramb node where I have a simple gradient (Going from Black to the contrast node.) Finally I have a samplerinfo connected to the ramb and the ramb connected to my incandecense of my lambert I set up on the first place. Here is a pic to give u a sense of the result and the network shader: http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa236/photoshopboy/shader.jpg Now I don't have a bump node to make the cylinder appear irregular and I'm using Maya rendered which is simple renderer. Now with Mental ray and some extra fiddling you can get really nice results.