3D Ice, Water & Steam

[razamalik]

Ok i am new (very very new) to 3D & so far all i can do successfully in 3D is draw those cubes/boxes basically lol ok may be slightly more than that but i am working on a project & i need to create a few scenes, they dont have to be photorealistic, & i need to create an ice cube floting on water & have steam coming out of it.... & for the title of this project i am have an idea that the text comes up written in 3D as ice & then instead of fading out it melts down to water & then steams out... how easy/difficult would that be...

i am using 3D Studio Max, i'd really appreciate if you can pass me some tutorials on making 3d ice, water & steam...

[Matt Grunau]

You are picking one of the harder types of animation to takle. You are talking soft body dynamics, particle effects, and maybe even hard body dynamics as well.

Dynamics and Particle systems are their own beast.

I don't know Max, I'm a Lightwave guy. Depending on the length, you would almost have an easier time creating the water out of extruded polys from the cube (to simulate surface tension) and animating its bobbing and ripples with a bone system.

I don't know anything about the particle system in Max. I own Illusion, and can possibly help out with steam, if it is a static shot. Illusion's particles are still 2D.

[razamalik]

thanks for the post Rapier, so its actually hard for a beginner like me :( that water scene does seem to be a bit too muich for some one like me who is just starting up in 3D.

What about the title i mentioned if i leave out the melting thing just have the text in 3d Ice (texture/reflection/lights) & have little steam coming out i am making a motion title so the camera will have to move around the text a bit. Can this at all be done in some sort of titling program?


if some one else can share their experience it would be great otherwise it seems to me that its about time i went to some sort of 3d training class...

[kai]

so its actually hard for a beginner like me :( that water scene does seem to be a bit too muich for some one like me who is just starting up in 3D.

What about the title i mentioned if i leave out the melting thing just have the text in 3d Ice (texture/reflection/lights) & have little steam coming out i am making a motion title so the camera will have to move around the text a bit. Can this at all be done in some sort of titling program?


Ya man, that's pretty difficult even for some working pros out there. Your second idea is much easier to pull off. Just model it, slap on an ice texture and light it. Then in AE add a steam particle system over the top and you're good to go!

[Anhar Miah]

gimme a few days and I see if I can work something out, its possible BUT hard....

Anhar

[razamalik]

kool i'd try that & see how far i can go with that. Anhar you have my email just email me when you have time. thanks again

[Kumaran]

hey there

actually what you want to do is pretty simple, just look up the melt modifier in the tutorials, slap that onto your text, and animate. once you get your animation, put your texture, then you gotta see how close the result is. it should give you a fairly decent effect.

k

[Gord.T]

There is a tutorial for water and floating objects in 3dsmax 8.

From the menu:

Help -> Tutorials -> Specialized -> Rendering -> Mental Ray -> Using Mental Ray Shaders and Materials -> Using lume Shaders for Other Water Effects.

In the same sub-section they discuss transparent objects like glass, which could be applied to the 'ice cube'.

Once those are done, you can look at particle effects to do the steam,ect.

Gord.

[Anhar Miah]

So Here's my stab at it, I got rid of the "melting" effect becuause it just sucked, and also I didn't bother doing any steam (no time, maybe someothe time)

Ocean Intro:

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e320/Anhar/ice.jpg

Video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdP6N5RP9Cc

Anhar

[surf]

cool, but not too realistic

[retaf99]

There is a book written by PeteDraper called Deconstructing The Elements. It deals with ice, water, fire, ect. This might give you some insight on how to make your animation a little more realistic. It is an excellent book, a bit advanced for a beginner, but it may be of help. I have found it to be invaluable as a reference for projects that I have come upon.

[Anhar Miah]

Yea, i didn;t pay much attention on making it photoreal, it was only using scanline render, the Original post was not asking for photoreal.

Also I used the same texture used by PeteDraper, I least I think it was he's tutorial I used on here. :/

There is lots of work that could have been done, using a real sky backgorund to give a more real look for startes, then adding mist/fog/rain plus GI etc etc. But all that takes extra effort...

Anyways cool, c'mon guys now its your turn, have a go its fun! :)

[plainman007]

How do i post images here like anwar has done plz....?? Serious Ive never done that before and id like to post an image of an ocean ive created in max. Thanks

[Anhar Miah]

Hey plainman007, first my names Anhar not Anwar (but don't worry, just about everyone calls me that at first ! ) :)

Second, you need to have your pictures up on the internet, then you need to link that picture in here.

The easiest way is to open up an account with a free photo sharing site such as the one I use

www.photobucket.com

(its free)

then simply upload the pictures and copy and paste the link (that site even gives the links to copy and paste)

voila!

[srproductions]

If you want realistic, you need RealFlow and Maya...

AND LOTS OF TALENT!

[Gord.T]

I tried this and I found the following problems:
If the text is ice and floating in water...well ice IS water, and the refractions and transparency conflict. Maybe white 'iceberg' ice. Plus if the text is floating face down the cam must point down at the water to see it, thus very hard to see.

I placed my ice text standing upright in the water with a low cam shot for sky/background contrast.

Floating text (bobbing animation) is easy but makes it hard to read because the lower text bobs out of site so a certain amount of time must be spent just reading the actual text.

I also had to animate each letter seperately else the melt would melt modifier a rectangle. I used seperate letters, 1 in the test, with a melt modifier and a spherify modifier. Both animated. The spherify modifier because the melt modifier only operates on the vertical axis, thus the text would melt vertically but not horizontally. The sphere modifier puffs it out to give more vertices to pulldown.

For water and ice I used modified glass. But I think the whole idea is flawed.
I can post pics/video I suppose, if anyone wants. Not photo realistic, more like video game rendering.

I visually preferred upright ice text melted on a flat glassy surface.

....
Sample melting the letter M...

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/MyStuff/TextMeltDemo1.jpg


...On flat glassy ice...

http://i179.photobucket.com/albums/w289/TheRaptor365/MyStuff/TextMeltDemo2.jpg

Frame 43 is slightly inacurate due to a floor altitude change. There should be more spill. It was a mod from the above water shot which has the ice sinking below the water/floor line.