We used FumeFX which is a plug-in for Maya, we started to learn 3D fire and smoke simulation. First off all we learned how to set up a FumeFX node and how to simulate smoke. We created a FumeFX node and created a source. Then we experimented with the different parameters to change the physical attributes of the smoke like the colour, density and the direction. We also experimented with the FumeFX box by changing the parameters of the x, y and z axes of the box. We made it boundless and changed the different sizes of each axis. We created a second source for smoke and aimed the two sources to each other to see what effect the simulation would create. I coloured the smoke from each source a different colour and then played the simulation through to see how the smoke from one source would react with the smoke from the source of the other.
Screen shot of experiment of smoke interacting from two sources
The next thing that we learned was how to use primitive 3D shapes to interact with the smoke created by a source. The smoke would react accordingly to the shape depending on what kind of 3D shape it was. We also learned that we were able to use deformers to manipulate the smoke, just as we had been able to use them in the Maya cloth simulations that we had previously created. We started work on the fire parameters at this stage and started to change these to give the desired look we required for our fire. I experimented by increasing and decreasing the fuel, expansion and turbulence parameters as well as changing the parameters of the FumeFX box by making it boundless on different axes.
Screen shot of interactive smoke with a 3D primitive
We also learned how to simulate using two different nodes by making one FumeFX node and setting it up to be the master grid and to use for N-sim. Then we created a second node and re-sized it to fit in with the first node and making sure that they overlapped. We then set the second node up so that it could be used for N-sim as well. This made the fire go through the first box and then carry on going through the second box.
For our final simulation, we were required to create an explosion that turned into a fire and set the surrounding area on fire using all of the skills and parameters that we had learned from all of our previous experiments.
For my final fire simulation, I used FumeFX in Maya and I decided to have a small explosion happen in a steel drum that would spit a few hot embers out onto the ground and burn on the ground as well as in the drum itself. I started by modelling the steel drum and giving my scene a ground plane. Next, I created a FumeFX node and placed the drum over it. I turned the ground plane and the steel drum into collide objects and changed the expansion, smoke density and fuel parameters to make the fire in the drum simulate how I wanted it to simulate. I set the expansion to 3.5 because this created the sort of small fire that I required as it stayed confined to the inside of the steel drum that I had modelled because with the expansion set at 4, the fire still appeared on the outside of the steel drum.
Screen shot of fire in steel drum
The next thing I did was to create a second node, so that I could attach a particle system to it, to try and get the look of embers being spat out of the steel drum. I then created a particle emitter and at the same time I put a gravity field and a volume axis on and made sure that they were all connected to the particles. I created a particle source from the FumeFX dropdown menu to connect the FumeFX node to the particle system. Once this was done, I played the simulation through to see how the particles were reacting. I ended up with way too many particles spewing out of the drum and had to decrease the amount of particles coming out per second. I also had to key frame the particles per second so that the particles did not start coming out of the steel drum until the fire had reached the particles. The magnitude attribute had to be key framed as well, so that the particles would go up in the air but would fall back down to the ground. This was done in the gravity field attributes.
Screen shot of particles without steel drum
Screen shot of particles in steel drum
Getting the timing right between the two different nodes took a little bit of tweaking and experimenting. Once that was done, the next thing to sort out was the bounce of the particles once they hit the ground plane after being spat out of the steel drum. I decided that I would just let the particles fall through the ground plane as this would make it look like the embers were hitting the ground and extinguishing. I had to composite the steel drum over the top of my particles as it looked see through in the final render and I also made a background for the drum using VUE which I also composited into my simulation.
Unfortunately, in my final simulation, I didn't quite get the timing right and the particles started to simulate before the fire reached the top of the drum, so it looks like a fire ball is forming and then spitting out embers.
Final Fire Simulation
The next simulation that we learned was water/fluid simulation. For this, we used Next Limit Technologies RealFlow. We also learned the water simulation in Maya as well as how to use RealFlow in conjunction with Maya.
The first thing that was done was to navigate the interface and learn exactly what RealFlow could do. RealFlow consists of three major systems which are hybrido, realwave and the particle system. Hybrido can be used for large water simulations such as tsunamis, floods and big monsters moving through water. Realwave can be used for creating oceans and ocean surfaces and the particle system can be used for anything particle based such as creating simulations like the KFC Krushers advertisements where fruit and liquids collide with each other. All three of these systems can be used together in one simulation.
Daemons in RealFlow are similar to the parameters in Maya. This menu is where parameters such as gravity and volume can be chosen and the attributes changed to the needs of the project. The renderer in RealFlow is called the Maxwell renderer and the parameters for the renderer can also be changed to suit the needs of the project. After changes have been made in a simulation in RealFlow, the whole thing must be re-simulated in order to change the way in which the simulation reacts.
Realwave was the first thing that was used to experiment with in RealFlow. A flat plane was made and a fractal was put onto it. Once this was simulated it created quite a flat ocean with a little movement in it. More than one fractal can be put on at a time and the attributes can be changed to make the ocean’s waves and movements bigger. Next a sphere was made and turned into an active rigid body. This was to simulate a ball floating in the ocean. The attributes of the sphere were edited to change the friction, mass and other attributes that affected the way that the water reacted with the sphere. Particles were used to help make a splash effect when the ball hit the ocean surface. An emitter was created where the particles were needed. Next the k. volume or kill volume box from the Daemons menu was selected to help control the splash. This meant that any particles that hit the edge of the box would die. Last, the particles were made into a mesh by selecting the mesh menu and choosing the particle mesh legacy option. Then “Insert all emitters” was selected and then the build mesh option. At this stage RealFlow builds the mesh of the particles and the simulation does not need to be re-simulated after this. The mesh can have its attributes edited and building mesh helps the particles to show up in any renders.
RealFlow can be used together with Maya. RealFlow simulations can be imported into Maya once they have been simulated. In Maya, the Rfrk3 and RealFlow plug-ins need to be loaded for RealFlow simulations to be able to work in Maya. The Maya files must be saved in the same files as RealFlow. RealFlow objects and oceans/realwave systems can be imported into Maya as well as realFlow particle systems. The textures from RealFlow are not transferrable though and the hypershade in Maya can be used to texture the particle meshes.
The next experiment was using two emitters and a polygon to simulate something similar to the KFC Krusher advertisement. The two emitters were positioned so that the particles could hit each other and a polygon was thrown in the mix to react with all the particles. The attributes of the polygon where edited and the attributes of the particle meshes were also edited to create the desired look for the simulation.
Hybrido was the next thing that was used. An open top cube was created as the tank that hybrido fills up. The hybrido menu was selected and an emitter was chosen and the open top cube selected. Gravity was put on to stop the fluid from flying out of the required area. This was simulated and the tank filled up. The hybrido mesh needed to be used to create a mesh for this particular system.
The last experiment that was done was to model a low polygon model in Maya and import it into RealFlow to create a fluid simulation. Once the desired simulation was created with the low polygon model, the simulation was then exported out of RealFlow and imported into Maya. Once in Maya, the simulation/particles were to be textured in Maya and rendered with the high polygon version of the model.
The brief for the final water simulation was to create a river that flowed down a waterfall into a pool of water or lake at the bottom of the waterfall. The first thing that was done was a low polygon model of the river, waterfall and lake/pool was created in Maya. An opened top rectangular tray was modelled for the river and then a NURBS curve was drawn to make the shape of the waterfall. The NURBS curve was extruded from to create a slide-like polygon that would become the waterfall. A sphere was modelled at the bottom of this slide and the top half of the sphere was deleted to create the pool/lake. Low polygon rocks were modelled in the river and down the waterfall, so the water would have something to interact with as it travelled along. The last thing that needed to be made was a plane that could be turned into the pool/lake’s surface. This was modelled into the same shape as the pool/lake by selecting the make polygon tool and drawing along the edge of the pool/lake to create a flate plane in the same shape as the pool/lake.
The model was then exported out of Maya and imported into RealFlow. This meant that the water simulation could be created so that it would follow the model to become a river, waterfall and then a pool/lake. Once the model was in RealFlow, the first thing that was done was a fractal was put onto the ocean plane to become the ocean surface or in this case the pool/lake surface. Next, a circle emitter was created and placed at the start of the river. It was simulated to see how the water would react.
At 200 frames, the water did not even get half way down the waterfall. The speed was turned up and the number of particles were turned up and re-simulated. This caused too many particles to be created too fast and there were lots of particles flowing over the sides of the model. Another problem was that some of the particles were just flying off the end of the waterfall and were not actually going down it. A kill volume box selected from the daemons menu was placed over the river area to kill any particles that were overflowing. The particles speed was turned down and then re-simulated.
This solved the problems of the particles overflowing and the water flying off the end of the waterfall but the particles were not following the direction of the waterfall properly. A drag force box was put in at the start of the waterfall to slow the particles down. The drag force was started off low and then re-simulated. There was not enough drag force to make the water follow the waterfall, so the drag force was set very high and then the simulation was reset and re-simulated. This created too much drag force, so it was lowered bit by bit until the particles took the desired path. Once the simulation was done the particles were selected and the mesh was built.
The next thing that was done was the low polygon model was modelled into a high polygon model. More polygons were added to make the model smooth. It was scaled up to prepare it for Mudbox and so were the rocks. Then the model and the rocks were UV unwrapped and taken into Mudbox for texturing and painting. When the model looked the way it was visually required to look, it was exported and imported back into Maya. The water simulation was exported out of RealFlow and imported back into Maya. The mesh of the particles was selected and textured using the hypershade in mentalray. MIA material was selected and using the presets, the thick glass material was chosen to make the particle mesh look like water. The same material was put onto the realwave plane but was made a little darker than the river and waterfall texture. The physical sun was used in Maya for lighting and the attributes were edited to give the desired time of day. A camera was put in and animated to show the river, waterfall and the pool.
My final simulation rendered out terribly as the camera in Maya corrupted. What I was shown in my render view (above), was not how the simulation rendered at all but I have added my final water simulation even though it is very difficult to see.
The first thing that was done was to navigate the interface and learn exactly what RealFlow could do. RealFlow consists of three major systems which are hybrido, realwave and the particle system. Hybrido can be used for large water simulations such as tsunamis, floods and big monsters moving through water. Realwave can be used for creating oceans and ocean surfaces and the particle system can be used for anything particle based such as creating simulations like the KFC Krushers advertisements where fruit and liquids collide with each other. All three of these systems can be used together in one simulation.
Daemons in RealFlow are similar to the parameters in Maya. This menu is where parameters such as gravity and volume can be chosen and the attributes changed to the needs of the project. The renderer in RealFlow is called the Maxwell renderer and the parameters for the renderer can also be changed to suit the needs of the project. After changes have been made in a simulation in RealFlow, the whole thing must be re-simulated in order to change the way in which the simulation reacts.
Realwave was the first thing that was used to experiment with in RealFlow. A flat plane was made and a fractal was put onto it. Once this was simulated it created quite a flat ocean with a little movement in it. More than one fractal can be put on at a time and the attributes can be changed to make the ocean’s waves and movements bigger. Next a sphere was made and turned into an active rigid body. This was to simulate a ball floating in the ocean. The attributes of the sphere were edited to change the friction, mass and other attributes that affected the way that the water reacted with the sphere. Particles were used to help make a splash effect when the ball hit the ocean surface. An emitter was created where the particles were needed. Next the k. volume or kill volume box from the Daemons menu was selected to help control the splash. This meant that any particles that hit the edge of the box would die. Last, the particles were made into a mesh by selecting the mesh menu and choosing the particle mesh legacy option. Then “Insert all emitters” was selected and then the build mesh option. At this stage RealFlow builds the mesh of the particles and the simulation does not need to be re-simulated after this. The mesh can have its attributes edited and building mesh helps the particles to show up in any renders.
RealFlow can be used together with Maya. RealFlow simulations can be imported into Maya once they have been simulated. In Maya, the Rfrk3 and RealFlow plug-ins need to be loaded for RealFlow simulations to be able to work in Maya. The Maya files must be saved in the same files as RealFlow. RealFlow objects and oceans/realwave systems can be imported into Maya as well as realFlow particle systems. The textures from RealFlow are not transferrable though and the hypershade in Maya can be used to texture the particle meshes.
The next experiment was using two emitters and a polygon to simulate something similar to the KFC Krusher advertisement. The two emitters were positioned so that the particles could hit each other and a polygon was thrown in the mix to react with all the particles. The attributes of the polygon where edited and the attributes of the particle meshes were also edited to create the desired look for the simulation.
Hybrido was the next thing that was used. An open top cube was created as the tank that hybrido fills up. The hybrido menu was selected and an emitter was chosen and the open top cube selected. Gravity was put on to stop the fluid from flying out of the required area. This was simulated and the tank filled up. The hybrido mesh needed to be used to create a mesh for this particular system.
The last experiment that was done was to model a low polygon model in Maya and import it into RealFlow to create a fluid simulation. Once the desired simulation was created with the low polygon model, the simulation was then exported out of RealFlow and imported into Maya. Once in Maya, the simulation/particles were to be textured in Maya and rendered with the high polygon version of the model.
The brief for the final water simulation was to create a river that flowed down a waterfall into a pool of water or lake at the bottom of the waterfall. The first thing that was done was a low polygon model of the river, waterfall and lake/pool was created in Maya. An opened top rectangular tray was modelled for the river and then a NURBS curve was drawn to make the shape of the waterfall. The NURBS curve was extruded from to create a slide-like polygon that would become the waterfall. A sphere was modelled at the bottom of this slide and the top half of the sphere was deleted to create the pool/lake. Low polygon rocks were modelled in the river and down the waterfall, so the water would have something to interact with as it travelled along. The last thing that needed to be made was a plane that could be turned into the pool/lake’s surface. This was modelled into the same shape as the pool/lake by selecting the make polygon tool and drawing along the edge of the pool/lake to create a flate plane in the same shape as the pool/lake.
The model was then exported out of Maya and imported into RealFlow. This meant that the water simulation could be created so that it would follow the model to become a river, waterfall and then a pool/lake. Once the model was in RealFlow, the first thing that was done was a fractal was put onto the ocean plane to become the ocean surface or in this case the pool/lake surface. Next, a circle emitter was created and placed at the start of the river. It was simulated to see how the water would react.
At 200 frames, the water did not even get half way down the waterfall. The speed was turned up and the number of particles were turned up and re-simulated. This caused too many particles to be created too fast and there were lots of particles flowing over the sides of the model. Another problem was that some of the particles were just flying off the end of the waterfall and were not actually going down it. A kill volume box selected from the daemons menu was placed over the river area to kill any particles that were overflowing. The particles speed was turned down and then re-simulated.
This solved the problems of the particles overflowing and the water flying off the end of the waterfall but the particles were not following the direction of the waterfall properly. A drag force box was put in at the start of the waterfall to slow the particles down. The drag force was started off low and then re-simulated. There was not enough drag force to make the water follow the waterfall, so the drag force was set very high and then the simulation was reset and re-simulated. This created too much drag force, so it was lowered bit by bit until the particles took the desired path. Once the simulation was done the particles were selected and the mesh was built.
The next thing that was done was the low polygon model was modelled into a high polygon model. More polygons were added to make the model smooth. It was scaled up to prepare it for Mudbox and so were the rocks. Then the model and the rocks were UV unwrapped and taken into Mudbox for texturing and painting. When the model looked the way it was visually required to look, it was exported and imported back into Maya. The water simulation was exported out of RealFlow and imported back into Maya. The mesh of the particles was selected and textured using the hypershade in mentalray. MIA material was selected and using the presets, the thick glass material was chosen to make the particle mesh look like water. The same material was put onto the realwave plane but was made a little darker than the river and waterfall texture. The physical sun was used in Maya for lighting and the attributes were edited to give the desired time of day. A camera was put in and animated to show the river, waterfall and the pool.
Screen shot of render view from Maya of river
Screen shot of render view from Maya of top of the waterfall
Screen shot of render view from Maya of front of waterfall
Final Water Simulation
The final simulation that we are learning is crowd simulation and we will be looking at Massive for this particular simulation. Not too much longer to go and we will be at the end of our advanced animation paper.
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