deko.lt effects lab

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How we maked Exhilo animation at KORB.

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After Jamie's Jewels post about maxscripts recommendations, I share my choices of the most lovely 3dsmax scripts.

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One day Anselm posted some info, that hyper-threading can slow down some 3dsmax operations, especially FumeFX. I don't believe him. Who should? :)

Let's make some bechmarks. Target machine:

Intel i7 920 2.67GHz @2.79GHZ (overlocked to 2.79)
12GB RAM
24GB Page File
3dsmax 2011 SP2 x64
VRay 2.10.01

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The creators of FumeFX UI should be locked into portable toilet and set on FIRE. Seriously, I can't understand why average user should do up to 4 separate simulations to get one rendered sequence. And this is for one grid only.

Fortunately, John Random created super-duper-mega-awesome tool to ease our fate. This maxscript let you batch all FumeFX simulation modes, and for whatever grids you wish. I definitely recommend it:

This is FX lab, right? So let's burn something...

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Almost after a 3 years, I'm still getting a lot of questions about SPA animation:

More info/Credits: link

Let's take a look how it was made...

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As I was involved in beta testing, I want to introduce a very interesting 3dsmax plugin from iCube R&D Group (developers of VRayScatter, MultiScatter and MadCar).

VRayPattern allows to periodically multiply geometry without additional memory consumption. As a sample you can use any tiled geometries (or those with unobtrusive joints). It also allows curving geometry on any surface, and works in a way similar to a displacement map. However, displacement maps can only use raster or vector maps of pattern to cover the surface of geometry, VRayPattern can use any of the original geometries for propagation. 

More info and manual (PDF)

Tutorials:

http://www.evermotion.org/tutorials/show/7967/v-ray-pattern-tutorial

http://www.vray-studio.com/2011/01/vraypattern-released-plugin-for-3dsmax-by-icube/

Some kind of fractals.

Previously I used this setup to make animated snowflakes map. In scene below, some pflow operators was left disabled, so you can play more to get some cool looking abstractions.

Animation:

3ds max 2009 scene:

Download (40 KB)

3ds max 2011 scene:

Download (16 MB)

P.S. Vray 1.5 minimum required, also no textures included, but most materials are pure shaders, without any bitmaps, so it works pretty good anyway.

Sometimes is necessary to drive 3ds max objects after particles. In this mini tutorial we will look into some interaction between PFlow and VrayLights.

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Remember problems with Viewport background inability to clear file path?

Let’s try simple command:

BackgroundImageFilename = ""

3dsmax morpher have some limitations. It works only with same object clone and only if vertices count is the same.

Click on the image below to see animation.

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Bringing time configuration dialog everytime you need to change start/end time is useless. But there is some hotkeys, just click over 3dsmax timeline:

Ctrl+Alt+LMB - change start time

Ctrl+Alt+RMB - change end time

Ctrl+Alt+MMB - drag entire timeline

LMB - left mouse button, RMB - right mouse button, MMB - middle mouse button.

Autodesk Backburner is damn good choice for small renderfarms. It can be used not only from 3dsmax or Maya, but can also handle renderings from other app. Like eyeon Fusion...

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Creating little dust particles in the air is easy, but rendering all passes with real camera DOF can be VERY time consuming....

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Here is simple fire camp scene created with FumeFx. Dependly on situation but for long-distance shot it can fit pretty well without any changes.

Download (20 KB)

Often when dealing with complex effects it's necessary to split those into smaller parts. Isn't only better to render specific elements separately but also working with particular portion is a straight way to get work done more quickly.  

Script below let you quickly turn off/on Particle Flow systems:

for o in objects where classOf o == PF_Source do

(

o.Enable_Particles = not o.Enable_Particles

)

This can be pretty usefull, when you want just quick turn off/on all particle flow systems. But what if you want manage not all PFlow systems at the time?

Exceptions

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Procedural colouring experiment with Krakatoa.

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Initially this was planned to present at FXwars "Nuke" entry. But later this grow up to a more detailed FumeFX research...

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Fireworks project from early 2006.

Download .max project

One more old, but still usable tool to work with a lot of objects.

Download (10 KB)

My old application to render a 3dsmax projects series.

Download (421 KB)

Ok, here is some FX samples from my old education site, back from 2005-2006.

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