Realflow scripting

I made a realflow script! It's awesome. Or at least it's awesome because it's my first one. Anyway, trying to find places up upload it so here's a good place!

So what does it do? I'm glad you asked! So this little guy sets up initial velocities and rotations for rigid bodies. Basically if you just need to get you rigid bodies moving you are much better of just setting some initial values. But if you have more than 10 objects setting each one by hand can be a pain. So this script automates that process. To use this script import your rigid bodies. They must have translation values (don't import 'frozen' geometry).


1. Create an object that will be the center of you force.
2. Run the script.
3. In the dialouge box, select the objects you want to make rigid bodies.
4. In the dialouge box, select the object you want to make the center point.
5. Input a maximum speed for the regid bodies.
6. Input a maximum rotational speed for the rigid bodies.
7. Press OK.


I've only tested this in Realflow 2012, so I can't tell if it'll work in earlier versions. Anyway, download it and try it, before my mobileMe gets taken away from Apple, boo :(

rigid body script  <------------------

Ok, I know I've promised a tutorial and I'm still going to do it. I've mostly been putting it off as I've been having issues with video recording software. Maybe I should just write it down in a PDF, but I guess video tuts are all the rage. Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that free video capture software is terrible. I can't work on my Mac, which would be nice because I would have quicktime. (Maybe that is terrible too.) So, you'll have to wait until I get camtasia. And that's going to be a while.

Ok so I've fixed my video card problems. So tutorial soon; at least as soon as I can get some good video capture software up and running. In the mean time, there's this neat little fluid test that this guy did. But better yet is the crit that one of my colleagues gave him in the comments. Worth its weight in gold.

http://vimeo.com/28519440

Delays

Wow sorry about the delays. I have been holding off posting due to my video card not being supported by maya. That's what I get for going with an ATI chip. My 6870 performs well for games, but I need nVidia drivers to run Maya. It's very difficult to work when your view port stops updating. Anyway, not sure what card to get. I don't want to give up my gaming abilities, and I don't want to have to switch out cards every time I want to work or play. I may end up with a 580 GTX or 590 GTX. Not sure yet. But that at least sounds like a better solution than a quadro 4000. Anyway, I'll get back to the tut soon enough.

Portal Shot Film

Ok so not so much Fx related. Well, the portals are pretty neat, but yeah, check this video out. It's amazing.

Tutorial Intro

Ok, I will get around to the good stuff. But I figure I should write it out clearly before I just start posting willy, nilly here. So, instead I'm going to give the outline for how I want to talk about this topic. I guess at the end I'll gather it all up and make a nice PDF or a video tutorial if I can get my hands on some nice recording software. For this tutorial I am going to make the following assumption. I assume that you can read. And since I can safely assume that, the I can also assume you can read maya's extensive documentation. If I talk about something that you don't understand, it will be most likely because you didn't read Maya's documentation on said topic. If you ask me about something that can be easily answered by pressing "F1", I will most likely ignore you. What I'd like to focus on are little tips or methods that I use with Maya's tools. We're going to write quite a few expressions, but nothing overly complex. You don't have to know mel to follow this tutorial but again a little RTFM doesn't hurt.

I want to cover basic particle emission, fields, PP attributes, and PSI shading. Finally, I want to be able to output a high quality render worthy of a demo reel. So we'll see how this goes.

Missile Trail Beginnings

Hey this will be the start of the missile trail tutorial. So now a disclaimer, I'm not an expert, at least not in the all knowing sense. I've worked on this type of effect but have not mastered it. I will be dispensing my knowledge here. I guess the thought is that in teaching I will learn more than soaking up knowledge from others. That said doing is important.

So where to start on the missile trail. Well for one, close Maya. We'll get to that part later. When starting a project you need to know where you are going before you start making a ton of particles. I know it sounds straight forward but it is really critical and most artists skip this step. So the first step is to look at reference. Now that we have google and youtube there really is no excuse for not doing this.

Here's what I found in less than 5 minutes.

So yeah, this is a good starting point. Things to take note of are the length of the trails, the speed of dissipation, the colors of the smoke, turbulence in the trail, length of the fire, shadows and lighting. What will make the missile trail most believable is making it move correctly and shade it correctly. It is important to pay attention to how light interacts with the smoke trails.

I hope this gives you a good idea where to start. Technical stuff later.

-Calibrix