Testing...tap..tap..tap. Is this thing working?
dHandle
Posts: 617
I thought I would start a new thread for projects and testing ideas, etc. Feel free to contribute your own works, ideas, and especially suggestions for improvements or variations.
I've been messing around in 3DS Max along with Studio, learning some basic modeling, etc. I recently got a very cool plugin called Rayfire. I've known about it for a while, but just recently made the decision to buy it, and give it a try. Since there are so many tutorials on Youtube for anything you want to learn, I went there and learned a lot.
I haven't seen very much here in the forums along the lines of fragmenting and destroying objects, (which is what Rayfire is for...) then making some cool art out of the rubble, so I thought I would give that a try.
Here's my first project.
I got the idea for this project a couple months ago when I bought Aslan Statues by @Jack Tomalin .
Here's how it went:
I imported one of the Aslan Statues into 3DS Max as an .obj file. I didn't worry about the textures, because I figured I could retexture it back in Studio.
Then, using what I learned in several of the Youtube tutorials, I fractured and fragmented the statue.
Then I imported it back into Studio, and retextured it. I'm not sure if I used the original texture, or one of the many shaders I have accumulated. I put it in a scene that seemed to fit. I just used old characters that I've saved, rather than develop new ones.
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Here is the scene I created using my fragmented and fractured model. This is a 3Delight render.
This troll is definitely an art critic!
With apologies to @Jack Tomalin
Here is a wider perspective:
Very neat effect!
Okay, now that!, is super cool!!!! Nicely done, dHandle! :)
Thanks, KM!
I've been working on the 'crash through the window' scenes in Wonder Woman forever! They're still a WIP, but here's what I got so far.
I started with TerryMcG's excellent WW costume on stock V4.
The window proved to be the toughest part. I couldn't find a window, or a wall with a window in any of the stuff I have that would fracture and fragment without crashing 3DS Max. So I had to up my game, and make my own wall and window. Again, lots of tutorials on Youtube available to learn just about anything. This is an early version. The window isn't quite right. I need to add the wooden slats still. I was mostly interested in shattering the glass at this point.
Early attempts. Working on different sized glass fragments, and the positioning of the fragments so as to not obscure her face.
I always end up with a number of versions of a project.
Here are a couple different lighting and color grading versions.
Everything needs work. I guess that's why it's called a work-in-progress...
I need to look at adding more glass fragments of different sizes...dust particles, etc.
But the possibilities for doing destruction and demolition renders just took a big jump upward!
Thanks for looking...
: )
Nice works with crashing the lion statue! I like the closeup better, in the wider fram the other guys are standing around a bit wierd, while the troll is in full action.
with the wonder woman I like the second to last best with the dof and the light settings. You did evelve quite a lot! This is so nice to see!
Here is the 2nd 'through the window' scene. This one is also tough, and taking a long time. I just threw a background image in so it wouldn't be plain empty white space.
The roof outside the window is proving to be a pain. I have to learn a whole new plugin for adding roofing tiles, which in my case means starting from scratch. I may have to go back through my inventory, and see if I have a building, house or whatever, with a roof that will work. I did look briefly, and didn't find anything.
I couldn't find a WW1 German soldier uniform, so I threw Urban Warrior on M4. Also, I'm just using a stock pose on M4 for the time being.
Wow, very very cool! I am looking forward to seeing how you progress with this!
Nice effects on the window! I love that you are making your own models for stuff. Nice. Keep it up. Everything is looking real good.
Linwelly - Hi Lin! Thanks for stopping in. You're right about those guys standing around looking weird. (Orcs and Vikings are weird to begin with!) I definitely need to go back, and polish things up. The main effort was to learn the Rayfire plugin.
Sonja and KM, Hi all! : ) I haven't been active on the forums for several months. But it's summer now, and I have some time. Thought I would try to get back into DAZ again, especially since I have these new plugins.
Rayfire is available for 3DS Max and Maya. It's not cheap by any means, but I applied, and got approved for an educational license. (I also got another plugin for smoke and flames. I definitely have my work cut out for me!)
Rayfire is mostly for video productions... breaking things, blowing stuff up, earthquakes, superhero destruction, etc. But the cool thing is you can save out any frame of the video sequence as a stand-alone obj file. It then imports directly into Studio. I don't even bother with materials in Max; I've been using DAZ textures and shaders.
If you have a few minutes, check out this Showreel that demos various movies and video games that have used Rayfire for the action sequences.
Very cool effect!!
Thanks, deathbycanon! It certainly has a ton of possibilities!
So...next project:
If you watched that Rayfire Showreel link in my last post, you may remember the train cars blowing up (around the 1:00 mark). When I saw that, I immediately started wondering if I could do a similar scene in Studio. But the more I thought about it, the more I said, "Nope...too complicated." Besides, I don't have a handle on explosions and smoke yet.
But I really wanted to do something, and blowing up a train seemed doable, even if there were no fiery explosions. I remembered Jack Tomlin's Parkside series had several train components. I didn't have any of them, but when I checked, they were only a couple bucks each. (Amazing that there is still such high quality in those older products!)
So...I bought a bunch of them and thought, "Cool! I get to blow up another of Jack's masterpieces!" : )
I exported the boxcar as an obj file, and imported it into 3DS Max.
Jack has done a really quality modeling job with some of his products. The doors are rigged to slide, or hide if you need them to. They are individual components, not an integrated whole. That's the problem I had with some other models, like windows and walls in the Wonder Woman project. Of course I have a lot of buildings with walls and windows! But every one of them I checked had them integrated into a single unit. That's why I had to model my own wall and window. I made sure to separate window from wall because I didn't want to have Wonder Woman knock down the whole wall...just smash through the window glass.
So...I fractured one of the sliding Boxcar doors, then blew it outward. I needed it to look like wood was splintering, which is different than glass shattering or rock crumbling. Fortunately, Rayfire lets you select the material you are fracturing so it looks realistic
In Rayfire, you can run the simulation back after baking it, and chose which frame to export as an obj file. The simulation involved fracturing the door of the train, then having it explode outward by some force. It can be a bomb, a physical object like a car crashing through a wall, gravity making an object fall so it shatters when it hits the ground, wind blowing something over. The possibilities are endless!
Here are a couple of examples of what I did with the boxcar. You can see that the explosion is progressing outward over about 50 or more frames of the video. I think this one was from frame 20 to frame 90. At any point, I can save out the frame at the exact spot I want. I can set the strength of gravity so the fragments will fall to the ground after blowing outward. I can set the camera to look at the scene from any and all angles in both 3DS Max and DAZ Studio.
So...I picked the frame I wanted to save, and exported it out of 3DS Max, and into Studio. Then I had to come up with some kind of story or concept for why a traincar would have a door blow outward without a fiery explosion. Being the lazy bum I am, I went through some of my saved character models to see if a story or concept suggested itself. I didn't want to have to create new characters, find clothing, pose them, etc.
Let's see...boxcar...avenging angel of death...zombies...damsel in distress.
Bingo! Got it!
(tomorrow, I will post some of the renders using this exploding boxcar door...)
Ok...it's tomorrow.
er...
Nevermind.
Here's the scene: A couple of zombies threatening a lady in distress. A guardian angel intervening. Boxcar door blows up sending the zombies flying.
Corny, but simple:
I used a freebie Train Station and @stonemason 's After the War for the dystopia feel. I need more clutter on the train platform and probably a million other suggestions (suggest away!), but at this point, I just was trying to get a handle on integrating the fragmented elements into a scene.
I really think I need more dust and debris associated with the door fragments. Some of that I can do in post (OR YOU CAN DO IN POST! Please feel free to download any of these images, and show us your postwork ideas. Everyone learns...especially me! : )
A different camera angle shows the boxcar door fragments from a different angle. I could have changed the camera angle to the complete other side, or from straight on, but that would require reedoing the background. I did mention that I'm lazy, right? : )
Here, I tried to add some effects to the explosion. I'm using dome and scene lights in render settings. I added a 'heavenly light' glowing from inside the boxcar as the door blows out.
Some lighting tests:
For a couple of these, I changes from dome and scene to scene lights only. Makes the overall scene darker, but I kinda like it.
I think I like this one best. It's dark, and you have to know what's going on to be able to appreciate it. Still, it's my favorite of the bunch.
Ya, I don't know if I should watch that demo. The last thing I need is to add to my really cools stuff for my 3dart list...
but the explosions are cool and I relaly like that last set of three.
HA! Thanks, Sonja,
Yeah, I know what you mean. I stopped putting stuff in my wishlist. Everything's cool, and the cool stuff's expensive. I'm trying to limp along on a shoestring budget.
Oh, and don't watch the showreel video unless you like Nickleback.
Hey Dhandle wow what a video makes me want to go get that plugin butttttttt...........the price is what would stop me for sure
!!
Ya, I don't know if I should watch that demo. The last thing I need is to add to my really cools stuff for my 3dart list...
but the explosions are cool and I relaly like that last set of three.
Lol I keep putting it in my wishlist, I just don't buy nearly as much of it lol. I have no issue with Nickleback, I like a wide range of music.
Hey Sapphire! Long time...!
Yeah, even with the educational discount, it was something like $130.00, and there's a pretty steep learning curve.
I'm a cheapskate when it comes to buying DAZ store stuff; I'm always looking for freebies or older stuff. But I mess around with video too, so I figured I could use Rayfire both ways. Here's a short clip I did fracturing a local school's mascot: The Warriors. It's only about 15 seconds long.
Yep; me too. Speaking of that...here is a real gem I found by a Youtube artist. Faster Car
Well, I messed around trying to model a roof with roofing tiles on it, and in between I went through my inventory looking for some buildings that would work for a circa 1918 WW1 Germany. In between THAT, I looked at Jack Tomlin's "A Dubious [whatever]" series, and decided that for $1.99 each, I could save myself a lot ot time and effort.
(This is where cheap meets lazy, and an all out war happens!)
I actually surprised myself with the results. Here are several variations of light and color schemes...all done in DAZ with no postwork whatever. (yet)
What would make them better? (besides posing, which I know I need to work on...at least for the soldier.)
I will check out the music when I get home from work.
I like the middle one the best. I think the one thing that looked a bit off was the glass doesn't extend out far enough, it feels like there should be at least a little bit of glass closer to the top of his head? Might just be me though
You know...I think you're right. Since he went through the glass first, at least some of the glass fragments should be beyond him. I will see about changing that when I redo the window. I also plan to add the wooden cross pieces of the window to match the reference images I used.
(ref: see attachments below)
Oh..and I think the song lyrics are wrong. He put "They might travel somewhere", in the 2nd verse. I think it's something else. What's it sound like to you?
I had an extra frame saved with the glass fragment explosion farther along. Seems to me that it's losing that 3D feel, and looking more like it was done in post with brushes. (That might be something to explore...) I might need to tighten the DOF to get some fragments blurred out. That's probably something that could also be done in 2D with brushes.
I think that was in the third verse. after the one about going to mars. He has a beautiful voice, thank you very much for sharing that!
And much better
If your unsure just try and see if the song is on lyrics and get the actual wording unless I'm misunderstanding all together. http://www.lyrics.com/
Since I'm working on learning Rayfire, I wanted to start a new project, and try some new techniques.
I looked at a few models I had that were bought in the store here, and tried to fragment sections of them. It didn't go well. I crashed 3DS Max repeatedly. So..back to the drawing board. I went through more tutorials, and check the forums looking for ideas and solutions that others have tried. I learned that the mistake I was making was trying to do too much at once. The glass window in the Wonder Woman scene was the perfect place to begin (lucky me!), because it's a simple straightforward model. Even the boxcar door was fairly simple.
When I tried a more complex model, I started getting errors and crashes. I learned to start simple...break the model into a few large pieces...maybe 2-3 at most. Then go back and select one of those pieces, and break it down further. Makes sense, and it worked beautifully!
Here are a couple of early attempts. I used Dragon's Tower by Nathy. Again, I just grabbed a few characters I had laying around and used them in the scene.
Dragon War.
One thing to notice is that when a model is fragmented, new inner faces are created. These new faces have to be textured, of course. Sometimes, Rayfire simply uses the existing texture on the new faces. This can work in some situations, like breaking a rock, or a piece of glass. The inside surfaces may look very much like the outside. If not, you need to change the inside materials. This means you have to go through a bunch of steps to create new material zones. It can be as simple as 1 new surface, or as complicated as you want.
Looking at these renders, I think I need new material zones because I'm getting odd geometry patterns on the new faces.
I'll have to look into that...
Here is a quick look at the video production of the Dragon Tower crumbling. It's only 6 seconds long, but it will play twice. I did a camera zoom out on the first one. The second one is from a distance.
The 2 renders above are a bit tame. You don't get a chance to see the whole sequence. I picked a frame to render out that was a bit too early. I will be redoing that soon to show more crumbling.
Ok, here's a redo. I saved out a frame later in the sequence that showed more crumbling, Looks more dynamic now. You can see that there is quite a variety of fragment sizes. There are several ways of doing this. What I did was to take 3-4 fragments and break them up even further into maybe 20 smaller pieces each. Anyther possibility is to use the particle generator in Max to create additional particles all the way down to dust size. Speaking of that, a small dust cloud might be a good thing to add at some point for increased realism.
There are new concerns that are bugging me. One is...the timing of the dragons colliding with the tower roof, penetrating into it a bit, (or perhaps bouncing off some), and the dispersion of the fragments. If I was really ambitious, I might work on taking the dragon model into 3DS Max, and use it as a collision object. That would probably increase the realism rather than trying to imagine what it would look like, and trying to pose it.
Hmmm...thinking cap mode...engage...
Another thing that's bugging me: If you looked at the video in the earlier post, you might remember that the dispersion of fragments went off to the left. However in this render, the fragments are flying off to the right. That's because for some unknown (to me anyway) reason, when the tower model frame was imported into Studio, it somehow got inverted. I did play with it, some tried adjusting settings. There are export settings in Max, and import settings in Studio. I played with both and couldn't figure it out.
Have to do more research...