Rainy Days WIP

[RErender]

Hi all, I am working on a little short called Rainy Days, really just a compillation of some rainy settings.

I think I have been looking at this shot too long, sometimes the timing of the drops and splashes looks ok and other times it look too "springy or bouncy"(tech terms... ) I'd appreciate any C&C on the shot.

QT7 VIDEO
Divx VIDEO

[CCS]

Doesn't play here (FF, IE or standalone QT). Codec prob maybe?

[RErender]

yeah, requires QT 7, H.264 codec.

[joconnell]

Looks nice so far but the ripples arent tying properly to the particles - I presume you're using pflow for it? Blur make a raintext which links with particle systems to make a little ring where a particle hits a surface but I dunno if its compatible.

Another approach though a little long winded is:

Make an animation of a few soft white concentric circles growing out and fading - like a bump map for a ripple.

Use the shape mark operator on you particles that hit the surface to make a single card at the point of impact and for these card particles, face map the ripple animation you use earlier into the opacity channel of a material with a white diffuse and 100% self illumination.

Render out a black and white pass of these cards for a camera above the ground plane. render at high res and lock the camera into place. You should get a ripple render with the circles overlapping.

Take the render you just did and use the camera map per pixel material to remap the render from the camera you rendered it from. Put this render in the bump channel of your puddle / water material.

Now if you do your regular vray render your bump should tie on to the particles fairly accurately and you'll get a neater join between the two.

Aside from that, shaders and lighting are great so just needs motion blur and you're set!

[Morbid Angel]

eric can you recompress i hate quicktime 7 maybe avi?

[DaForce]

To me it looks like there is a huge sheet of plastic wrap/cling wrag/glad wrap/saran wrap (dependomg where you live) stretched over the entire surface and when the drop hit it they just make a little wave.
Or as if there is an inch or so of water on the ground.

On that sort of ground there wouldnt be that much water at all...certainly not enough to make a smooth wave from each drop.

But still... it does look cool

That was my CCC.... Christmas Comments and Critiques

[RErender]

I've added a link to a divx avi above for those that hate QT's :P

Thanks for the feedback guys, I think your right Daforce, it would have to rain quite a bit harder before it got that deep. Well it could be like that if it had just rained hard and it was a depression, but a bit of a stretch I guess.

jconnell thanks for the ideas, I considered doing something like that and it would be the best/easiest for this type of shot, I think, but I am trying to get something that is procedural and doesn't need to be tweaked for each shot. I am trying to get it to work with Peter Watje's Particle deformer plugin but I might have to fall back to your technique.

[Morbid Angel]

yeah looks cool, however I couldnt tell that the whole ground plane was underwater before the raindrops start to hit it. Secondly, yes, the whole thing does look a bit bouncy, i.e. from such large raindrops there would be quite some ripples after it.

[RErender]

good points

maybe it needs some oil and grime like http://www.lighttight.com/?p=169

and the rings http://cyberbuzz.gatech.edu/erato/2004/5-puddle.html

[Morbid Angel]

that could be a nice touch, what are you using for creating this?

[RErender]

I'm using Particle flow, it's a pretty simple setup. Main drops are instanced geometry of a drop I modeled, no gravity just emmiter pointing down and at a slight angle. A deflector just below the surface spawns two seperate flows one is the main bounce drip and the other is the 5 smaller ones. The surface is a plane, deformed using Peter Watje's "Particle Displace" plugin, I have a couple different sizes in the stack.

[Morbid Angel]

oh i see... i could recomend realflow for this task as well, but that is a preference really. In there, you can use a splash emitter as well as a realwave plane which when particles hit it, would create ripples and splash emitter would create splash drops which then would fall in progression.

[DaForce]

This may help a little in seeking the perfect ripple
http://fizyka.phys.put.poznan.pl/~pi...drops%2002.jpg

But seeing as your having rain on a street there really wont be much of a ripple at all.. mostly a big splash.
You certainly wont be seeing crossing waves like in that pic if its on the street.... unless is under a fair bit of water.

[RErender]

hmmm, I have installed the realflow demo to work on a closeup shot of a fountain for a project at work. I might give it a try.


For the fountain I am having a little trouble getting the water toflow right and to flow off the top of my imported geometry.Right now the water evaporates after the first bounce, not sure how to make it continue Should probably figure that out first so I can get paid :P

here is my test so far Divx VIDEO

This is the type of fountain I am trying to recreate, in top of the fountain will fill the shot so it has to be pretty good.


Nice refrence Daforce, still like the deep puddle look, I think I might model a whole for the water to sit in

[DaForce]

Your video looks quite nice... althought the water texture needs some work as well as the continuing water

Hehehe yeah i understand, and that sort of shot is probabaly easier... so model a pot hole or something and make the water muddy