Splash pad project - need help!

[pshupe68]

I have a rendering of a community centre that has a splash pad right in front of it. I pretty much have all the geometry and textures finished up but am looking for advice on how to do watersprayers.

I guess I could do something in photoshop but I would like to do something with particle systems or possibly Glu3d. I would like to do an animation for my portfolio. What would you guys suggest? I am using Max 8 and Vray 1.5.

Would anyone like to give me a hand if you have experience with the programs I mentioned. I can send you an image and you could give me a quote. Should be very straight forward as I have a image from the splash pad manufacturer showing all the jets etc. Thanks.

Regards Peter.

[joconnell]

If you want a really fine looking misty spray the heavily blurred white particles will do it - if you want something that looks like a film of water then model it and put a ripple through it using a bump map. If you want gurgling water like an upside down tap then boxes that rotate really quickly with a high specular are the way to go - Have you got a pic of what you want?

[pshupe68]

joconnell - It will be sprays only. As the area has a small knee wall around it which would obscure any standing water. There are jets inside large rings that should straight out, fountain type jets that come out of the floor, and some that come straight down from a canopy, and some that arc from the top of the canopy straight up and then down to the pad. I think a particle system will work fine but I have been looking at the Glu3d plugin and it looks like it would work perfectly, but I need someone who knows that plugin.

Do you know the particle system well??


Thanks.

Regards Peter.

[joconnell]

I reckon glu might be overkill for this since there isn't that much interaction between the water and anything else - I'd fake it with traditional particle systems instead. Take a look at this thread for some hints on very splashy looking water: http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=378050

[pshupe68]

Thanks - I'm really just after like spray jets but they do have to arc towards the ground depending on where they are mounted. I'll have to check out particles.

If there is anyone out there who is good at this and wants to make some quick cash drop me a line! It should be pretty easy, like I said it can be static just has to look like a water spray!

Thanks again.

Regards Peter.

[joconnell]

post a photo of what you want it to look like and I'll have a bash.

[pshupe68]

will do tomorrow - late for meeting right now! Thanks for the help!

Ciao Peter.

[pshupe68]

joconnell - I had some time this morning to play with Super Spray and had decent results. So it looks like I'll just stumble through it myself as my deadline has been extended. Thanks for the offer.

Regards Peter.

[pshupe68]

Here is the updated image. Now I am running out of memory. I have tried rendering as a separate pass but that didn't work, for some reason. Thanks for the tip Chris J.

Is there any way to reduce or collapse a superspray particle system? Could someone tell me the best way to render a separate pass? Thanks for any advice.

Lots of tweaking still to do, just have to get this particle system thing sorted and I can do the rest in post. Thanks again for any advice.

Regards Peter.

[joconnell]

If you wanted to you could make a seperate by selecting the particle systems, invert your selection and give everything a black material (or use the vray properties to make everything matte -1). If you render your spray on black then just use photoshop and layer the water over in screen mode.

As for collapsing you can take a look at the mesher object but you might lose motion blur abilities.

[pshupe68]

Well - Now that I have my particle systems where I want them and the number I need. I am running out of memory. From the image above I have added 4 more sprays that start at the top of the canopy are arched up and fall down in front of the canopy. Is there any way to reduce the memory consumption of Super Spray objects? I do not need them to be animated. I have tried a separate pass but that doesn't really look that good. Any other suggestions? Thanks in advance.

Regards Peter.