Dreamscape and Afterburn

[flavrsaver]

I just got a project at where I work that will require me to generate some ocean and underwater shots, plus a couple of fluid shots, and so I'm curious about the capabilities of plugins such as Dreamscape and Afterburn. I've never used either of them, but from what I've seen with Dreamscape you can generate some really nice looking ocean shots and skies. I was looking through their site today and found some really nice looking ocean shots in the animations gallery, but am curious as to what program they used to create them? Here's a link to the animations page:

http://www.afterworks.com/animations.asp

The first two videos by Steve Green are the ones I'm interested in. Now I know that to achieve that look it's going to take some serious time and practice, but I'm up for the challenge. Where those created using Dreamscape? I also know that Afterburn can be used to create fluids, so maybe that was what was used for these animations?

I have a few VRay ocean shaders and with the new sun and sky system in 1.5, that will help me create some nice outdoor lighting shots, but before I run off and create a plane, throw some modifiers on it, slap on an ocean shader and a VRay sun, would it be beneficial to just invest in one of these plugins that's built for these kinds of effects?

Also, I'm completely open to any other plugins or programs that are really good at creating oceans, skies or basic fluids. I'll be happy to share a little info on what the project is about if that would help, I just wanted to spare you all the boring details, especially since I'm long-winded anyway.

Thanks for the help!

[flavrsaver]

Obviously another part of this question is how well VRay works with these plugins.

[joconnell]

One thing that DS can do that you won't be able to replicate is the waves hitting into eachother - the movement is really nice with it. The look can be done with noise and displacement in vray but ds can get it quicker.

I'd say it depends on how close you'll get to the sea and what it has to do. A sea render is heavily driven by the sky it reflects so you'll need some nice sky plates too.

[dapeter]

A sea render is heavily driven by the sky it reflects so you'll need some nice sky plates too.

Although Dreamscape can help out with that one, too...

[flavrsaver]

Good point on the sky and how it affects the sea. Would you recommend DS's ability to produce skies or rely more on sky maps for that?

[Paul Oblomov]

Skies are great, when they're far fa far away Or you have to check 3d button in ds, but it slows things down.

[joconnell]

It takes a lot of time to get a really nice result in dreamscape, a hell of a lot longer than scanning an image or getting a pic from flickr / sxc.hu and it'll render slower too.

[flavrsaver]

Okay great, thanks for that tip. Looks like Dreamscape is the way to go.

The animations that I will be working on are all related to the oil industry, particularly showing off the tools our company makes and how they operate. So, I'll be animating some water shots of rigs out in the ocean and it looks like Dreamscape will work great for that. The other part of my work will be showing fluid flowing through the inside of some of our tools and I'm wondering the best way to animate that and this is where my thoughts on Afterburn come into play. According to the site, Afterburn can be used to create fluids, but maybe I should go with something like RealFlow to get those kinds of dynamics?

Edit: Wow, just saw how much RealFlow costs. Crap that's more expensive than I thought! If it's the right tool for the job though, then I've got some convincing to do.

[Paul Oblomov]

Try Glu3d fluid plugin for 3dsmax. Cheap and it works well. Not a high-end simulation, but quite good.
http://3daliens.com/glu3D/index.htm

[flavrsaver]

Glu3D looks like it would do what I want it to, plus it's a plug-in which I'm more inclined to go with than a standalone app. Thanks for the link!

[joconnell]

Particle flow with glu3d's pwrapper is a good option too - I try an avoid fluid sims where I can - realflow will make your life a lot less pleasant and you won't get anything useful out of it whereas particles are controllable and the glu pwrapper does very quick metaparticles for the water surface.

[Paul Oblomov]

But remember, that Glu can't make an ocean. Dreamscape and realflow can.

[OrionD]

I've used DS and VR for a long time and no probs. In fact this solution is highly recommended.
While DS is great for its seas and skies, I only use it to get the geometry. Apply the VR textures on the geometry, and u can get any results as u want. You don't have to worry about converting the DS sea/terrain into poly or mesh, just aply the mats.
i've used DS for terrains, seas, and wakes. Amazing wakes it produces... only if it could also produce lapping waves...

[instinct]

agreed, i really dig ds too...and when you know what you´re doing you can get pretty decent results for skies in rather quick rendertimes. another great thing about the wavesim is the foam sim etc. I also use DS with it´s own materials, works like a charm. both ways work fine, tho for some situations i really dig the DS materials. it has a nice subsurface fake and a physically based sim...looks pretty nice in my eyes. Clouds are fun....here´s two pics i did for another thread. note those are 5mins quick setup just to show the basic capabilities...this is in no way the limit of DS.




Regards,
Thorsten

[Paul Oblomov]

Yeah I love clouds. Much faster that Afterburn.