leaking ceiling in max - morphing objects

[flipside]

Hi,

A very general question to get some pointers on how to do the following.

I need to make an animation of a drop of liquid coming through the ceiling. So it should first grow a bit, and then when it has enough volume it should start to look like a €2 coin and finally fall down. The idea is that "money is leaking".

I have no experience at all in deforming/morphing objects in max, so I'm just looking for some general direction I should look into more. I can look for some tutorials with your input and figure it out further.

Thanks for any info,

Wouter

[RErender]

Morphs are pretty easy, trick is modeling all your targets out of the same topology, threw together a quick example. I started with the coin and molded that into a drop,then just add the morph modifier, added the target(s) and animated the weights. Pretty low res but maybe it will help get you started.

[flipside]

Hi Eric, thanks for the very quick reply! What version of max is it? I'm still on 9, have all following version still in the box... Will install a new version if it doesn't interfere with my current version.

[RErender]

It's 2008, shouldn't hurt to install both, I have 2008 and 2009 here at work and 9 and 2008 at home, haven't noticed any problems...

[stevesideas]

Definately easier to work backwards with this. I would create the coin first then relax it down then use a spherical modifier and finally pull it into shape with a 3x3 box modifier. Then you have your morph targets. You might need one in between those 2 of course.

[flipside]

Hi,

Still working on this, and found a way to do this more easily by morphing curves which I later revolvle to create the drop shape.

But I have a new problem. The morphing of the curve works great, untill I save and reopen the file, then it gets messed up...

Here are some screenshots of what's happening, and a zip file with a max file http://www.aversis.be/vrayrhino/morphtest.zip



















Any help of course greatly appreciated

wouter

[Preisler]

Hi Flipside!

I tried to recreate your problem but with same result as you - maby it can´t be done with a nurbs curve?

Anyway I found a small work around. If you (in the Morpher modifier) click "Reload All Morph Targets" under the Channel List, then the curve will be fine again.

Preisler

[flipside]

Oh that's great! I didn't see that button, for now I manually deleted and reselected the morph target, and then I had to animate it again etc...

Thanks for the help!!

Will post the result here when finished.

[flipside]

It's 2008, shouldn't hurt to install both, I have 2008 and 2009 here at work and 9 and 2008 at home, haven't noticed any problems...

Hey Eric,

Since I installed both max9 and 2009, I'm having problems with backburner. At first I couldn't use backburner with 2009. Then I installed the backburner version that came with 2009 and now it works, but now max9 doesn't want to render with backburner.

I always get an unknown error when I send a render job from max9.

Do you have any problems with backburner?

Thanks,

wouter

[RErender]

Gah, now I feel guilty, heh

I don't have that specific combo but 2008 and 2009 are working together fine at the office, I'll need to check though if we are running 2007 or 2008 manager there, I don't recall at the moment, but I know that all the servers are 2008 (max 2009 backburner). In looking at some posts in the Area looks like there are two options/fixes one is using backburner 2007 and adding a reg key for Max 2009, the other is adding a reg key for 2008/9 in the 2008 backburner.

here are the keys to try with backburner 2008 from the AREA here http://area.autodesk.com/index.php/f...ewreply/63744/

 HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Autodesk\Backburner\2008.1\Plugins. 
  If they aren’t there, create new String Values. 
  Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 32-bit with a Data value of your Max 2008 Network folder like so: 
Autodesk 3ds Max 2008 32-bit    C:\3dsmax2008\\Network  
Autodesk 3ds Max 9 32-bit       C:\3dsmax9\\Network 
Autodesk 3ds Max 8              C:\3dsmax8\\Network

etc.
... note the double back slashes for the first sub folder… any other subfolders just get 1 back slash… like for ex: C:\Program Files\\Autodesk\3dsmax2008\Network.



I hope it helps

[flipside]

No need to feel guilty

I can't get it to work, but I missed the part about the // etc... So I guess I did too many things wrong

I decided to simply go for max 2009 and remove max9.

I have a new question, since I'm going off topic anyway I'll keep going even more off topic! What happened to the old option to install max in network mode? I want to install max2009 on my second render pc, but I only seem to succeed in installing the full product with license code and everything. Not the correct way I guess. Tried reading about deployments and license manager tools etc but it's not clear at all to me.

Some pointers on how to install max on a render slave the legit way would be nice, so I know where to start

Tried searching but I'm not sure for what terms to search for so that's a problem.

btw here is the animation of the coindrop!
www.aversis.be/vrayrhino/coindrop.mov

thanks!

[glyph]

very nice animation!
did you animate the material as a separate motion?
- it looks as though the coin forms and then the texture slides on - very effective

[flipside]

thanks!

I animated the uvw mapping, scale and position along with the movement of the drop