animated lava

[Morbid Angel]

here is what I got sofar
http://www3.telus.net/public/vinnik8...lava_test_.mov

[Dynedain]

if you use a vertex color map somewhere in your shader to blend or mask the lava (however you are doing it) then as the vertices move, they'll take the masking or blending (or whatever it is in) with them

[Dynedain]

that simulation is looking pretty good - one recommendation though, you may want to increase the adhesion of the fluid (however that is conrolled) because you're getting areas where the lava swells/extends out, then retreats back to its original form - but then again, thats a fluid issue, not a texture issue

[Morbid Angel]

Dynedain - Im not too familiar with the way vertex color mapping works...

[Dynedain]

Vertex color mapping allows you to "paint" colors onto an object independent of its materials. The color of any particular vertex is stored with that vertex' data, just like its coordinates, which other vertices it connects to, etc.

One of your map types in Max is "vertex color map" which basically lets you load that channel of information into a map slot so you can use it like a falloff, gradient, or any other kind of map.

I dont remember how off the top of my head, but check out the max help files to see how to assign the vertex colors.

In this case, it can be pretty usefull in order to "flag" vertices so that a certain paramater in your material always stays with a vertex.

[stefan]

I used a 2D-noise map from blur studios (freeware from blurbeta) in my laval animation (done with an early beta of glu3d).

AVI:

http://www.tidbit-images.com/glu3d/glu3d_lava_a2.avi

Quicktime:

http://www.tidbit-images.com/glu3d/glu3d_lava_a2.mov

[Morbid Angel]

can you explain a little more about the texture mapping that you used on glu3d mesh to get this texture to look correct ?

[stefan]

Hmm, that was more than 1 year ago. If I remember that correctly I set up the glu3d emitter and mapping gizmos (glu3d came with its own version of these) inside the holes in the wall to hide their origin (the mapping doesn't look very nice in the beginning and only becomes more random because of the turbolence after some frames of animation). Also, because the noise is a 2d map, it doesn't "swim" through the 3D object when it is animated. Afaik you need some special function to associate mapping coordinates with the individual particle, otherwise you'll always have to apply mapping after the 3d mesh has been generated and the texture will always "swim" over the surface when it's moving. To my knowledge only glu3d does offer such functionality, maybe realflow too (haven't tested this yet).

Stefan

[mare]

Hi!

I don't know if this is the thing you are after? The text below is a straight
quote from Peter Watjes site. http://www.max3dstuff.com/
I'm not sure if there is allready such function in Max 6 or 7? I have
used Max 7 only for few weeks.

"Vertex to UVW Map 1.0 for Max4.0, Vertex to UVW Map 1.0 for Max3.0, Vertex to UVW Map 1.0 copies the vertex position into the UVW channel so you can lock 3d textures in place when you animate the shape of the object. Normally when you use a 3d Texture you can use the XYZ or UVW1/2 to determine the projection. If you use the XYZ option you get a consistent texure but if you animate the shape of the object, the object apears to swim through the texture. If you use UVW1/2 your texture stays locked but you can get distortion or seams since you are using 2d projection. Vertex to UVW Map fixes by copying the vertex XYZ position into the UVW channel."

Mare

[Morbid Angel]

hay big thanks I'll check it out for sure.

[dellis]

Morbid,


I'm going to try this in a little while...and then get back to ya. For now...put a UVW Unwrap modifier at the top of your stack and see if that works. Adding a UVW Unwrap basically locks down your textures. I haven't tried it on particles yet but i tried out my suggestion animating a mesh by hand and there weren't any mapping issues at all....and i used the procedural perlin material. If it doesn't work on your particle system directly...try and use a mesher object and then repeat the procedure. Like i said though...i'm going to try it and see if it works and i'll check back with ya.

[Morbid Angel]

yeah dellis, the previos quicktime test that i did was an animated mesh. But Im looking forward to this script that locks vertex to uv. I'll try it tomorrow, as I purposly dont have any of my work software at home (to prevent me from working more )
thanks

[dellis]

Dmitry,

Not sure what method your using now but i'm getting some fun results using pathdeform and noise...and meshmooth of course. I've set up my path to follow along the ground and then go up over some boxes and it works really well when the mesh follows the path....the gross motion is definetly there. I'm going to add on some FFD's and see if that helps.

[Morbid Angel]

dellis can you show some results?

[dellis]

I'll post some examples tonight. I haven't tried it out with the lava shader yet but i don't foresee any problems in that area. I was also thinking that it might be a good idea to combine the path deform method and FFD's to make snapshots at different frames....to be used as morph targets. Anyway, once i finish with the motion and i'm happy....i'm going to start playing around with Particle Flow to emit some smoke and stuff from the red lava spots in the shader.