The Crown Intro

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Hey guys and girls,

How would you create something like the intro of the Netflix series "the Crown"?

https://youtu.be/EQ9ftKMWTW4

Particle flow? Metaballs? Phoenix?
Would love to create something similar and before I start some tests I'd like to hear your thoughts...

[gandhics]

Pflow + Frost
Or
TP

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

You don't think it can be done without having to buy another plugin? Don't know how often I would actually use them ...

[ben_hamburg]

I´ve tried a couple of times to do something similar to this, something I´d describe as "organic growth", but of course depending on what you need you just need to shade it differently to get something like in the reference video.
I had some success using Pflow and Vraymetaballs, but its a bit of a hit and miss situation, if you don´t have much time to do r&d...
But I always found myself in the same situation, pondering if the few instances I need this justify something like frost...

[Macker]

You could create a similar (with a fair amount of artistic control) effect using growfx... If you have it. Max has a new fluid sim, but I'm not sure you can do this kind of thing with it yet?

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I'm on 2015 anyway.
But I actually bought growfx a while ago and never used it. Great tip.
But would I be able to achieve a liquid-like look with it?

I´ve tried a couple of times to do something similar to this, something I´d describe as "organic growth", but of course depending on what you need you just need to shade it differently to get something like in the reference video.
I had some success using Pflow and Vraymetaballs, but its a bit of a hit and miss situation, if you don´t have much time to do r&d...
But I always found myself in the same situation, pondering if the few instances I need this justify something like frost...

Do you have something to show? Would love to see your results!

[ben_hamburg]

Sorry, all NDA... I was going for a more venom like thing, but basically I did some very simple particle setup with spawn by travel and meshed it with vraymetaballs.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

I understand.
But it's reassuring you had success with Metaball
I think I will try growfx and maybe it will work with Phoenix together. if not just pflow and metaball.
I'll post here if I (ever) have something to show

[dgruwier]

I haven't tested this, and even if it works it'd probably look bad, but here's a crazy idea for doing this within VRay:
The volume grid can render volumes as a mesh. If you somehow obtained a .vdb file that is just a filled up square grid, you might be able to use volumetric textures as a density texture to create the shapes and animation. The VRayDistanceTex (which works with volumetrics) could be used to create the shape of the growing flow, then another object with a different VRayDistanceTex could be used to subtract from the first VRayDistanceTex, to create the growth animation.

[MANUEL_MOUSIOL]

Sounds interesting but somehow complicated Haha and I still need an object as a base or else it's going to be a lot guess work to get it done with 3d procedural maps