Metaballs

[paulDryzen]

Heya,

I´ve made a nice discovery named metaballs.

How can I connect them to my particles to make them appear during rendering?

Any help would be nice!

[vlado]

When you create a VRayMetaball object, there are also two sets that are created - one for positive particles (which add to the metaball field) and one for negative particles (which subtract from the metaball field). You can use the relationship editor to attach particle system nodes to the positive set.

Keep in mind that this feature is still in development.

Best regards,
Vlado

[bigbossfr]

Hi,
I tested VRayMetaball.
I have some questions :
1) Is it possible to add displacement on Metaball ?
2) Do i can use metaball to create images like this :



Example : i generate 2 particles systems into a mesh, add metaball with displacement ?

Thank you.

[vlado]

This is planned, yes; for the moment we have not implemented it though - like I said the feature is still under development.

Best regards,
Vlado

[bigbossfr]

This is planned, yes; for the moment we have not implemented it though - like I said the feature is still under development.

Best regards,
Vlado

Great ! Thank you Vlado for the information.

[pechart]

It would also be nice for some effect work if the metaballs could be applied to all poly geometry and not just to particles, Ithink. So one could accomplish melting effects and other nice stuff with it.

[vlado]

It would also be nice for some effect work if the metaballs could be applied to all poly geometry and not just to particles, Ithink. So one could accomplish melting effects and other nice stuff with it.

You can just distribute the particles over a mesh...

Best regards,
Vlado

[alainfx]

You can just distribute the particles over a mesh...

Wouldn't it create a bumpy approximation of the original mesh ?
I mean, maybe we would see the blobby radius of each blobby (see picture).


Instead, it's a lot better to get a single smooth surface.
If I remember correctly, usually you fight the "blobby look" by adding some relax or tension effect.

[instinct]

You can not add things like relax easily (if at all?) with implicit surfaces. For geometry a different approach along the lines of VRayISO would probably work better.

Regards,
Thorsten

[alainfx]

You can not add things like relax easily (if at all?) with implicit surfaces.

That's the method used by RealFlow RenderKit (RFRK), I just checked in the documentation (they use "Relax" and "Tension").

[pechart]

Yeah, maybe it would be the best thing to just add a SOuP scatter to the surface and pipe that back to the particles with the metaballs. Not sure.

[instinct]

These are not implicit surfaces but polys tho, no?

[vlado]

These are not implicit surfaces but polys tho, no?

The VRayMetall plugin produces an implicit surface, not polygons.

Best regards,
Vlado

[ALFRED_ST_MEDIA]

pardon my blindness, but were do I find vray metaballs within maya? I'm currently doing a lot of water in realflow, but to have some extra elements within maya, *without* having to go back into RF would be nice.

Thank you.

-ctj

[vlado]

They are currently a part of the nightly builds. If you are interested in trying it out, please email us to vraymaya@chaosgroup.com

Best regards,
Vlado