Snowboard trails in the displaced snow?

[Undersky]

Hi!

I would like some advice on creating a snowboard sequence. Mainly how to solve the displacing snow issue. The snowboarder will go through thick snow and I want him to leave behind a trail. The only idea I have this far is to bake an ambient occlusion map and then somehow screen the animated texture on itself (making the occluded area stay black) to displace the snow with. However there are a couple of issues with this:

1. How do I screen an entire sequence on itself?
2. It's a really big mountain, so I need a very high resolution texture, even though I'll only map the area where the snowboarder will travel. Not to mention there's about a minute of animation, so there would be almost 1500 high res frames. Not a big problem, but it would be nice to find another way.

So do anyone has any tips? A procedural way would be the best. If the VRayDistanceTex were in Maya I could probably solve it with a trail of particles after the snowboarder, but that's not an option now, right?

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Do it in max using this http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/sc...ck-of-a-button

And then use textures in maya.

Alternatively I think vray could do something like that with u were to make a Spline>create tube that follows spline and keep on covering it(don't just end but keep on pushing) and then use vray displacement with distance. Not sure if that's in maya or only max.

Thanks, bye.

[bazuka]

when u say trails u mean holes in the snow?

u can use softbody?

[Undersky]

when u say trails u mean holes in the snow?

u can use softbody?

Yeah, exactly. Where the snowboarder has been, there will be a trail in the snow. Like in real life =)
I'm rather new to Maya, but wouldn't that make me use a really high resolution mesh? I was kind of hoping being able to use displacement for this one.

DADAL: Well, that would mean an animated, high resolution mesh (if you even can animate with that script), which is what I'm trying to avoid. But doing some kind of spline that follows and extrudes after the snowboarder isn't a bad idea at all. I will have to look into that, thanks!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Heya

Watch the video. It shows the exact thing you want to do...

[Neilg]

More specifically, this part of it - http://www.zwischendrin.com/en/detail/233

It's now available standalone which is all you need.

[Undersky]

Oh, so it seems to be able to output a texture. Nice! Gonna check it out. A bit cumbersome with Maya -> Max -> Maya though =) But whatever gets the work done, I suppose. Thanks!

[Dariusz Makowski (Dadal)]

Well there is a Standalone version.... so more like Maya>Standalone>Maya

[Neilg]

Not exactly, when I said standalone I meant the texture writing ability is separate from the snow flow plugin...

[DPGrafik]

Dude way to complicated, why not use idisplace in maya with realtime viewport feedback

EDIT: - http://www.braverabbit.de/playground/?p=837

Sorry my mistake, idisplace is for static maps or sequences - icollide does what you want - all in maya - same website