I hate doing this and I know I’m missing brain cells but do any of you have suggestions on the best way to model this light fitting. It’s doing my head in. I tried creating a opacity map and simply mapping it onto a sphere but it didn’t look very good (probably my unwrapping abilities).
I’d like to model it but I can’t work out how to do it best. I know I’m missing a trick. Anyone have any ideas???
Not exactly sure, but one of the Soulburn scripts allows you to draw splines onto objects and it seemed to work pretty well on my tests. You could model a sphere and squiggle all over it, then use sweep on the squiggles!!!
you don’t have to model it 
here is my trick:
use texture with vraydispalcement with water level
2009max file with simple texture:
http://rapidshare.com/files/211009040/d.zip.html
to make it look more real you can make few layers of spheres with different texture and water level thickness.
sticking out splines you can add extra on top manually
good luck!
Or doing it the “Ansi” way :
Nice responses,
tricky - Thanks that script looks brilliant, never used soulburn scripts before.
Lukx - That is genious, still can’t quite work out why it works, but it does.
Instinct - I wish I spoke german, that looks great. When I have more time I’m going to try and go through that by the images. Never really played very much with particles before.
Been doing this for 3-4 years and I still got sooooooooooo much to learn.
Thanks again
sorry…my bad…here’s the english version
http://www.cgarena.com/freestuff/tutorials/max/pflow\_splines/index.html
No problem. Soulburn scripts are amazing. I’m using them more and more. Where in Scotland are you BTW?
Tricky - I’m in Edinburgh. Where are you?
I work as the only visualiser for an Architects firm, which means I don’t get the benifits of learning from others. (except you guys of course). Hence I seem to be missing a lot of tricks. The only scripts I have used are Lele’s top notch Physical camera tricks. I just don’t have the time to experiment & progress anymore. How do you guys do it?
Thanks again.
Ahh…Edinburgh. I love that city. Its been a while since I was up there though. I used to like looking around Jenners.
I’m down in Oxford and use this forum daily. It is very useful and full of intelligent, generous people. To be honest, we have only really started looking at scripts in the last 12 months or so. I have zero knowledge of writing them myself - I struggle enough with basic English, let alone Maxscript!
i have used the PFlow way to model a similar light in the past.
It works well but the splines it creates are quite heavy, if you need to view it close up you might have to manually adjust some of the splines as they tend to interect
I used to work for an architects firm in Edinburgh too. For too long in fact, my advice would be to quit and work for yourself 
then if you don’t have any free time to experiment you’re thankful rather than resentful!
It’s definetily beautiful today. The sun is shining and I’m going to go out to enjoy it.
tricky - " It is very useful and full of intelligent, generous people." -
I know, It’s only thanks to the unselfish, kind & enlightened, people here that I have progressed as far as I have. I have not visited the forums much lately because of tight deadlines and such but am now going to make sure I am a regular once more.
Prunes for that mate!
hello,
here it my tip:
you can use ivygenerator but dont assign any leaves.
check yout the result here:
http://graphics.uni-konstanz.de/~luft/ivy\_generator/
if you play with its settings, youll get what you want in the end
Like to see what IvyGen did, but the links seems bad?
b
weird…well just google out
Ivy Generator in any browser and you ll get to the link i posted…
not sure whyit doesnt work form here
ahh - okay, I can find Ivy Generator. I thought you had posted a link to a specific technique with it. Thanks.
b
Does that mean I won???
Sorry for replying too late, but actually this thing can be done in 1 minute without any plugin or script, here is how it’s done:
1. Create GeoSphere, let’s keep radios as 100" just to make sure we get the same result.
2. Convert it to editable Poly
3. Select all edges, and click “CREATE SHAPE FROM SELECTION” button. (keep shape type as “smooth”)
4. Delete sphere object and you will see the the only thing left in the scene is the shape objects that we just created.
5. Apply noise modifier:
6. Not holding “SHIFT” button on your keyboard randomly rotate the object and make copy of it. Repeat this procedure one more time.
7. Convert everything into “Editable Spline” object and attach together. Make it visible.
This should work just fine.
