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# 1 21-11-2007 , 10:20 PM
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Rendering Particle Animation

Hey guys couple of questions. I am working on a project with a freind of mine and i guess i really dont know where to start. The basic idea is that he wants to have a hero like character that can summon some sort of fire or ice i guess xmen style from his hand. Is it possible to create this using particles in maya. Im not sure how to work particles but ive looked at enough tutorials and asked enough questions to where i can figure it out. My primary question is, After i shoot the live action video on a DV camera how do i create the effect and import it into say Final Cut. Also if any one knows how would i set up the green screen shot to where i can get the effect around his hand vividly and it doesnt look like its just sitting in front of his hand...if that makes any sense.

Question number two is completely different and is more of a curious question. If i want to create an animated screen how do i set everything for the parameters of the "movie" or short clip to export it or do i just create the characters and all in maya...rig it and then export to and different animation program...

Thanks to anyone who has the time to answer!!

# 2 21-11-2007 , 11:35 PM
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ok...

1. do yourself a favor and do a steady shot. no handheld, nothing. put the cam on a tripod thats the easiest way to do it.. and dont touch it.
then you need some infos.
you have to get the sensor of your cam, the lens and take some measurements. e.g. from cam to actor. from cam to ground and the angle of the cam. when taking those measurements its best to set the start where approximetly the sensor sits. dont measure from lens to actor.

you then in maya create a cam and import the footage. with the measurements you have taken its now simple to set everything up. when it should go around the arms then model it and place it. what is easy since you got the approximite distance from the cam. then do the particles in whatever fashion you like. use the geometry as a mask. hw particles have the option mask geometry and in sw particles set the matte option for the object to black hole.

put this in a compositor to tweak the final result and thats it... or directly in the editor. dont know how much you do/dont do.

so thats it. sounds easy, but it is a hell lot of work good luck.

2. dont know what you mean but you can do that all in maya.

greets

# 3 21-11-2007 , 11:59 PM
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Similarly to badger I am a little confused to what you mean in the second question, if your asking how to set the camera size then check the render globals, if your trying to render it out check the newbie forum on this very site and if your asking how you want to actually rig, animate and render a scene in maya then check both the forums and the help files. For instance animating the scene involves modelling the character, rigging them, animating them, lighting the scene and then rendering it out.

But good luck to all involved and I'm sure it will come out awesome.

Chris.

# 4 22-11-2007 , 12:29 AM
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im sorry my boss was coming and i had to submit the thread really fast... The second question is refering to something completely different. If i wanted to create some sort of a cartooned animation, how would i go about setting up the scene. Where do i work within so it will capture it all in a movie file i guess is my question. How would i even set that up.

# 5 22-11-2007 , 02:01 AM
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# 6 22-11-2007 , 02:32 AM
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hmmm...

well if I understand correctly, you want to import or place a movie or some sort of animated sequence into maya and have it play.

I would create on image plane or a poly plane and size its ratio according to your animated file ( very Important). You should save sequence in frames, using photoshop or after effects. For example if you want second of animation you should have 30 single tiff files, if your maya scene is set to 30 frames per second.

Create a lambert material and add a file texture to the "color" attribute.
When it takes you to the new atts. of the file scroll down to "Use Image Sequence" and click the box. Open the first image file of your sequence on "Image Name". Make sure the files are Tiff's and put Zeros when you number the files, exp. "00001.tiff" For some reason Maya only animates images using the tiff format. Apply the shader to your poly plane and when you play the timeline the sequence should play.

This one way to do it, there are different ways do it. You can do this if you have a TV model in your scene and you want it playing some sort of movie, or like an advertisement for example.

If you want to achieve some sort of 2d cartoon effect like in South park, just work on your orthographic view and lock the camera to your plane, make sure the camera is set to orthographic view.


EA Games

Last edited by djknucklez1; 22-11-2007 at 02:36 AM.
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