swarm of flies??
 

a friend needs a swarm of flies buzzing arund a dead rat for his movie. Im doing post sound but said i'd give it a go. its a close shot with a short duration.

anyone have any suggestions how this might be done?

im thinking particles.., sprites.., ?? can anyone help??

Not that I've ever done it or played with it, but that would be my first attack angle too. The particles seems very controllable and flexible. Smoke are sprite based particles too and it seems to expand and contract nicely. The cool thing with sprites is you can assign any bitmap too them with different size particles, so it shouldn't be too hard to get it to look like a swarm once you've got the behaviour of the particles down.

Maybe some maya unlimited and particle type guy can chip in.

yea.., cheers mate :) I got it roughly down, very roughly, in that I have some idea what to do, but it ends there.

You could use particles, instanced with a small geo model of a fly, if the shots going to be close.

whats a geo model?? i definately think instancing particles is the best way to go, how would I make them swarm?

Something like this?
swarming

This was a side effect of the current flocking tool (bFlocking) I'm building.
Its not finished yet (orientation of objects and substituting spheres for geometry is not yet in) but it could be a possibility to use this for your project... if you have Maya 8.5 that is ;)

Bit busy today but if you're interested just give me a shout
Si

SSHHOOOUUUTTTT

thats great Tick.., much appreciated, never thought you talk to me after that ridiculous e-mail.., hopefully you've forgotten.., more likely your thinking..'which one!'

I hear there is a 'swarm' script at high end 3d. but Id dig to give yours a try, I can send you the movie when its done. student movie, honours.., so it WILL be done.

cheers mate

Small geomerty model, i.e not high poly, just a simple model of a fly, instanced to a particle system set up with per particle scripts for variations in weight etc then using fields you can get it going.

Small geomerty model, i.e not high poly, just a simple model of a fly, instanced to a particle system set up with per particle scripts for variations in weight etc then using fields you can get it going.

I dont remember receiving an email from you mirek03 so theres no probs :)

If you can then I'd suggest having a go with what Steve (gster123) says as it will get you into particles and the fact that they aren't as scary as people think.
Also try out the swarming script on highend as again the experience is good and it may well be a lot better than mine ;)
I've got a few more bits to sort in the script but after they are done you can have a go with it - it'll make me document it properly and give it an early beta test

Si

Tick, the movie is being locked down in three weeks, I get to work on it for two weeks (post sound). I put my hand up for a 'maybe' I can get the fly FX together, the director may have taken that very seriously, if I can do it.., 80% chance. The only 'if' is maybe he actually hands it to someone. If you get it together Ill certainly give it a go, get your name in the student movie and send it to you. If the high end works better..?? You know that story! If i get in in the movie. Dig to try it.

Steve, this fly, how much detail, a sprite, just black dots, actual low poly models, animated wings (all different questions).

Cheers guys. ;)

The details really up to you, if its far from the camera then have it really low geo, say a cube with wings and a head, you could have it animated, all depends on how close it is, you might get away with an animated textue for the wings??

like you say you could use sprites if you wanted.

If I was you I would get the simulation going asap, that way you can just use different sized spheres to see how it looks and go from there.

good advice Steve, im going over to high end now.

tick if you do get that script happening..., id be more than happy to give it a go

M:)

im finding it hard to find a script. found one called 'mentalflock' but im not sure if its what i need.

M:)

Hi Mirek

I wouldent bother looking for a script to do it for you, by the time you find it, install it and then use it, you probably could have done it using the built in tools. Then again if you find one that will do the trick go for it.

Have a look on Mike Mckinleys site, he had a torrnado tutorial, that sould get you going, I possibly would make something like a sphere and then give the particles a goal to try to get to the sphere but using the fields to move them about, if you add a per particle simple random mass script to vary the weights and therefore the movements it should get it going.