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# 3 19-10-2003 , 01:53 AM
ragecgi's Avatar
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Minnesota, USA
Posts: 3,709

Re: Rendering and opticalFX mainly

2- Maya autmotically sets, if I use 'clouds' for particles, the clouds to particleShape1. Wich means I can't use more than one colour particle clouds. user added image

What do you mean exactly? Sorry, but maybe I'm not understanding you right, but if you use a rgbPP expression, or a ramp, you can get each particle in a given single particleshape to be a different color/texture.
Am I understanding you right?

4- Painting. What is the best way to display, let's say galactic brush paint strokes?

Probably on the inside of a 180 degree sphere.

5- What file extension must I use to render my scenes quickest? And does anyone know what resolution an overhead projector uses?

Like Mike M. and myself always say about this, it depends on your final meduim, but Mike and I use either Targa or Tiff, but the generic .iff works fine too.

A "school-type" of overhead projector can display iether transparencies or paper, or whatever, so your res is really not important as the width and height of the projectors' "seeable" area.
For example, if the projector is only meant to project documents, then you would be limited to an 8.5x11 piece of paper size.
Is this what you meant?

6- Using a 'real' vortex, is there any way to create a vortex that draws particles to it? I've already tried to make create a vortex with some other field that have a stronger attenuation/
magnitude but that is quite... instable.


If you use a vortex field with a particle object, you can set the Conserve attribute of the particle object to influence the motion.
If you set its' Conserve to 0, the particle object moves in a circular motion.
If you set Conserve greater than 0, you get a spiraling motion.

However, if you:
1. set the PARTICLE shapes' Conserve to 0
2. set the Vortex field Attenuation to 0
3. Crank up the magnitude of the Vortex field to over 150 or so.

You will notice that the particles, no matter thier initial state, will begin to be drawn toward the Vortex fields' DEFAULT volume axis of "Y".

This gets you only PART of the way there to making it look like they are being drawn toward the center.

THere are some desicions you have to make regarding your shot goals such as:
- Is your shot goal to make it look as though particles are being drawn toward a planet or object of sorts?

If so, my use of the word "GOAL" applies here as a point of reference for you to lookup in the docs, as particle GOALs may work better for you in this case.

The reason I say this is because if you remember, I stated that the technique above only gets you PART of the way there, as they get drawn toward the AXIS, NOT the center point, of the Vortex field.
So they end up looking like they are being drawn toward a short "line" rather than a point.

Try it, you'll see what I meanuser added image

One quick way to get your particles to "appear" as though they are being drawn toward a center point rather than a line, is to scale down the particle shape AS they are being drawn toward the field.

If you are using hardware particles, this will look just fine, BUT if you are using SW particles, like CLOUD, then you may run into issues with the particle cloud appearing to "shrink" as they get scaled down.
HW particles do not have this issue, as they are just points in space, rather than a representation of a volume.

Hope this has helped you in some more ways!

Good luck!


Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com