Giant metaballs

# 1 20-01-2004 , 02:24 PM

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how big are your metaballs???? LOL. I need to make two objects join on contact. very simlar to metaballs surfaces or particle blobby surfaces. anyone got any ideas??

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# 2 21-01-2004 , 02:56 AM

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The only metaball fake in maya that I know of like takes to spheres or any 2 objects. Place them so there tuching a little. Boolean them together and thin smooth a time or so. Only problem is this is not a animatable afect.

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# 3 21-01-2004 , 11:18 AM

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I remember that workflow was animatable when i succumbed to the metafever... if you didnt deleted the history the parts must be there on the otliner and must be selectable and movable, as the smooth is down the network it will update. Try frist with booleaning cubes if you put enough cubes is just the workflow used in zbrush... con is that the flow of the resulting mesh is ugly to look at, but for blobs its good enugh... but you better consider the particle way for such things?

(delete just this part if censurable) also i downloaded a beta plugin for true metaballs on Highend3d a loong time ago...

Last edited by dragonfx; 21-01-2004 at 11:22 AM.

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# 4 21-01-2004 , 05:25 PM

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You can put one shape in a lattice, and then add another to the group and when you move it in and out of the lattice, it deforms to the lattice shape, and seeing you already have one in the lattice, the 2 meld into one shape, thus you can animate the lattice and them to have the shapes merge - maybe? Or blend shapes between two and the outcome shape, that might work?

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# 5 22-01-2004 , 12:07 AM

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sorry for the question...but been hearing quite the commotion over metaballs...but what exactly are they?

The only constant is change...

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# 6 22-01-2004 , 10:02 AM

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on its pure form they are tension fields user added image

Metaballs are great muscle-fakers, it were a fever with them a pair of years ago, but never really caught, it seems we artists prefer to fake it manually...

(Delete if aplicable)
Look at what one can make with blobby/sticky polygons (and 3dsmax 3)
https://www.reyes-infografica.com/gallery/remmeta_p.php
https://www.reyes-infografica.com/ima...ges/man_2a.jpg
this was a real cool company to work for, time ago, but they had popular prices instead of studio prices, so they didnt really survived... (they are still there but they are 4 cats and i doubt they are doing more than surviving)

Last edited by dragonfx; 22-01-2004 at 10:14 AM.

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Giant metaballs

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