3d Max & Krakatoa

I hate 3dmax with malice. Nonetheless, it produces pretty stuff and I should keep it here and find a way to translate this to maya.

Ink Looking Particles

Combining 2 Particle Groups

//this procedure adds particles from one particle object to another.
//first select the object to add from, then add-select the object to add to.


global proc addParticles(){

string $particleObjs[] = `ls -sl`;
float $addPositions[] = `getAttr ($particleObjs[0]+".position")`;
int $countToAdd = size($addPositions)/3;;

string $emitCmd = ("emit -object " + $particleObjs[1] + "\n");
for ($i = 0; $i < $countToAdd; $i++){ int $xComp = $i*3; int $yComp = ($i*3)+1; int $zComp = ($i*3)+2; vector $addPos = <<($addPositions[$xComp]),($addPositions[$yComp]),($addPositions[$zComp])>>;
$emitCmd += " -pos "+$addPos+"\n";
}

eval($emitCmd);
}
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So, open a text editor and paste the code in there and save the file as "addParticles.mel".
Place the file in your maya scripts directory.
On Windows the default place would be:
C:\Documents and Settings\\My Documents\maya\scripts\

Then start or restart maya. In the outliner select the particle object you want to add from, and then add-select the particle object you want to add to. Then type addParticles in your MEL command line and hit enter. Done.

The particles from the first object are added at the same positions they had in their own object. And the original object is not deleted, but you can do that or hide it to verify that the first object now includes all particles.

Cgtalk

Cel Shading in Maya Software Renderer

Given my recent foray into V-ray. I better put this tutorial I found up that reminds me it ain't about the software but the user. ;) Pretty damned good results

Tutorial: Cel Shading in Maya with Christophe Desse

Vray is my jungle.

O.M.G.

For 720p version

So further development into the relationship. Been stress testing vray to see if it can handle previous jobs done with MentalRay. Sure seems like Vray plays way friendlier.

The first image was a close up of the tree proxies. There is about 14 trees at 50k polygons each. One tree. Vray was steady as hell.

Second image, if I am not wrong, took 10:32 hours to render but the resolution is 1080HD which is pretty much 2k for the second image, I tried to calculate the number of polygons but my calculator started giving me *to the power of* digits. But its around the range of 6k trees at 50k polygons each.

Lastly, the video clips. Started testing to see if I can have a flicker free solution. Good folks at Cgtalk pointed me in the right direction on this one. Rendering Walk-through animations & more info on the Image Samplers. The final equation was Irradiance Map for primary bounce and Light Cache for secondary bounce. I am very happy right now.

The last clip just had my jaw drop. Bucket rendering over 3 render slaves at a speed of 11min a frame. Sadly, as short as that sounded, 50 frames meant approximately 6 hours.

Vray is Love.

I am literally in love with Vray. I have invested countless months reading and expanding my knowledge on MentalRay. Yes MentalRay is powerful and yes it can do wonders but damned. Vray just works. It works like a freaking box of color pencils. It is obvious and it is fun. It has put a smile back on my face.

I will still use MentalRay when I have too while I slowly let the knowledge i've invested in it for linear workflow, deex render passes etc etc die.

The framebuffers / renderpasses from Vray are a freaking godsend. I am currently using the evaluation copy of Vray. But I am pretty damned sure I am going to make this purchase.

Last thing to look into is what to use for my render management. It will be a little trickier as I need to keep cost low. But still!

Vray is love.