Cloud experiment

[mtpeak2]

Here's an experiment using sprites for the clouds on a path , but also manipulating the path to change the shape of the clouds. It rough and I lost the project, but I can duplicate it quick if anyone is interested. I set the emitter to 100% transparency, but as you can see there is a ufo (the emitter) flying around stirring up the clouds.

[Kamikaze]

Looks promissing....Id like to see it slowed down a little but I suspect that can be easily done..

 

Michael

[mtpeak2]

I redid the project. Here's a better render. Still needs to be slowed down.

[KenH]

Definite potential. But much much slower. We're talking clouds.....which can span miles. I'd also like to see something in the foreground to confirm that the cloud is actually moving!

[mtpeak2]

The cloud isn't moving, it's just changing shape. Since I made the path part of the model and created a pose for the emitter to follow the path you can now set the model to a different path to move across the sky in the choreography.

[williamgaylord]

That's really cool! For clouds it might need to be a lot slower, but looks like it would work quite nicely. As it is (expecially the first movie) it reminds me of something I saw on Star Trek.

 

Bill Gaylord

[Kamikaze]

The first one I like best....maybe a little more pre roll and as you said slowed down a bit...yes indeed it has good potential....keep it goin.

 

Michael

[mtpeak2]

Here's another one using 3 of the same model and setting them to a path in the choreography. Sorry Ken forgot to add some props.

[Guest jandals]

A while ago somebody (I wish I could find the post) shared a good example here's the jist of it.

 

1) in a choreography make a new path and make it a big ratty mess. You don't have to get too crazy but you wan't something that twirls around in the approximate shape you want your cloud (don't make an outline, think in 3D).

 

2) Make a sprite emitter. I think any shape would work well and have the material emit blur.tga (any image will get you started, I guess). Give the sprites a very long lifetime (if you're doing a short test make it the length of the test)

 

3) Path-constrain the emitter to the path and let it travel it's full length

 

You know it's going to take as long to type this as it will to recreate the project.

 

Here's the MooV. It's a less-than-perfect example because I put it together hastily and can't be bothered to rerender it. But maybe you can find some potential in it.

clouds.mov

[Guest jandals]

Project file. You'll have to find "blur.tga" on your CD but there must better sprite images to use.

Clouds.prj

[mtpeak2]

Jandals, the person you are referring to is Skevos. If you read my first post you will see that I did just that, constrained the emitter to a path, but the path is part of the model and the constrain to path is done in a percentage pose. In the choreography I then constrained the whole model to a path as well. Someone in the other thread wanted to know if you could change the shape of the cloud, which I did by creating another percentage pose that changes the shape of the path that the emitter is constrained to.

[Guest jandals]

If you read my first post you will see that I did just that

 

Oops, my mistake for not reading very well. The speed of the action makes it look like a very different effect from what I had in mind.

 

Anyway the effect in the first movie you posted looks really nice. As-is it's very turbulent and stormy. Like a lightning storm. Did you make the project file available?

 

What image settings did you use? I had a lot of trouble with Additive Color bleaching out my render but turning it off left me with black (from the tga's background) all over the screen.

 

Thanks for setting me straight.

 

Rhett

[mtpeak2]

Additive color means when the images overlap each other the color will grow in intensity. I'll put the project up shortly. And I used the smoke image from the CD.

[mtpeak2]

Here's the project.

[Guest jandals]

Additive color means when the images overlap each other the color will grow in intensity.

Yup. In your project the clouds show up nice and white with nice detail in the inner region. But if I render your project the clouds turn black (like the last image I posted. Blacker in your example). If I turn on Additive Color then the clouds are mostly white because the colors add up to oversaturate the inner region.

 

Do you get black final-renders like I do?

[mtpeak2]

No, my clouds render white. Are you using the cloud image from the CD? What version of A:M are you using?

[Guest jandals]

I'm using am 11.1g on a mac and it's the same smoke.tga from the CD. Like I said before, I can turn on additive color but then the clouds are EXTREMELY white. The picture I just posted was rendered from your project which has additive color off.

 

This is starting to seem like an issue I should report; it seems like sprites render black instead of tranpsarent when there's an alpha channel.