ronjeno Posted September 12, 2007 Share Posted September 12, 2007 I have AM version 12.0w and I did the particles tutorial to create fire. When I look at the realtime preview it looks great, but once I render anything the emitter can be seen. I attached a picture to show what I'm talking about. I searched the forums and did a lot tinkering trying to fix this problem, but I'm really lost on how to fix this. The book blatantly states that emitters should be transparent, but that isn't the case here. Any ideas? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnl3d Posted September 12, 2007 Share Posted September 12, 2007 have you set any transparency on any of the sprites. hard to tell from you screen grab if you have advanced properies and property triangle checked under tools options global whcih would make this easy to detect.. why not post project I'm guessing after a quick look at the mayertial that the sparkles are way to big they are very bright and that looks like the problem...delete them and see if that helps or make them smaller Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted September 12, 2007 Share Posted September 12, 2007 Give the emitter-surface 100% transparency by making a group for it and editting the surface-properties. *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronjeno Posted September 12, 2007 Author Share Posted September 12, 2007 OK, i turned on the advanced properties. i'm not sure what you mean by transparency on the sprites...the exercise had me animate the transparency of the sprite emitters. i uploaded the project file; i hope that's enough for you to look at it. how do I make a group for the emitter surface? I tried looking up how to make groups and all I could find were references to constraints. i've used maya before and it had a blatant "group" function, but I couldn't find it here. do I make a new model object and use a transformation constraint? i'm obviously new to this. Thanks for your help. Fire_Test.prj Edit: I forgot to save before uploading the fire_test file. I reuploaded it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Forwood Posted September 12, 2007 Share Posted September 12, 2007 how do I make a group for the emitter surface? I tried looking up how to make groups and all I could find were references to constraints. In the model window just select the patches that you want in a group and rename the selection. Drop your material onto that group and then adjust the material's properties from within that group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fuchur Posted September 12, 2007 Share Posted September 12, 2007 In Maya and Max you group OBJECTS together... in A:M you can group ControlPoints of a Spline, Splines and Patches in one model and save the group to reacess it later on or to set certain attributes for a specified part of a model. The Group-Connect-Tools from Maya and Max are more like the selection-tools in the choreography-window, but in this term I am speaking about the group in the model-window of A:M... Unlike Maya and Max, A:M has several "moduls" like the Model-Modul, Action-Modul and Choreography-modul(lightwave had this for a while too)... that keeps the work separeted and easy to access and handle while it can have some disadvantages if you need to interact between models... (but there are ways to do that too...) YOu should have a look at some of the basic training-videos and tutorial-videos on the Hash website and the manual... Videotutorials *Fuchur* Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronjeno Posted September 13, 2007 Author Share Posted September 13, 2007 I'm guessing after a quick look at the mayertial that the sparkles are way to big they are very bright and that looks like the problem...delete them and see if that helps or make them smaller I tried deleting the 'sparks' sprite material and it didn't help. The emitter still shows up. Give the emitter-surface 100% transparency by making a group for it and editting the surface-properties. In the model window just select the patches that you want in a group and rename the selection. Drop your material onto that group and then adjust the material's properties from within that group. OK, I figured out how to make groups. I set the surface transparency of the group containing the 'fire' material to 100% and rendered, but the emitter still showed up. Because I'm pulling the emitter model from the tutorial files, could that have something to do with why none of these property changes to the model are taking place? There's a little disk icon that looks like a floppy disk next to the 'smoke' emitter, does that mean anything? Here's the last save: Fire_Original.prj In Maya and Max you group OBJECTS together... in A:M you can group ControlPoints of a Spline, Splines and Patches in one model and save the group to reacess it later on or to set certain attributes for a specified part of a model. The Group-Connect-Tools from Maya and Max are more like the selection-tools in the choreography-window, but in this term I am speaking about the group in the model-window of A:M... Unlike Maya and Max, A:M has several "moduls" like the Model-Modul, Action-Modul and Choreography-modul(lightwave had this for a while too)... that keeps the work separeted and easy to access and handle while it can have some disadvantages if you need to interact between models... (but there are ways to do that too...) YOu should have a look at some of the basic training-videos and tutorial-videos on the Hash website and the manual... Videotutorials *Fuchur* Yeah, I noticed the immediate differences between maya and AM. I'm using/learning AM to understand CGI compositing better for filmmaking. I was going through the training exercises but kept getting parameter errors when trying to load one of the models in the early lessons. I decided to go and learn what i need currently which is fire effects. I'll definitely watch those videos once I begin modelling. As for the emitter problem, if anyone wants to suggest something else, I'm all ears. Thanks everyone for your help so far. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnl3d Posted September 13, 2007 Share Posted September 13, 2007 Just reread your question ...the project you posted does not have the model embedded so I could not look at it but if the emitter (small model with fire/smoke material attached) is showing it is because you did not make it transparent I attached a screen grab of the finished project on the cd to show where to look hope that helps ...its sometimes hard to figure out the question being asked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronjeno Posted September 13, 2007 Author Share Posted September 13, 2007 Just reread your question ...the project you posted does not have the model embedded so I could not look at it but if the emitter (small model with fire/smoke material attached) is showing it is because you did not make it transparent I attached a screen grab of the finished project on the cd to show where to look I've had that at 100% and it still comes up. I copied the finished project from the CD to see if the same problem occured. With the ground model, i couldn't see any signs of the emitter, but if i deleted the ground model, the emitter came back. I think I embedded the model right this time. That little disk icon disappeared once I did this too. Fire_Original.prj I hope this clarifies a few things. If nobody can see the emitter with this file, it might be something with my system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnl3d Posted September 14, 2007 Share Posted September 14, 2007 I now see what you were stating the emitter does show which would not normally be a problem if the group it was emitting from was part of say a log. You can report it to AM reports but I think it has come up before. Sorry for all the confusing answers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronjeno Posted September 16, 2007 Author Share Posted September 16, 2007 I now see what you were stating the emitter does show which would not normally be a problem if the group it was emitting from was part of say a log. You can report it to AM reports but I think it has come up before. Sorry for all the confusing answers. OK, thanks for all your help. I think I have a better understanding of AM now and I'm going to try a few things to get rid of that emitter. If I find a solution I'll post it here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ronjeno Posted September 18, 2007 Author Share Posted September 18, 2007 I got a response from support. They said that in version 12.0, the emitter always renders. This presents problems with a few things I was planning to use AM for. i'm not sure if later versions render the emitter. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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