Flock of rain

[Bendytoons]

So, it's raining in Asheville and I got inspired to revisit an old approach to making rain. This is done with a flock of animated rain drops. I't's just a proof of concept for this approach to rainmaking.

test01.mov

 

Here is the project.

 

rain2.prj

[steve392]

Thats a good idea it looks real good thank's

[largento]

That's very cool!

[Bendytoons]

Here's another shot of the same rain. I added a second flock for drops on the ground.

test03.mov

 

Here is the project

rain4.prj

 

There is a problem with the flock to surface constraint. The drops conform to the shape of the ground, but float quite a ways above it.

[mtpeak2]

The model bone for the sphere/raindrop is set in a negative Y axis. Set both start and end to 0.

[robcat2075]

Neat experiment!

 

i had sometimes thought about modeling a "splash"

[Bendytoons]

The model bone for the sphere/raindrop is set in a negative Y axis. Set both start and end to 0.

Thanks for that catch. Sometimes you can't see the skeleton for the splines.

[Bendytoons]

Thanks to Mark's catch, the rain in Spain now falls ON the plain.

 

test04.mov

[Bendytoons]

And now with a little more clean up and a streak system to put a few more drops in the background.

 

test06.mov

[Kelley]

Pretty slick! Have you tried adding a transparancy to the drop? They look a bit solid now.

[Bendytoons]

Pretty slick! Have you tried adding a transparancy to the drop? They look a bit solid now.

They have transparency, it is built into the action. That is how they disappear when the cycle is done. The "solid" frames are about 50% transparent, but you are right that they still look a little solid.

[NancyGormezano]

It looks good - nice start

 

The color when drop hits the green goo should be green - ie different color for the splash, different than the drop - You could try adding specularity to the drops, and splash - and make sure your lights have spec turned on.

 

The ground in the back ground could look slicker as well - You could make some wet looking areas using transparency & specularity as well

 

Probably could play with spec colors, intensity, size for all of them, lighting from different angles to see what enhances best.

 

Some reflectivity in the drops, splash, liquid goo could help also in the illusion

 

Bump maps could help the specularity showing up - just some pattern that has enough variation.

 

EDIT: Has it stopped raining yet?