Visual Effects 2: Final Project (Maya Shatter effect)

This week, we were allowed to choose any visual effect type that of our choice to create our final project with. I had just recently done research on Maya's shatter effect, so I decided to use that effect for  my final project. Honestly, this turned out to be my favorite project from this class so far. I really had fun with project - and even added in a little holiday spirit in it, just for fun! For this project, I used passive colliders (the floor), gravity fields (both ornaments), a radial field (the shattered ornament), nCloth (the cloth in the background), and Maya's shatter effect. When I say "both ornaments", I mean that I did a visibility swap between the first ornament (falling straight down to the floor), and the second ornament (the one that shatters). The swap took place as soon as the ornament touched the floor. For texturing, I used MIA material x shaders for the ornaments so that I could create their shiny, reflective appearance. For the texture of the floor, I used a file node of a wood texture and created a bump map in photoshop. For the blanket in the background, I just simply used a file node for it's texture. As for the lights in the scene, I used two point lights (both orange/yellow lights). The main issue that I ran into this project was getting the shatter effect to work properly for me. I had to key the magnitude of the radial field as well as the gravity so that I could control how much the ornament shattered. That took a little while of trial and error to figure out. Also, once the shatter took place, only the ornament would shatter outward so I had to manually key the metal top piece of the ornament to make it look like it fell off of the ornament as it shattered. Overall, however, I really enjoyed learning about the shatter effect and would love to continue on with visual effects in the future! Thank you for your time and interest! Also, happy holidays! :)
Please check out my artist Facebook page: www.facebook.com/ShannonGilmoreArtwork

Visual Effects 2: Project 2 - Houdini Pyro (Final Project)

At last - I have finally finished my Houdini FX Pyro fire! For this project, I created the effect of a house catching on fire. I wanted to create the effect of bright red, hot fire with dark, thick smoke billowing from within that fire. These kind of house fires generate enough smoke that it emerges upward for quite a long distance.

To create this effect, I went into Houdini, imported the geometry of the house, and then created 3 emitters (cubes that were placed just on the surface of the roof). Each of these emitters had a "fire" effect placed on it, which contains smoke with it. Each of the fires' containers were scaled up in the y-axis so that the fire and smoke could float up at a higher distance. I adjusted the fires smoke by adding in red and making orange and red dominate most of the fire's color. I also adjusted the smoke's color to create a dark smoke. To create the 3D appearance of the fire, I added in a distance light and adjusted the smoke density so that the smoke would have darker shadows from the the light - giving it more depth. The smoke and fire's dissipation was adjusted respectively to the fire that was being worked on.

In the end, I am happy with the final product. The only issues that I really ran into was realizing how sensitive the fire and smoke are to the dissipation numbers, and the render times took a long time. The flip book took five and a half hours to render out (170 frames), and the fire took six and a half hours to render out (120 frames). This was the most difficult part of the process. Other than that, I now realize how amazing projects can become by using Houdini Pyro and I will be able to make great use of this in future projects!

Below I have attached my final render, along with the flip book of the final render. Thank you and enjoy!

Visual Effects 2: Project 2 - Houdini Pyro (WIP)

For this project, we were instructed to create a fire by using Houdini FX Pyro effects. This fire is very similar to the fire we made previously (last week) in Maya with Maya Fluids. However, we are just now working in a different software program.

For my project, I decided to create the effect of a house catching on fire. House fires generate a lot of thick, dark smoke and bright red, hot fire. The fire also emerges from  all areas of the house (windows, doors, roof, walls, ect.)

Here is the current WIP (work in progress) I have for this project. Obviously, it still needs a lot of improvement. However, I am really surprised at the effect I was able to achieve with this software program! The smoke looks extremely realistic to me, and the fire behaves like a real fire too. I will continue to work on this project for a nicely rendered out final project.

Rigging (Art Eval): Scripting - Variable Looping Troubleshooting

This month, along with my two on campus classes I am also taking an online course which is my Art Evaluation for Rigging (Set Up). This evaluation preps me for my portfolio production and the creation of my demo reel. Each week, a milestone is due. There are four milestones total. Each milestone proposes it's own challenges and troubleshooting issues that I must figure out in order for the rig to work properly.

I was in need of creating a script that would create a control for the selected joint(s), orient that control the same way that the joint is oriented, put a pad on the control, put a parent constraint on the joint selected to the control, and parent the consecutive controls to one another.

How to run the script: Select a joint - run the script.

         The script should create 2 pad groups above a generated control.

         The pads and control should contain the name of the joint as part of their names. I don't care how you name your pads/icons/joints, as long as you are consistent.

         The control should have identical orientation as the joint.

         The joint should be constrained to the control

When I first ran the script, I would select each joint in the joint chain and run the script. As a result, I would get the correct grouping, padding, naming conventions, and orientation. However, the only joint that contained a parent constraint on it was the last joint selected.

Here is the script I was using initially:

'''

Shannon Gilmore

Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Campus1411.py

Description:

Rigging Tools - Milestone 2

import Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Campus1411

reload(Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Campus1411)

''' 

import pymel.core as pm

# On selected joints.

# Create a local oriented control.

joints = pm.ls(selection=True)

# Loop through selected joints

for current_joint in joints:

    # Rename control and delete history

    #ct_back_01_bind -> ct_back_01_icon

    icon_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_icon')

    pad_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_pad')

    group_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_group')

    

    # Create a circle

    control_icon = pm.circle(name=icon_name, radius=.6, normal=[1, 0, 0])[0]

    

    # Create a group

    pad = pm.group(name=pad_name)

    

    # Create Orient Group

    group = pm.group(name=group_name)

    

    # Snap group to target joint.

    # Snapping using parent constraint.

    kenny = pm.parentConstraint(current_joint, pad)

    

    # Delete parent constraint.

    pm.delete(kenny)

    

    # Parent Constraint Joint to Control

    pm.parentConstraint(control_icon, joints, mo=True, w=1)

What I didn't realize was that I was not including the pieces of the script that told Maya that it needed to loop through the controls.

I also needed to add in the scripting that tells Maya to parent the control to it's previous pad. I reached out to one of my teachers for an insight of what could possibly be the problem, when he told me it was an issue with looping variables. From this, I elaborated on the script a little bit, double checked all of the names that were used and where they were being placed, and I finally made the script a successful one.

Here is the final script with it's new changes:

'''

Shannon Gilmore

Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Milestone2_Scripting_Campus1411.py

Description:

    Grouping the controls.

    Naming and orienting controls.

    Putting pads on controls.

    Constraining joints to controls.

How to Run:

import Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Milestone2_Scripting_Campus1411

reload(Gilmore_Shannon_ArtEvaluation_Milestone2_Scripting_Campus1411)

'''

import pymel.core as pm

# Select joint chain.

# On selected joints.

# Create a local oriented control.

joint_system = pm.ls(selection=True, dag=True)

last_control = None

# Loop through selected joints

for current_joint in joint_system[0:-1]:

    # Rename control and delete history

    #ct_back_01_bind -> ct_back_01_icon

    icon_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_icon')

    pad_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_pad')

    group_name = current_joint.replace('_bind', '_group')

    

    # Create a circle

    control_icon = pm.circle(name=icon_name, radius=.6, normal=[1, 0, 0])[0]

    

    # Create a group

    pad = pm.group(name=pad_name)

    

    # Create Orient Group

    group = pm.group(name=group_name)

    

    # Snap group to target joint.

    # Snapping using parent constraint.

    kenny = pm.parentConstraint(current_joint, pad)

    

    # Delete parent constraint.

    pm.delete(kenny)

    

    # Parent Constraint Joint to Control

    pm.parentConstraint(control_icon, current_joint, mo=True, w=1)

    

    if last_control:

        pm.parent(pad, last_control)

        

    last_control = control_icon

Visual Effects 2: Final Project - Maya Fluids (Project 1)

Earlier this week, I created a post showing the WIP of the project that I was currently working on in my visual effects class - Maya Fluids. After fixing up certain areas and adding more visual appeal, I feel like my project is finally complete. Honestly, I loved this project so much that I could have worked on it for hours on end - adjusting attributes and applying more visual appeal. After my first WIP, I added in quite a bit to the project. I added in textures and bump maps on the wooden pallets as well as the ground plane, added in particles that mimc the effect of umbers emerging from a fire, adjusted the speed of the fire, and added expressions to the lights to create a "flicker" that creates the effect of a real fire.

I learned a great deal of things while doing this project. With a bit of troubleshooting and abundant research, I learned how to add a random expression to a physical lights intensity to add a flicker from the light. Each light (five lights total - one ambient light, and four area lights) contains its own light intensity expression, meaning that each lights intensity will change at different rates and change at different times. For example: areaLightShape2 = rand(-1,1). There are infinite options as to what expressions one could apply to a light for a specific look.

Also, I learned how to work with particles once again (more of a refresher) and I mainly, I also learned how to work with fluids. Fluids are fantastic at obtaining any kind of fire that you are looking to achieve for your given scene - campfire, lighter, torch, grass fire, chemical fire, grill, exhaust, ect. In order to achieve the specific goals for your chosen fire, adjusting the fluids attributes will create a successful fluid project.

The main issue that I ran into was the render time of the particles and the fluids separately. The particles (used to create the umbers of the fire) took significantly more time to render with Maya Hardware (2-3 hours) as fluids only took about half of the time (1-2 hours) with Maya Software. The rest of my minor troubleshooting errors were easily taken care of through thorough research and the "trial and error" process.

Finally, here in my Final project! I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did creating it. Thank you!