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Particle/Material Help

65 REPLIES 65
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Message 1 of 66
turner006
710 Views, 65 Replies

Particle/Material Help

Hello,

I was wondering if someone could help me with a problem I'm having. I have particles that I want to be smoke, but the material I'm using is just awful. It renders as squares the majority of the time and the colour is off as well. If someone could help me get the particles to render a nice smoke like shape (not that I know what type of shape that is!). I would like them to start of light greyish, then go to dark grey and then black over their life but because I have particles spawning and dying all at seperate times, I'd be happy if they can just stay a darkish grey colour. I have a pretty tight deadline for this so any help would be much appreciated and the quicker the better! I've attached a 2010, 2011 and 2012 version of my file so feel free to open it up and have a look. Just a heads up though, there is a lot of particles in the file so performance might be a bit of an issue.

Thanks,

Jack

pre_rendered_scene2010.zip

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
65 REPLIES 65
Message 2 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

Instead of doing this in your file, I just made a basic example in a clean scene. You can see how I nested a few noise maps into the particle age map slots for the color and opacity.

But for the particle age map to work, it needs a lifespan of the particles. This means using a delete op with a specified particle age. Using a collision or age test wired to a delete op won't work. So you would have to re-configure your pflow setup to include the necessary delete ops.

On a side note, you might want to get into the habit of organizing your particle view to make it easier to read. You can use the same delete event for every collision for instance.

smoke_mtl__max_2009.zip

3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 3 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

That smoke material is really nice! But for some reason it doesn't work in my scene. I've attached a picture of the render. I'm guessing it's some values I need to tweak but I have no idea which ones. Do you have any ideas? Once the material is working I'm going to start my Pflow from scratch again because it's a bit messy an not everything is needed. I'll also take note of making my pflow diagrams a little easier on the eye.

Thanks for the help mate,

Jack

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 4 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

Well if you're using particle age maps, with the setup in the file above they won't work because there's no lifespan as I mentioned above. Try adding a delete op set to particle age under the render op, see if that helps.
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 5 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I added a delete op like you said and gave it a lifespan with a bit of variation on it to see if that helps and it doesn't. I got most my particles to render but they were rendering as squares where as in your file they looked really nice. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong...again! I tried rebuilding my pflow from scratch and that didn't help either, sometimes it didn't even render anything.

I have 1 week to sort this out as I still have all of this to do in UDK as well and write a 10,000 dissertation so any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Jack
Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 6 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Here's a printscreen of the pflow I built from scratch with the render of it. The pflow is nowhere near finished but I just thought I'd show you it now.

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 7 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Here's how it looks with my old pflow with some delete ops put in as well.

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 8 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

You need material dynamic ops instead of material static. Material static won't update along with the particle age. But they shouldn't render as squares, can you post your material settings?
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 9 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I changed the material op to material dynamic and the colour is a bit better but it's still rendering as little squares. I copied your material exactly so I don't understand what's happening.

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 10 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

If you can upload the new scene (saved for Max 2010) I could see where the problem is easier. It's hard to tell without going through your material.
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 11 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Here's my latest version of the file. Thanks for this!

Cheers,

Jack

pre_rendered_scene2010ver.zip

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 12 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

You missed the gradient ramp for the mask in the opacity map. The noise maps need a larger size to fit your scene as well. Something like 120-150 should look good.

I don't know that you need as many particles as you have either. Using a third of the particles and doubling (or tripling) the shape size could look better and decrease your render times significantly.
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 13 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

The smoke itself looks better now with the gradient ramp in and with the bigger size for the noise maps but it's still rendering with a hard edge. What settings do I need to be playing with to make the edges softer?

Cheers,

Jack
Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 14 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Also, which noise maps should I be changing the size of? The ones in the diffuse slot or the opacity slot?

Cheers,
Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 15 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

The smoke itself looks better now with the gradient ramp in and with the bigger size for the noise maps but it's still rendering with a hard edge. What settings do I need to be playing with to make the edges softer?


Did you set the gradient ramp to radial type? Look at my sample file for how I set it up.

Also, which noise maps should I be changing the size of? The ones in the diffuse slot or the opacity slot?

All of the noise maps.
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC
Message 16 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

The gradient map was set to Linear despite me chanign it to radial so I swapped it back and it's given a little bit better result but still not as good as as yours. It's not because the particles are getting clipped as they collide with the ceiling is it? I had this problem in UDK and the way I fixed that was to add a material node that blends the edges of the particles out when it intersects with geometry. I tried knocking the blur up on the gradient ramp and that didn't help either.

Thanks,
Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 17 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

The actual smoke itself looks pretty nice it's just around the edges as you can see in this picture. Also my animation is 1800 frames long, at around 1000 frames I want the smoke to slowly start to lower from the ceiling to the floor filling up the room as it goes. I did this before by animation a deflector and a box that the particles stuck to and then slowly moved downwards. This looked alright but it left a gap between the particles on the ceiling and the particles moving down. Could you think of any other way to do this? I tried just having gravity affect them at a certain age but that made it look more like rain when I need to recreate a neutral plane effect.

Thanks,

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 18 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I've fixed the smoke. Turned out it was casting and receiving shadows which was causing the horrible edge. I turned it off and got the render to look really nice. The question still stands about the moving particles though if you could recommend something?

Thanks for all your help again mate! If you give me your full name and your title if you work in industry I'll make sure to credit you properly in my dissertation.

Thanks,

Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 19 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I forgot to mention, the neutral plane effect I'm looking for is what happens in this video at around 36 seconds. What I don't want it to do is that you can clearly see where all of the particles are spawning from as there is a big group of them. I want them to move across the ceiling and then just move downwards and not spawn in a particular area.

Here's the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ0715E5Ka4

Thanks,
Jack Turner
3DS Max 2012
Mudbox 2012
Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit
AMD Phenom 9350e Quad-Core Processor 2.0GHz
NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE
4 GB RAM
Message 20 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

Well you could use an age test, then a split amount test to divide the particles. So around frame 1000, say 1/4 of the particles get sent to an event where there's some wind blowing downward with some turbulence. They could also spawn some particles to fill in the gap between the particles still on the ceiling.
3ds Max 2009 SP1, 2010 SP1
Maya 2012
Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Dual Intel Xeon E5520, 6 GB Ram
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460 OC

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