Community
3ds Max Forum
Welcome to Autodesk’s 3ds Max Forums. Share your knowledge, ask questions, and explore popular 3ds Max topics.
cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

Particle/Material Help

65 REPLIES 65
Reply
Message 1 of 66
turner006
711 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 21 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I tried the way you said and it worked pretty well but I was still having problems of gaps and not enough particles so I decided to just have one pflow swan the particles and then move them across the ceiling and then have another seperate pflow that starts at around frame 1100 the is basically just a bunch of particles afected by wind that pulls them down. This works pretty well and looks sweet so I'm just going to leave it like that for now. Time for rendering so if you keep checking my blog at www.jturnerfx.blogspot.com you'll see the finished thing by next Tuesday at the latest.

Thanks again for all of your help across my project. Your expert knowledge has been the key to me getting finished so thank you very much, it's really appreciated.

I'm sure we'll speak again soon when I have more particle problems 🙂

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 22 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

No problem. Good luck with your rendering.
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 23 of 66
Steve_Curley
in reply to: turner006

Now you're done I'm moving this to the Particles/Dynamics forum as it is not really a Max2012 specific topic.

@Jack - can you make sure you update your signature with your Max version (and brief system specs) please.

Max 2016 (SP1/EXT1)
Win7Pro x64 (SP1). i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz, 8Gb Ram, DX11.
nVidia GTX760 (2GB) (Driver 430.86).

Message 24 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

My mistake, I didn't know there was a specific particle forum. And ye I'll update my signature but I use Uni computers for Max work as I don't have a good enough one at home so I'll just use the specs of my laptop.

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 25 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I've just went to start rendering my file and for some reason my fire and smoke will render together for a few frames and then all of a sudden it will stop rendering my fire and just render my smoke as if it's been turned off in the Pflow which it can't have.

Any thoughts?

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 26 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

Check your Particle Upper Limit and make sure it's not cutting your particles off. Click on your pf source and look under the System Management rollout. The default is 100,000 but you may need more.

A good way to measure your particles is to turn on Options> Track Update> Particle Count. That will tell you how many particles are in your viewport.
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 27 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I just checked this and my Upper Limit is set at 50,000,000 for my fire pflows and 100,000 for my smoke so I've changed them all to 50,000,000. I did the track update otion and it says at any given moment there is about 300,000 particles on screen. Would the smoke being set a 100,000 stop my fire from rendering or is there another problem?
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 28 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Chaning the smoke upper limit didn't fix it. Any other ideas?

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 29 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

The smoke upper limit should only affect the smoke particles. It's a little hard to say about your fire since you have the blobmesh on there. Does it render with the smoke particles turned off?
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 30 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Looking through my frames I noticed that the fire will disappear for a few frames (round about 90 frames) and then it will come back to being rendered as well. I've just tried turning off my smoke and rendering a frame where the fire was usually disappearing and it rendered fine. So far out of 450 frames the fire isn't rendering for 127 and I'm not even half way done with the full render.
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 31 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

It's weird the fire won't render with the smoke on. I'd have to poke around your scene to find out why.
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 32 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Be my guest! Here's a 2010 version of the file I submitted to the render farm.

pre_rendered_scene45.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 33 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

Can you list some frames that have the issue? Are you using backburner for the render farm?
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 34 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

I can. So far out of the frames I've got rendered the fire disappears in frames 148 - 240, 322 - 365, 520 - 569 and 690 - 699. I'm not using Backburner as the render farm I'm using the one that my University uses called Qube.

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 35 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

I'm rendering out a sequence now. Does Qube tell you what frames were rendered on which computer?
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 36 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

Okay thanks very much! And ye it does. I think there's 51 computers on the render farm but I'm only using about 12.
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 37 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

For me, the flames stopped rendering at frame 150. It didn't matter if I turned off the smoke or not, but when I turned off the keep apart operators in the PF Turbulence the flames rendered fine.
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 38 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

So it's the keep apart operators making it disappear? Did the fire look/move alright after you turned them off and rendered it?
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 39 of 66
krueger_1
in reply to: turner006

I only rendered about 50 frames to make sure it stayed visible, but it looks like it did before I turned it off.
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 40 of 66
turner006
in reply to: turner006

So I need to turn off the keep apart operators to make it visible in the render? I read in Pete Drapers book that they can be a bit buggy from time to time. Does the fire move nicely in the render with them turned off? I was under the understanding that the keep apart operators were merging the particles together because they had a negative value, so surely turning them off would make the particles move away from each other?
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

Can't find what you're looking for? Ask the community or share your knowledge.

Post to forums  

Autodesk Design & Make Report