Sandman/Car effect

The effect i will now be using for the scene will be similar to the one used in Spiderman 3 sandman, this effect will be done using Realflow4. While watching Spiderman 3 the other day and seeing the sandman emerge from all that sand gave me ideas for my commercial. I thought it would be a nice idea that during the end of the commercial the R8 drives towards the camera and disintegrate into little particles of sand. I know that this is going to be a mission to accomplish but this is something i know that will look good when done correctly.
If you guys have forgotten the Spiderman 3 sandman scene here it is

Learning Realflow4

Now at the end stage of the modelling and i have decided to take a look at the special effects which I’m going to add in later. I know i want to use the fluid dynamics for the scene but what Maya offers in fluid dynamics compared to Realflow is nothing. I have used my spare time to learn this new program and learn to get to grips with the tools and work flow. For those who do not know what Real flow is take a look at this

This is there Demo reel - http://www.realflow.com/img/videos/showreel_2008_sound.html

and here is there website - http://www.realflow.com/

What you think?

What you see now is a 95% completed R8 and a polycount would you believe it or not of 10000 which I’m quite happy with as my limit was 100,000. So true to my word i should have this completed fully by Sunday and will post up the finished product, so hope you like it :)

Ocean deformer

Here is a little effect i made in Maya while still thinking about possible story lines. One of the possible storylines for this one would be a chase between an object under the road going after the car, the car has to safely get across to its destination without being hit. This effect was created with the help of the digital tutor’s movie, i learnt the effects of the wave deformers and soft bodies. If i do decide to go with this effect i will completely change the look of the effect so would not seem i just copy it from the tutorial. Over all took about two days to make that’s including long ass breaks i used to take so without the breaks should be completed in a day

Real flow fluids and dynamics

Still taking reference from the Audi tts advert, I’m planning to have some sort of fluid dynamic collision on the car at the end of the advert. If you look back at the previous blog where i produced the water flow i want to create something like that again but maybe from a balloon colliding on the bonnet of the car. The water flow i made was done by creating a 3D container with an emitter and also changing the settings.

While looking on the net at how i can improve on the fluid dynamics colliding on the car i came across a software called Realflow.

RealFlow is a stand-alone application for fluid and dynamics simulation that allows easy, intuitive control and visualization of the behaviour of fluids and rigid bodies, and their interaction with a surrounding environment. RealFlow was the first, and remains the definitive tool for creating impressively accurate and realistic fluid simulation effects in the Computer Graphics market. It has been used in movies like “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King” and “Sweeney Todd” as well as a wide range of high-end advertisements, short films and animations.

I know if i can use this programme for the fluid dynamics i will be able to produce wonders with it, but if i can’t ill have to do as best with what Maya has to offer

Finished by end of the week

I have been modeliing the r8 for bout three weeks now and i am glad to say everything is going smoothly. The satus on the car is almost complete, im just tweaking rows of vertices and edges other then that no problem at all. Reviewing how much work i got left i plan to complete the car by end of the week and that should include the textures and other minor details.

This means i will be able to start on the environment and should have that done in about two weeks max. Once the car is done i will post the the complete overview of how i made it so watch out for that

Mental ray with HDRI render

Through the stages of modelling the r8 i began to wonder what type of textures or shader i will be using for the car. I have already played around with the lamberts and binn for the car, i knew that assigning the bin shader to the car it would result in a metallic effect. After trying this out it did not go as planned as it somehow gave a bit more of a cartoon effect that would not work with my photo realistic car.

Researching on the web on correct shaders used for modelled cars, i came across the HDRI render. What is HDRI images you ask?, High Dynamic Range Image. A series of photos that are taken at different exposure levels then combined into a High Range image format. The HDR stores the amount of light every pixel represents instead of on-screen colours that normal bitmaps do. The advantage is greater dynamic range of light and colour. Photo realistic lighting at its best.

Why should I use them ?
# You don't have to spend time lighting your scenes with multiple lighting rigs
# Photorealistic Illumination and Environment Reflections in your 3d scenes
# Wide-range luminosity data can drastically change the overall light style of your scene

After following the set up for the HDRI render i came across a few obstacles when assigning the 2D v-ramp texture the original binn shader. After finally resolving the problem and completing the setting for the mental ray and hyper shade the results came out pretty good i must say.