Final Project

For my final I attempted to recreate the missile which I worked on for the midterm and instead add more particle effects and have it interact with it's environment. I do not have any visuals for this project because the rendering for the missile trail and following explosion look horrendous. for some reason the colors and shapes of the two particles do not look right at all, and I do not know the source of the problem. The smoke effects didn't turn out "smokey" but instead look like circles with a horizontal grayscale pattern in them. I referred to three tutorials step by step and I do not know why it turned out the way it did. The three tutorials (listed below) proved helpful in setting up the parameters for a basic smoke trail and explosion but it also explained some attributes that were unfamiliar to me, but interesting nonetheless. Unfortunately, I was unable to come up with a satisfying final project and I'm not sure whether I should stick with particles or turn my focus on a different aspect of Maya. The program is still very alien to me, and I want to keep using it but I don't know where the best place to start is.

http://www.spafi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=438&Itemid=30&lang=iso-8859-1
http://www.spafi.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=443&Itemid=29

Above are the links that essentially helped me build my project and another source I used is in PDF format that I will send to Professor Sanders.

I started off with creating a basic scene consisting of a floor plane, a stretched cube wall, and a warped sphere to create a bullet or missile (all polygons). Then I applied gravity to the missile by creating an "active rigid body" to the object and "passive rigid body" to the wall (dynamics>soft/rigid bodies). I then adjusted the bounce, pull, friction, and other parameters to allow the missile to shoot towards the wall, bounce off, and then slide on the ground without using key frames. Applying textures and such to these objects was not important to me as I wanted to focus on the presentation of the particles.

Next I wanted to recreate the smoke trail on the back of the missile from my previous project which proved difficult for me without a guide. The guide was of limited help and is in PDF format but i will provide a brief list of steps below:

-Dynamics>particles>create emitter
-Make a name for your emitter
-Set emitter type to directional
-Max distance to 5
-Min distance to 1
-Rate to 45
-Spread to 0.15
-Direction X, Y, Z, to 0, 0, -1
- Speed to 150
-Choose create

-Select the particles
-In the attribute editor, change the particle render type to cloud
-Click on current render type
-Choose better illumination
-Surface shading to 0.8
-Threshold to 8.250
-Set Lifespan attribute to random range
-Lifespan to 5
...

It was interesting to read about creating a gravity field for the particles to follow as well as adjust the particle conserve attribute and creating turbulence to make the particles fade and fall over time.

As mentioned earlier, the render of the smoke well does not look like the way I intended.

Next I wanted to create an explosion following the missile's impact, delay, and sliding on the ground. I looked up a reference (above) that talked about creating a shatter effect to an object and then an explosion. However, this proved to be complicated. When I started working with the shatter effect the missile became stationary and more abstract. Such could be due to certain parameters but I did not have the patience to search for a solution as debris wasn't crucial to my project.

Lastly, I decided to work with the explosion which seemed simple at first but then became difficult towards the end as I started messing with the hypershade to apply shaders and textures. The number of tabs are confusing to me and navigating the attribute editor is still something I need to get used to. The rendering again failed me as the particles still maintained a circle shape with horizontal stripes.

Overall my final is still a work in progress and I may plan on working on it in the future.

Midterm Video

Midterm Assessment

For my midterm I decided to work with a simple NURBs sphere with particles and some animation. I started off in the dynamics module and created particles (with the help of online sources) to act as the smoke produced when a missile is launched or in motion. Remembering and testing numbers to adjust the spread, speed, and formation of particles can be very tedious, but the process of learning some of the functions of certain attributes in the attribute editor was good to know. The tutorial also helped me in creating certain expressions for attributes and applying color to portions of the particles. It is something that I will have to keep referencing if I am ever going to learn Maya. I then crafted a simple missile through manipulating a NURBS sphere and then applied a surface color (Blinn) and incandescent color to it from the hypershade. After that I had a tough time figuring out how to attach the particles to the back of the missile as I did not emit the particles from an object initially. Turns out all i had to do was to parent the missile and the particles. Finally, I proceeded to move the missile and add key frames so that the missile would perform a somersault. As an aesthetic approach, I decided to have the missile rotate and lose force as if it were about to die and plummet to the ground.

I am pleased with the outcome of this project but I can honestly say that I do not remember much in regards to particles. I find particles fascinating and I would like to work with them again as well and learn more ways to modeling. I admit that it is intimidating the amount of time needed to fully understand portions of tools and options in such a huge program like Maya. But I will continue to practice Maya and hopefully learn to create a full project without any assistance from a guide.

Midterm "Missile"

Bouncing Ball Demo

Tutorial "Creature" Exercise

Exercise #1

Here is my scene of primitive NURBS. I have become much more comfortable with navigating around the scene and using the Move, Rotate, and Scale tools. However, I am still experimenting with positioning and selecting via component type.