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Animation in Carrara - Let's Animate - Q&A - Come One & All

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  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited August 2017

    While I have watched plenty of videos on them I'm very new to particle Emitters. In the current Carrara Challenge 35 - Tribute to Cripeman - Kapow - WIP Thread I finally have a chance to start learning them

    Problem:  I set an Emitter up using a vertex cube, to emit, then immediately started changing settings.  What happens is that some of the emitted cubes seem to be partly inside other cubes... I also have an Assemble room Plane of a fairly large size, not infinite, in scene for the cubes to bounce off of... they didn't so I turned on the Collision Detection icon in the toolbar... still no luck as some are peeking through the plane. I had the cubes set to spawn new ones... didn't work so turned off... still same probs..  Hmm... haven't checked out what the Bounce Modifier might do.

    Wonder if I can add more than one object to an Emitter or if I would need more than one Emitter. Note I do know or rather think that I could have a vertex object with more than one polymesh... but they would always have the same formation in it was created.  Don't know that a Group could be used but it would have the same problem.

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • DUDUDUDU Posts: 1,945

    Hi John!

    I use RF now, but if I remember well, the material of the objects (effects/Physical properties) and the gravity of the scene (Scene/Physics) are very important.
    Here one of my rare tests with the particles of Carrara:

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    DUDU said:

    I use RF now, but if I remember well, the material of the objects (effects/Physical properties) and the gravity of the scene (Scene/Physics) are very important.
    Here one of my rare tests with the particles of Carrara:

    Kewl Test, thanks.  Good example also... I can see, imagine, how it works.  Couldn't figure out what RF meant then watched you're Realflow and Carrara video in your YouTube channel.

    My cube is made of polygons which of course don't have any Effects/Physical properties... I'll get busy on that as well as Scene/Physics.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Since DUDU mentioned Physics I just had to show another of his animations...  shows examples of the Physics Engine in Carrara.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited August 2017

    Crazy John's Forces Experiment:  I was going to ask if the settings for Forces could be animated... instead I simply checked in Carrara and it turns out they can.  My experiment results are shown in the screengrabs with explanations.  Note that the sphere does not move since I didn't do anything to it.

    [additional]  Just noticed that if you grab the scrubber and move it that the settings didn't change... when it is let go of new settings will be show. Another way is to click the cursor down at different points in the timeline... new settings will show.

    "As always... let me know if you see any errors and I will correct them"

    May the Forces be with You!

    Forces_key1.png
    1366 x 768 - 260K
    Forces_interme_nokey.png
    1366 x 768 - 215K
    Forces_key2.png
    1366 x 768 - 232K
    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    wgdjohn said:
    head wax said:

    Greetings I have an animate question :)

    Well it's a deanimate question.

    I have a complicate scene with 4 or five m4s and v4s, = most have clothes draped with VWD - the aim was to get a still render at the 4 second mark. Which I have.

    I need to do an animation with a moving camera but keep the rest of the scene still - but some of the many objects are still moving after the 4 second mark.

    I wondered if there was a way to lock all the objects (except the camera) so they freeze at the 4 second mark?

    I guess I could start deleting keyframes but I never seem to be able to burrow far anough into the seequence structure to get them all.

    I started looking through the manual but thought it would be easier to ask !

    Andrew,  If I understand right you already have a keyframe at 4 sec mark... if not you can add a keyframe there simply with the Add Keyframe icon first drag the Scrubber there.  Phil seem to have beat me to the answer.  I would have suggested highlighting all the keyframes after the one a 4 sec... all will be frozen afterwards. smiley

    Oh... for the camera movement I'd just create the target helper for the Camera to point at your generation 4 chars/scene area while its moving.  Oh gee... ya didn't ask about that so likely already know. surprise

    DUDU said:
    @John: I use to utilize a footage as texture but in uncompressed .avi, a compressed .avi (Windows) never work for me...

    Thanks DUDU,  I've added to save as Uncompressed .avi to my answer on page 1.  LOL... I'm not even close to being a fan of .avi for numerous reasons.  For some reason the Carrara .AVI player does not work properly... playing a file once seems to have errors... each time it loops the points at which errors occur are different.  However when loaded with other players it still has errors but not as bad... I found out that simply loading the file and saving in another format like .wmv worked fine.  Never thought about saving as .avi from my conversion tool, AVS4YOU.

     

    thanks for that sorry I didn't see your answer!!

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    DUDU said:

    Hi John!

    I use RF now, but if I remember well, the material of the objects (effects/Physical properties) and the gravity of the scene (Scene/Physics) are very important.
    Here one of my rare tests with the particles of Carrara:

    that's terrific Dudu!

     

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    edited August 2017
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    too true, but best not to keep it to ourselves

    this is two jpeg sequence files combined with multiply operator in the shader room

    original Hugo Renders with non realistic renderer saved out as the sequence

     

     

    Post edited by Headwax on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Very original - great work!

  • 3DAGE3DAGE Posts: 3,311

    HI John ;)

    The biggest issue with the particle system is that it uses the particles "Hot point" as the detector for collisions,.

    that means that if you have a cube (particle) being emitted, and landing on a floor,. it will only stop/bounce when it reaches the particles hot point,. (middle of cube)

    you can work around that by creating a false floor, (set to invisible in the final render), to stop the particles, so that the appear to land on the floor.

     

    when you're working with particles,. there's a couple of useful options to set.

    Points,. displays your partices in the viewports as Points,. this gives you colour graded particles (based on age), and is the fastest way to preview what you're getting.

    the built in particles types are pretty useful,. especially camera facing,.  you can apply a texture to that. EG: a little cloudy foggy thing, to make steam / smoke etc,.

    particles have their own gravity/force setting in the "advanced tab" and there's also an option to "collide with scene objects".

     

    Forces are a bit strange at first,. they all have some default settings,. which can be surprising,. or disturbing,. the best thing to do is set the values of any forces to 0, then play around with each of the values until you get a feel for what's going on.

    you can save particles to your browser,. so,.. it can be helpful to set up a little particle scene,. to experiment in,. then you can save what you like.

    The main SCENE physics tab, and the "effects" parameters for Mass/ Bounce /friction,. really only come into lay when you're dealing with a Physics simulation.

    the particle system has it's own options for all of those settings,. and doesn't use bullet to calculate those.

    I've got a bunch of  particle / physics clips on my U-tube thing

     

  • Steve KSteve K Posts: 3,235
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    Indeed.  A corollary is "the happy accident".  You're trying to do something when something else happens which is way better than what you had in mind.  Here are some famous examples:

    http://www.cracked.com/article_20096_6-iconic-movie-scenes-that-happened-by-accident.html

    This happened to me in a short animation for a 48 Hour special contest about the environment, titled "Blown Away" (we drew the topic of "The Earth", meaning the soil).  Basically, the character's head starts moving around without me setting any keyframes that I was aware of.  (Of course, you get pretty woozy doing a five minute animation in two days).  It looked pretty good to me so I left it.  The judges apparently liked it also, we did our best in that contest.  The "accident" starts at ~1:50:

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    PhilW said:

    Very original - great work!

    thanks PhilW :)

     

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987

    andy wrote

     

    The biggest issue with the particle system is that it uses the particles "Hot point" as the detector for collisions,.

    that means that if you have a cube (particle) being emitted, and landing on a floor,. it will only stop/bounce when it reaches the particles hot point,. (middle of cube)

     

    well I never knew that, thanks!

  • HeadwaxHeadwax Posts: 9,987
    Steve K said:
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    Indeed.  A corollary is "the happy accident".  You're trying to do something when something else happens which is way better than what you had in mind.  Here are some famous examples:

    http://www.cracked.com/article_20096_6-iconic-movie-scenes-that-happened-by-accident.html

    This happened to me in a short animation for a 48 Hour special contest about the environment, titled "Blown Away" (we drew the topic of "The Earth", meaning the soil).  Basically, the character's head starts moving around without me setting any keyframes that I was aware of.  (Of course, you get pretty woozy doing a five minute animation in two days).  It looked pretty good to me so I left it.  The judges apparently liked it also, we did our best in that contest.  The "accident" starts at ~1:50:

     

    yes it looks much better moving :)

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    edited August 2017
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    Might I add...  It's great to experiment... fun for me... but when I get to the point of confusion, not hard for me, and just before I start to pull my hair out then it's time to ask... as you all know I don't hesitate. :)

    Having some understanding of what you are inquiring about always helps.  I'll usually refer to the manual first... when the answer is'nt there, it's too often not,  I'll see if there is a video that covers what I'm looking to solve... ocasionally I'll find what I'm looking for or similar that I can modify.  In the end though neither a manual or video can answer questions.

    Excuse me... I'm off to ask questions I know very little about. laugh

    HeadWax... Steve K,  yes

    Post edited by wgdjohn on
  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145
    wgdjohn said:
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    Might I add...  It's great to experiment... fun for me... but when I get to the point of confusion, not hard for me, and just before I start to pull my hair out then it's time to ask... as you all know I don't hesitate. :)

    Having some understanding of what you are inquiring about always helps.  I'll usually refer to the manual first... when the answer is'nt there, it's too often not,  I'll see if there is a video that covers what I'm looking to solve... ocasionally I'll find what I'm looking for or similar that I can modify.  In the end though neither a manual or video can answer questions.

    Excuse me... I'm off to ask questions I know very little about. laugh

    HeadWax... Steve K,  yes

    That approach works if there is a specific effect that you want and you don't know how to get there. But I just saw a post in another thread (sorry I can't remember whose it was, and also sorry if this takes a pop at you!) which said "does a particle emitter work in a replicator" - and I just wanted to say "try it!".  You don't even need to close down the scene you are working on, just open a new scene, try something out to see if and how it works, without messing anything up in your main scene. You might create something worth saving to import into your main scene, you might find something doesn't work, or not work as you thought. But sometimes, having a go is quicker and easier than posting the question!

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    3DAGE said:

    HI John ;)

    The biggest issue with the particle system is that it uses the particles "Hot point" as the detector for collisions,.

    that means that if you have a cube (particle) being emitted, and landing on a floor,. it will only stop/bounce when it reaches the particles hot point,. (middle of cube)

    you can work around that by creating a false floor, (set to invisible in the final render), to stop the particles, so that the appear to land on the floor.

    Kewl Tip...  thanks.

    When you mentioned that I immediatley thought about placing 6 super simple and tiny, 1 poly per face, cubes to each side... then I thought that it would not work as a multi polymesh object since the center axis of them all would still be used... worth a try if only to prove it won't... in which case might try as a group in assemble room.

    3DAGE said:

    when you're working with particles,. there's a couple of useful options to set.

    Points,. displays your partices in the viewports as Points,. this gives you colour graded particles (based on age), and is the fastest way to preview what you're getting.

    the built in particles types are pretty useful,. especially camera facing,.  you can apply a texture to that. EG: a little cloudy foggy thing, to make steam / smoke etc,.

    particles have their own gravity/force setting in the "advanced tab" and there's also an option to "collide with scene objects".

     

    Forces are a bit strange at first,. they all have some default settings,. which can be surprising,. or disturbing,. the best thing to do is set the values of any forces to 0, then play around with each of the values until you get a feel for what's going on.

    you can save particles to your browser,. so,.. it can be helpful to set up a little particle scene,. to experiment in,. then you can save what you like.

    The main SCENE physics tab, and the "effects" parameters for Mass/ Bounce /friction,. really only come into lay when you're dealing with a Physics simulation.

    the particle system has it's own options for all of those settings,. and doesn't use bullet to calculate those.

    I've got a bunch of  particle / physics clips on my U-tube thing

    [removed links - please see above for the vids]

    Mucho gracias for all the excellent pointers.  Glad you mentioned Physics simulation... I looked again at the video by DT... this time I read the description... turned out it uses Physics.  I'm on the right and wrong path since I'm planning on learning/understanding all three, partical Emitters, Forces and now Physics also.  That's me... too many directions at once. :)

    Below are 2 vids that show what I want to learn... the 1st I saw portions of in the Carrara 8 Promo Reel 2010... the second is by none other than Age of Armor.

     

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634
    PhilW said:
    wgdjohn said:
    PhilW said:

    I endorse the attitude that rather than ask, try it for yourself! You may learn something that none of us know.

    Might I add...  It's great to experiment... fun for me... but when I get to the point of confusion, not hard for me, and just before I start to pull my hair out then it's time to ask... as you all know I don't hesitate. :)

    Having some understanding of what you are inquiring about always helps.  I'll usually refer to the manual first... when the answer is'nt there, it's too often not,  I'll see if there is a video that covers what I'm looking to solve... ocasionally I'll find what I'm looking for or similar that I can modify.  In the end though neither a manual or video can answer questions.

    Excuse me... I'm off to ask questions I know very little about. laugh

    HeadWax... Steve K,  yes

    That approach works if there is a specific effect that you want and you don't know how to get there. But I just saw a post in another thread (sorry I can't remember whose it was, and also sorry if this takes a pop at you!) which said "does a particle emitter work in a replicator" - and I just wanted to say "try it!".  You don't even need to close down the scene you are working on, just open a new scene, try something out to see if and how it works, without messing anything up in your main scene. You might create something worth saving to import into your main scene, you might find something doesn't work, or not work as you thought. But sometimes, having a go is quicker and easier than posting the question!

    No problem...  it's hard to pop my cork. :)   Thanks for the "try it" suggestion...  I will often try anything.

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Got quite a list of diff animations to do which can be saved as cycles... these are exercises I've been doing for lower body strenght to get hip back into working order.  The first PT at home drew stick figures of a few... I don't think she appreciated it when letting her know that I'd be able to do much better on computer... Now I have to prove it for my own satisfaction. :)

  • PhilWPhilW Posts: 5,145

    Every cloud etc!

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    laugh

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    edited October 2017
    wgdjohn said:
    3DAGE said:

    HI John ;)

    The biggest issue with the particle system is that it uses the particles "Hot point" as the detector for collisions,.

    that means that if you have a cube (particle) being emitted, and landing on a floor,. it will only stop/bounce when it reaches the particles hot point,. (middle of cube)

    you can work around that by creating a false floor, (set to invisible in the final render), to stop the particles, so that the appear to land on the floor.

    3DAGE said:

    when you're working with particles,. there's a couple of useful options to set.

    Points,. displays your partices in the viewports as Points,. this gives you colour graded particles (based on age), and is the fastest way to preview what you're getting.

    the built in particles types are pretty useful,. especially camera facing,.  you can apply a texture to that. EG: a little cloudy foggy thing, to make steam / smoke etc,.

    particles have their own gravity/force setting in the "advanced tab" and there's also an option to "collide with scene objects".

     

    Forces are a bit strange at first,. they all have some default settings,. which can be surprising,. or disturbing,. the best thing to do is set the values of any forces to 0, then play around with each of the values until you get a feel for what's going on.

    you can save particles to your browser,. so,.. it can be helpful to set up a little particle scene,. to experiment in,. then you can save what you like.

    The main SCENE physics tab, and the "effects" parameters for Mass/ Bounce /friction,. really only come into lay when you're dealing with a Physics simulation.

    the particle system has it's own options for all of those settings,. and doesn't use bullet to calculate those.

    I've got a bunch of  particle / physics clips on my U-tube thing

    [removed links - please see above for the vids]

    Below are 2 vids that show what I want to learn... the 1st I saw portions of in the Carrara 8 Promo Reel 2010... the second is by none other than Age of Armor.

    Make sure you download the tutorial video for Sparrowhawke's Tracks and Chains plugin - might as well download and install the plugin as well, while you're at it! :)

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Grabbed the video... in case I missed it. TY Dart.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    wgdjohn said:

    Grabbed the video... in case I missed it. TY Dart.

    It's so cool (and easy) how we can use this plugin to make tracks and chains:

    • Automatically be built around our gears/wheels/pulleys, etc.,
    • Automaticaly animate when the vehicle is moved around the scene!

    !!!

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    Happy Halloween

    Rendered in DAZ

  • wgdjohnwgdjohn Posts: 2,634

    Thanks Ivy... Happy Halloween to you.  Just watched How Anime Girls Travel also... now I'm all caught up with your anims.

  • DartanbeckDartanbeck Posts: 21,570
    edited October 2017

    Awesome, Ivy! Thanks!

    Happy Halloween to you too!

    Post edited by Dartanbeck on
  • DiomedeDiomede Posts: 15,169

    Ivy, that is tremendous.  I'm not going horseback riding across any bridges tonight!

  • IvyIvy Posts: 7,165

    Thanks Guys for watching . I'm glad you enjoyed it. this was just something simple in the spirit of Halloween.  I rendered it in 3dl

     

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