In this video for 3ds max we’ll start working at a new Citizen series, and this time we’ll take a look at how we can simulate a Shooting plasma energy gun using Particle Flow, FumeFX and Krakatoa.
Shooting Plasma Energy content:
Part 1: In this part of Shooting plasma energy series, we’ll start creating the basic scene environment to work on with fluids and particles. Then we’ll make a simple setup with PFlow to simulate gun “explosion” when the energy ball is coming out of the launcher. We’ll use this particle system as FumeFX source to simulate the dynamic and tweak it for rendering. We’ll work on various parameters to obtain a good basic setup that can be used in animation and for rendering previews. Then we’ll start working at the plasma ball simulation, using a sphere as FumeFX source and tweaking some parameter just to have the possibility to render a preview. In part 2 we’ll focus on this area of the simulation.
Part 2: In part 2 of Shooting plasma energy we’ll work more in depth at both FumeFX setup. We’ll tweak all parameters to obtain final simulation data. We’ll work on rendering and illumination to optimize look, then we’ll work more on fluid properties and voxel scaling to achieve best compromise between speed and quality. We’ll add a smoke layer to the plasma energy simulating some energy leaving the center of energy, and to have a more crispy detail level we’ll use a wavelet simulation too. At the end we’ll start preparing basic Particle Flow setup to start working on additional layers to be rendered with Krakatoa.
Part 3: In Part 3 of Shooting plasma energy series we’ll work at the explosion layer. When the plasma ball impact with the wall we have to simulate an esplosion. To do it, we’ll use FumeFX. Simulation setup will be really simple because we’ll use an hemisphere as FumeFX source, and to give the initial explosion speed we’ll use the sphere scale animation. Then we’ll tweak all dynamic parameter and rendering parameter to obtain a believable result.
Part 4: In Part 4 of Shooting plasma eneryg we’ll work at the particle flow setup, trying to find the right settings to have some “electric” lines and some general dust back to the plasma ball. We’ll play with forces and spawning to have the final setup, then we’ll tweak Krakatoa settings to have a nice looking result in rendering. In Part 5 we’ll finalize this layer and we’ll prepare the final comp.
Part 5: In final part of Shooting plasma energy, we’ll check all rendered layers to be sure we have enough data to prepare final composition in Eyeon Fusion, then we’ll start importing these layers in the comp software trying to figure how a comp project can be done and managed in it. We’ll work mainly on merging nodes, masks, secondary effects as blurring an glowing. Then we’ll finalize last gaseous layer done using FumeFX instead of Krakatoa to have more details but faster. At the end we’ll obtain our final result with some minor tweakings in 2D.
