Week 22 – Going Live, Reflection on Practice, TouchBase Interview, Fire Tutorials Continued, Early Video, Exploring Practice with Particles (Curve/Surface Flow)

The end of last week saw a busy friday – in the morning Dylan Gauld delivered a lecture on basic particles, which wasn’t that useful for me as I’ve already been spending some time on them. However, a few useful points to note and remember include:

• His MSc blog can be found at dylangauld.blogspot.co.uk
• A good book for fire is the Todd Palamar one, Maya Studio Projects
• Playback speed for particles should be set to ‘play every frame, max real time’ 25 fps PAL
• Although particles don’t have transform nodes, you can access them by – component editor – particles tab – RMB over the particle – particle – select your particle – change the poisition in the window if you desire
• it’s a good idea to start your simulation before frame 1 if thjere are other things happening then – it takes time to get going!
• Maya can only handle around 400,000 or 500,000 particles at any time
• remember to cache the file
• the effects menu can be a useful starting point (although i’ve never used it myself thus far)
• Dylan’s email is d.gauld@dundee.ac.uk

TouchBase Interview

Following Dylan’s lecture. I drove down to Glasgow for my interview with David McCluskey, who runs the music department within TouchBase, which is an interactive learning centre for people with a range of disabilities, but mainly for people with hearing and sight impairments (referred to as service users). David was extremely generous with his information concerning the people that he works with and provided a large amount of useful information over ther hour or so I was with him. An musician himself, he was very interested in the research I was undertaking, as much of the work he focusses on deals with sound, light and vibration, in order for communication in some form to take place between the service user and himself, he utilises a number of different techniques depending on the individuals needs. I will go into David’s interview in more detail once I have had time to absorb his comments and how best to use the information he has provided to further my own research.

Early Video Shots

Following my interview on the friday, I managed to enlist the help of a friend to shoot some video in a couple of locations, primarily for the Cymascope website video, but also for my own end of term project. Another friend, who has ties to property, managed to allow us access to an unused office block, where we managed to set up our equipment and film as we liked. Earlier in the day we filmed some shots in his flat, so once I have some free time I will look through the shots and see what may be useful for use as backdrops or key scenes in my Cymatics film.

Going Live

Once again I updated the eagle to bring the wings forward slightly as they were too far back from the head. So version 3 is where we stand at the moment.

Aside from that, I have been continuing with the fire tutorials and have made my first attempt to apply that to John H’s paper-burn-bend test. Here is a link to the video below:

Leading up to this were the digital tutors lessons, which I have detailed below.

Lesson 9 – Continuing to Create Smoke

How to address the ‘big bulgy mushroom’ problem?!

• We’re going to use the turbulence of the volume axis to disturb the ‘mushroomy’ nature of the smoke – if the design of the window was different, you could have it collide with some other geometry, but our window isn’t like that…
• First of all disable the fluid so you can comfortably play around with the timeline
• Select the volume axis and set a key in the channel box for turbulence of approx. 0.3 at frame 1
• Then at frame 20 set the turbulence to 0 and set another key
• Re-enable the fluid and test the scene to see if it works ok – you may want to set the resolution to a lower level if you just want to test it…

Lesson 10 – Creating the Falling Flames with Maya Particles

• Go to the particles menu and create an emitter
• Rescale it so it matches the diagonal slanted piece of porch roof [image 1]

• In channel box – set away from centre and away from axis to 0
• Set along axis to 2 so it jumps upwards before falling down with the gravity
• Set rate to 2 (low number)
• Select the particles, go to the fields menu and select gravity
• In attr – change the particle render type to sphere, radius around 0.180
• Select the particles – CTRL shift the surfaces and make collide
• Select the geo connector tab of the surface and dial down the resilience to 0.1 and friction to 0.3 so that we don’t get bigger bounces
• Now create a 3D fluid container from the ground up centred below the diagonal porch roof [image 2]

• Base res of 60; size 8 x 15 x 8;
• Contents method: set temp and fuel to dynamic again; display – set the slices per voxel to 1; boundary draw to bounding box;
• Dynamic simulation – high detail solve to all grids; solver quality to 25; simulation rate scale to from 1.25/1.5 (depending on how you like it)
• Auto resize set up as before – max res to 350 – auto resize threshold 0 – auto resize margin to 6
• Contents details – density: buoyancy 0; dissipation to 2 (in order to end the buoyancy)
• Velocity – swirl to 5
• Turbulence – strength 0.25; frequency of 0.5
• Temperature (which is extremely important) – temp scale 2; buoyancy 5; dissipation 6; diffusion 0; turbulence 1
• Fuel – reaction speed 1; max temp 0; light released 1;
• Shading – transparency 0.3; glow intensity 0.1; edge drop off 0
• Color – black to grey gradient; color input set to temperature; input bias 0.5
• Incandescence – graph set to the same fire type as before [image 3]; input bias 0.9;

• Opacity – input set to temperature; opacity graph [image 4]; input bias 0.5

• Shading quality – render interpolator set to smooth
• Lighting – self shadow on; shadow opacity 1; ambient brightness 0.35; real lights off
• Now, go to the outliner, select the fluid, then the particles – fluid effects menu – add/edit contents – emit from object
• When you play, you won’t see anything – you need to enable the Use Distance in the attributes section of the fluid emitter – basic emitter attributes
• Turn on use distance – set max distance to 0.15; rate to 8000;
• Emission speed attr – speed method Add – inherit velocity to 1 – has to inherit the motion of the particles as they are dripping down
• In Fluid attr – turn on Motion Streak
• FluidShape tab – container properties – boundary x and z set to none – Y set to –Y
• Experiment with the color – input bias; incandescence input bias; opacity bias (0.5/6) settings – towards a more yellow [image 5]

• Up the base res to 80
• Run and render
• Could turn down the max distance attr to 0.1 (basic emitter attr – fluid emitter)
• Maybe change opacity input bias to 0.55; incandescence input bias 0.95

Select the fluid from the outliner – select the geometry – make collide – do for the diagonal beam and the porch it falls on including stairs etc… [image 6]

Lesson 11 – Blending the Fire and Smoke

No smoke without fire! The behaviour of smoke is influenced by fire – the way that it is thrown into the air is determined by the fire’s buoyancy and turbulence. The further it travels away from the fire it slows down and travels by its own nature. In the case of a closed house, it is contained and more material burns per second – the smoke gets denser, faster and hotter as the pressure inside the house increases. The temperature gets to flashover point when the fire takes over the smoke particles and changes the way the fire spreads. Now the fire spreads with the smoke flow. [image 7 and 8]

As the fireman sprays water on the fire, the smoke changes to white as the fire receives moisture. [image 9]

Lesson 12 – Creating Fire with Smoke

We will find out here how to blend fire and smoke from a single container.

• Create a new 3D container, place it around the window again, rename it window_fire_blend
• Size 15 x 30 x 20; boundary X, Y, Z as None, -Y, -Z; base res 100
• Temp and fuel set to dynamic grid in contents method
• Display – slices per voxel to 1; boundary draw to bounding box
• Dynamic simulation – damp 0.005 to control the vectors (also going to use high velocity swirl); high detail solve all grids; solver quality 25/30; simulation scale rate 1.25/1.5
• Auto resize checks as before; max resolution 800; auto resize thresh 0; auto resize margin 8;
• Density – buoyancy 8/10; dissipation 1;
• Velocity – swirl 10;
• Temperature – temp scale 2/2.5; buoyancy 200; dissipation 8; diffusion 0; turbulence 1;
• Fuel – reaction speed 1 (want the reaction to take place very quickly); max temp 0; light released 1 (can add up to the incandescence);
• Shading – very important! – transparency 0.3; glow intensity 0.09; edge dropoff 0;
• Color – black to grey gradient; color input density; input bias 0.294;
• The reaction will be pushed by the value of the temperature, the shading will be considered by the temperature
• Incandescence – Incandescence input set to temperature;
• Graph for the incandescence [image 10] as before; input bias 0.9;

• Opacity – opacity input set to density. So shading driven by the temperature but the opacity is driven by the density;  opacity graph [image 11]; input bias 0.5

• Shading quality – render interpolator smooth
• Lighting – self shadow on; shadow opacity 1; ambient brightness 0.3; ambient colour white orange; real lights off; directional light 0.8 0.2 0.9;
• Select the fluid container, fluid effects menu, add/edit contents, emitter
• Scale the emitter around the bottom half of the window frame [image 12]

• Fluid attr – density/voxel/sec to 1;
• Run the simulation – need to bring the fire away from the window
• Select the container – fields menu – volume axis
• Choose cube shape and scale and rotate round window as before [image 13]

• Use channel box – magnitude 12; away from centre and axis 0; along axis 1; turbulence 0.05; turbulence freq x, y, z 0.5 0.5 0.5; direction speed 1; direction x, y, z 0 0.8 0.35; (You’ll see the fluid is going to travel between the 2 arrows)
• Tweak opacity and incandescence bias as usual
• So to recap – we control the incandescence of the fluid with the temperature. In the temp section you can see we have a high amount of dissipation, so as the temp goes upward it dissipates more. As a result of that, the incandescence graph is more noticeable where the fire is producing the whiteish colour, as it progresses upwards it settles into the black colour
• With the opacity input bias you can play around with how dense you want the smoke to be

Lesson 13 – Using Fluid Presets to Save Time

How to save time by creating a preset!

• Create a new 3D container – keep it away from the others
• Select window_fire_blend container
• Open the attr editor – presets – save fluidshape preset – e.g. window_fire_blendshape – save attribute preset
• Select the empty container – attributes – presets – more – window_fire_blendshape –  replace
• Now you still have to create the emitter an volume axis and type in some values for things like magnitude, turbulence, or in the case of the 3D container change the temperature scale and buoyancy so there is a difference from the first one – maybe increase the dissipation from 10 to 12
• You can also locate the preset in – documents, maya, 2013 x64, presets, attrPresets, fluidShape

Lesson 14 – Creating the Final Composition

So, to recap on the different elements – we have the fire under the porch; the fire may have started with a couch behind the door; it then spreads towards the left hand window with the bulgy smoke belching out; we have the burning wooden beam; the falling flames as the fire takes hold; and of course the 2 windows with blended fire and smoke coming out – remember the white smoke occurs due to moisture in the air or water.

• [images 14 and 15]

• So the base layer is a still of the house with some CC to give an evening feel to it – normal
• Also an AO pass – mulitply
• Then 2 layers of lights with shadow etc – still targas, with screen below then linear above
• Then 2 layers of the first smoke with the upper layer cc to be less brownish – normal
• 3 side window fire layers with appropriate screen blending modes – normal then 2 screen modes
• 2 porch fire layers – screen
• Another porch fire above the 2 front window fire layers (these had normal and screen going upward) – the 3^rd porch fire screen – good for colour and luminance etc, could also add cc
• 3 door fire layers, all screen
• 2 drop balls layers, screen
• And finally, a fog layer tga on the top!

Exploring Practice – Particles continued

I was looking at other options for creating movement around the geometry I am creating for the cymatic shapes – for example, I like the idea of having arced particle flows like the magnetic loops of plasma you seen being thrown out by the sun. I thought perhaps animated textures could be the way to go, but after a few tests it didn’t seem right. So I decided to look further into what particles could offer. First off I looked at using curves and how to get simple objects amimated along a path, then I looked at how particles could do the same. I ended up doing some short tutorials on curve flow effects and surface flows, which has given me some new ideas. The details of my tutorials are below:

Animating Objects Along a Path

• Create a cv curve
• Select object
• Shift select the path – animate – motion paths – attach to motion path
• Motion path tab – fix the direction (of the object if you need to)
• In the channel box animate direction based on the U value ( there are some twist controls etc., as well)
• Set your animation keys then loop it

Animating Particles Along a Path

There are 2 possible ways (or maybe more):

1. Create your particles – shift select the path you’re using – attach to motion path as above
2. Create a curve – go to the particles effects menu – create curve flow – you will have to break connections in the attribute editor to set new values and play with the size of the control circles etc.
3. If you’re doing this for a number of curves, it may be an idea to create a button for the script
4. Need to find out how to change the speed of particles on curve flow!

Points to note for particle goal rendering:

• More detail can be had by using points and higher numbers of particles
• The idea of movement can be achieved more by using streaks – maybe simpler spheres in combination with the more complex point type particles? Or, render the same thing out twice, once with points and once with streaks? It works pretty well, but you would need to mask out the central clumpy bits!

 

Reflection on Practice – Interview and Particle Work

 

This week the abstract was due for submission, alongside the consent forms for my interview, as mentioned above. The overall feeling I had from the interview with David was that in order to create something really useful for him and the work that he does in TouchBase, I would really need to create an interactive application that could be customisable for him or whomever uses it, so that each service user in the centre can benefit in some way from the idea that creation of a sound results in the appropriate visual representation of that sound. Some people may require a relatively simple type of geometry whereas someone else would really appreciate the complexity of the geometry that can be seen in the water based cymascope imaging. As each human being differs in taste and ability, it’s exactly the same for the service users there, regardless of their disability. I didn’t appreciate before the individual needs of each user and was thinking along the lines that whatever I created for my research may be useful to all. Having said that, the final film I aim to produce will entertain and educate to a certain extent, according to David and the test footage I’ve shown him, but for any real impact and development I would need to follow a slightly different path.

 

For example, I could create a database of geometric shapes based on individual frequencies – within that I could have different levels of complexity of each frequency that would be selected as a ‘level’. By using something like a games engine, I could see a way of implementing this kind of technology linked up to external musical triggers – whether it be a musical instrument itself or something like an ultrasonic sound beam which could be calibrated to suit the individual. Clearly, however, this will take some effort, time and resources that are greater than I have at this moment in time. A PhD perhaps?

Particle Questions – with suggested answers from Dylan Gauld:

1. Dynamic effects: Curve Flow – How do you tighten up the particles to flow closer along a path if using ‘create curve flow’ effect? (The goal weight is already at 1) – reduce the size of the scalable circles – create an expression for the sale of the first selected one then assign that value to the others? (Dylan scene) But you still have to access the circles anyway?!
2. I’m using particle goal weights from one emitter to geometry that’s made up of separate elements, but combined together. If I use a surface emitter it send the particles out in separate bursts from one section to another, so  I have to use an omni emitter which doesn’t seem to work quite as well. How do you send the particles out at once if possible?  – Use an omni!
3. Particle render types – if I use streaks, the particles seem to clump together close to the emitter. The only way to prevent this is to use points which don’t quite provide the same idea of movement. Any way to stop the clumping together? – Could try using opacity ramps on the head of the streak – fake the alpha to get rid of the heads?
4. Goal weights – is there any way that the particles can spread over the surface of the geometry more (like a surface emitter emits) as the particles seem to collect at the vertices? – Subdivide the geometry more than you have! You can afford to have a lot more polys in your scene, for rendering it shouldn’t be a problem.

Workflow for working with Surface Flows

• Create your NURBS object
• Add the surface flow effect  (generally use the –u setting, but depends on orientation)
• Leave default values and create to begin
• If you need to delete the flow, go back to the menu and ‘delete surface flow’ to get rid of any shaders etc.
• ‘Create particle per flow’ – might be useful for creating separate particle sets for each object within the selection?
• Control resolution provides the number of segments – sub control resolution will provide the number of sub sections in between each of these
• Try these types of settings – create
• Can turn on display sub manipulators
• V locators determine the speed between section for the particles
• U Min and Max controls the size of the bottleneck of the particles
• Max age ratio – if you set it to 0.75, the particles will live for 0.25 of their life beyond the geometry. If you set it to 2, they will die halfway along the geometry
• NB – to create a ramp that could be useful for the river in Going Live – create ramp options – Input U to parent U, Input V to parent V
• Go to RGB PP – edit ramp – set interpolation to none, so the colours are sharp edged into one another
• Change the type to streak or multi streak…

This only seems to work partially – the particles are far away from the curve or don’t seem to follow a more complex type of shape. Seems to work best when you have open surfaces – create a relatively simple one first, add the surface flow first, then alter the nurbs surface and the locators will follow!

Workflow for working with Curve Flows

• Create the curve
• Copy it, don’t instance it
• Select the first curve and set up the lifespan, emission rate, locator positions etc.
• Do the same thing for each curve! (You may be able to script it – create a button?)

Maybe try the particles in Mash?

Week 21- Going Live, Reflection on Practice, Fire – 3D Fluid Containers

Week 21 begins with an update at the end of last week’s events. First of all, I had a successful meeting with the Director of Heartspace, the converted church used as a yoga centre, and we have agreed April 19^th as the first available date that can be used for filming as a location for my Cymatics project. The only issue now is securing the equipment I need so far in advance of the university’s allowable booking system.

On the interview front, thankfully I have managed to get hold of the interviewee and all is planned to go ahead this friday in Glasgow at 3pm with Dave McCluskey from TouchBase. I will update next week on the success of the interview in the blog.

Monday the 17^th February – Going Live

I didn’t mention in my blog last week that I had been working on the eagle model for the Going Live project, as I was hoping to have the first version finished for the riggers to experiment with this week. I managed to complete the first version on Monday morning so here are a few simple renders with ambient occlusion only. Some of the details get lost but I’ll be making a few tweaks here and there and will post some updated images later.

As well as finishing the first attempt on the eagle this week, I received the low quality version of the Cymatics video for my track, which I’ll be using as reference for my project modelling. The high quality version will arrive via USB drive in the post shortly, so I’ll begin working on that when it arrives. In addition, John Stuart Reid has asked me to collaborate with him in the making of a promotional video for the MusicMadeVisible section of the Cymascope web site, as he would like to use my ‘catchy’ track. So, regardless of the fact that it is not entirely connected to my research, I’m very happy to work with him and produce something that will ultimately promote the subject that I’m interested in.

Reflection on Practice

This morning, Wednesday the 19^th February, we had a group critique of one another’s abstracts, or at least the first draught of them, to help us tighten up our ideas before the hand in date next week. It was useful for the most part, however, I didn’t receive too much criticism for my own abstract, not that I’m disappointed, and on the contrary, I’m happy that it is going in the right direction. I plan to, however, spend some more time on it and make sure I’m happy with the way it’s developing.

As far as my practice goes, I’m happy with the first version of the eagle for Going Live. There were a few tricky aspects to this and modelling in general in Maya. For example, there have been times in the past when the normal have been reversed and it has resulted in me having to rebuild the geometry a number of times I certain sections of the models that I have created. It seems to stem from ‘duplicate special’ operations, and I need to make sure that I duplicate on the appropriate axis to refrain from making these mistakes as it can slow up the whole process of modelling and increase frustration levels.

Next I’m looking again at creating fire in Maya, this time with 3D containers so that I can add to John H’s tests with burning textures, and hope to bring it to life some more.

Creating Fire and Smoke Using Maya Fluid Effects

Lesson 2 –Exploring the Concept

First off, what is the process that encompasses a house fire? [image 1]

As far as a floor plan of where this will take place? [image 2]

The path of the fire? [image 3]

It’s important to look on line for reference videos – for example, if you’re researching fire and smoke for the going live ‘dragon’ film have a look for burning towns etc. first!

Lesson 3 – Understanding the Science

Understanding fire: [image 4]

Fire attributes: [image 5]

Fire types: [image 6]

Lesson 4 – Creating the Fire Under the Porch Roof

First thing here is to look at the Maya scene. We’re going to burn the side part of the roof of the porch, which has been duplicated. This will catch fire due to the wind turbulence blowing the fire toward it from inside the burning house later on.

• Create a 3D container around the general shape of the porch roof – dynamics menu
• Change base resolution to 60 (keep voxels square)
• Size – 15 x 15 x 15
• Boundary X  – none
• Boundary Z – none
• Boundary Y – -Y side (so it doesn’t go down)
• Contents Methods: density, velocity, temp and fuel set to Dynamic
• Display – slices per voxel = 1; voxel quality = faster (healthy fps!); boundary draw = bounding box
• Dynamic simulation – solver = navier-stokes; high detail solve = all grids; solver quality = 30; simulation rate scale = 1.5 (slightly faster, more turbulent)
• Auto resize – turn on auto resize box – saves a lot of simulation time by automatically rescaling the properties; turn off resize closed boundaries and resize in substeps; max resolution 500 (quite high); auto resize threshold  = 0; auto resize margin = 10/12 (depending on the nature of the reaction – some explosions maybe around 15-20 to create extra room)
• Content Details
  • Density – density scale 0.5; buoyancy 1.0; dissipation 1.0;
  • Velocity – swirl – 5.0
  • Temperature (Important!) – temp scale 2.5 (every other attribute will be multiplied by this 2.5 value); buoyancy 100; pressure 0; press threshold 0; dissipation 4.0; diffusion 0 (don’t want it to get spread out); turbulence 1.0
  • Fuel – fuel scale 1.0; reaction speed 1.0 (kaboom effects?); ignition temp 0; max temp 0.01; heat released 1; light released 1 (this will provide extra colour value to the incandescence attribute)
  • Shading – transparency light grey; glow intensity 0.084; edge dropoff 0
  • Color – selected color gradient black to grey, color input density, input bias 0.412
  • Incandescence (Important!) – set the graph to [image 7]; incandescence input – temperature; input bias 0.9 (might have to tweak later – sensitive)

  

  • Opacity – opacity input – temperature; for the graph, remember the tale of the shark! [image 8]

  

  • Shading quality – quality 1 for now; contrast tol 0.01; sample method adaptive jittered; interpolator smooth
  • Lighting – self shadow on; hardware shadow on; shadow opacity 1; shadow diffusion 0; light brightness 1; light color white; ambient brightness 0.253; ambient diffusion 2; ambient color blueish/white; turn off real lights; directional light – 0.9, 0.2, 0.9
  • So, that should be the container taken care of, next up the emitter!

Lesson 5 – Continuing the Fire

In this lesson, we’ll continue with the shading and the emission of the fluids.

• Select the object that will be the emitter for the fluid – in this case the wooden fire object of the porch
• Once selected the object, shift select the fluid container – fluid effects menu – add/edit contents – emit from object – surface – apply and close
• You can add a ‘use bg’ shader to everything and give it its own layer to make it easier to switch between textured and non-textured look making it easier to see and reducing render time!
• A quick render of the scene so far [image 9]

• Open up the container opacity settings – change the input bias to approx. 0.5
• Could also increase the transparency a little
• Select the container, CTL select the porch roof and ‘make collide’ from the fluid effects menu to make the fire collide with the geometry
• Do the same with the whole house!
• The fire isn’t very turbulent at the moment, so – select the fluid, go to the fields menu, select volume axis
• Move the axis to roughly the centre of the where the turbulent part of the fire will be [image 10]

• In the attributes, set the magnitude to 2, leave it as a cube, but scale up in appropriate directions to affect the fire [image 11]

• Go to the channel box editor and change the turbulence to 0.2, turbulence freq (x, y, z) to 0.5, detail turbulence to 1, away from centre 1, away from axis 0
• Again, change the input bias to suit yourself
• To make the details crisper, change the resolution to 80
• Up the magnitude of the volume axis field (channel box) to 3; up the turbulence to 0.65;
• Take another render [image 12]

Lesson 6 – Creating Fire Around the Door

• Create a 3D container for the door
• Base resolution 10; size 10 x 10 x 8; boundary X and Z none; boundary Y –Y side;
• Contents methods – density, velocity, temperature, fuel all set to dynamic
• Display – boundary draw – bounding box;
• Dynamic simulations – high detail solve – all grids; solver quality 25; simulation scale rate 2 ( a higher rate of simulation as you won’t be using much in the way of turbulence)
• Auto resize on; turn off resize closed boundaries and resize in substeps; max resolution 600 (using quite high details); auto resize threshold 0; auto resize margin 8;
• Contents details:
• Density –  buoyancy 1; dissipation 1;
• Velocity – swirl 4/5 (don’t want to use turbulence, let the temperature control its own)
• Temperature – temp scale 2.5; buoyancy 10/12; dissipation 6; diffusion 0; turbulence 1/2;
• Fuel – scale 1; reaction speed 1; max temp 0.01;
• Shading – color dark grey; glow intensity 0.06;
• Color – black to grey gradient; color input density; input bias 0.613;
• Incandescence – same color graph as before; incand input temperature; input bias 0.9;
• Opacity – see graph for the smoke [image 13]

• If the graph was more on the right hand side, the smoke volume would be too dense; input bias 0.5;
• Shading quality – render interpolator smooth
• Lighting – self shadow on; shadow opacity 1; ambient brightness 0.25; real lights off; directional light 0.8, 0.22, 0.8
• Go back to container properties, set the resolution to 130 (need high resolution)
• Now to create the emitter
• Create a small piece of geometry for the emission of the fluid – like a piece of wood at the bottom of the door – scaled out cube!
• Call it door_emitter (surface based emission)
• Name the container door_fire_fluid
• CTRL select the fluid then the emitter – emit from object as before
• Run the simulation
• Change the input bias for Incandescence and Opacity to suit the color and opacity you want!
• Maybe up the temperature buoyancy to 15
• Select the fluid and then the door – make collide
• Do the same for the house as well
• NB – something to test – can you animate the shape of the emitter geometry and the fire will follow?
• To get more detail in the fire try changing the Opacity input bias and the Shading transparency to bring in more of the ‘burnt off’ elements
• In render settings quality tab – quality presets custom – raytrace scanline quality – sampling mode adaptive – max sample level to 1, to minimize jittering
• Update the input bias settings and temperature graph to improve the look [image 14]

• Also, in Temperature, change the buoyancy again to 20 this time, and the dissipation to 5 [image 15]

• When it comes to comping, double it up and use screen layer mode – can also try out gamma correction, colour correction, luminance etc to improve it

 

Lesson 7 – Understanding the Science Behind Smoke

[images 16 and 17]

• Main attributes for smoke include: Volume; Velocity (as related to pressure); Density; Colour
• Volume [image 18]

• Velocity [image 19]

• Density [image 20]

• Colour [image 21]

Lesson 8 – Creating Our First Bit of Smoke

So, let’s start off again with a 3D fluid container around the front window of the house.

Partially inside, base just below the window – settings: base res 60; size 20 x 20 x 20; boundary X none, Y –Y, and Z –Z (we could use none here as well)

• Contents method – density and velocity on dynamic grid, temperature and fuel off (density driven method)
• Dynamic sim – solver quality 30; high detail solve all grids;
• Auto resize on again, turn off the other  settings on then right; max res 1000 (high because the smoke has to travel); auto resize threshold 0; auto resize margin 12;
• Contents details – density – buoyancy 5/7; dissipation 0.1;
• Velocity – swirl 12
• Shading: –
• Transparency white/grey approx. 0.7 value;
• Color – black/grey/black; color input set to density; initial input bias set to 0.361
• Opacity – simple graph [image 22]

• Shading quality – render interpolator smooth
• Lighting – self shadow on (want shading inside the smoke); shadow opacity 1; ambient brightness 0.25; ambient color – whiteish orange (dusty); real lights off (using the fluids own light system); directional light 0.8 0.8 0.9
• Because we’re using a high velocity swirl, it could go unstable so use a value of 0.01 in the damp attribute of dynamic simulation
• Set boundary draw to bounding box in the display menu
• Name the fluid smoke
• Fluid effects – add contents – emitter – shape the emitter so it’s a long cube along the bottom of the window
• Emission speed attr – we want to control the initial smoke, speed and direction – speed method add; direction speed 1; direction x, y, z as 0, 0.5, 1 (out and up!)
• Fluid attributes – density voxels, we’ll key this so we can get some interesting patterns of the smoke – start with value 8, key it frame 0; value 4 at frame 10; value 8 frame 20;
• Open up the graph editor to cycle this – select the whole curve – view menu – infinity – curves menu – post infinity – cycle with offset
• To get the smoke to leave the house with more force – select the fluid container now – fields menu – volume axis
• In volume axis field attr – (volume control attr) volume shape cube – volume axis field attr – magnitude 30;
• Volume speed – away from centre0; directional speed 1; direction 0, 0.8, 0.8 (y and z axis)
• Scale and rotate the axis field to change the direction a little, to make it more realistic [image 23 and 24]

Going Live – Updated Eagle

George had begun some tests on rigging the eagle and had asked ne to update the wings to add in some more feathers, straighten out the wings and slim the connection between the wings and body. In addition, I tidied up some of the geometry, enhanced the lines on the head and changed the way the sections wrap around the wings a little.

I re-rendered thes with a little transparency on the wings and tail, which gives it a more delicate and vulnerable papery look.

Week 20 – Updated Test, Presentation Skills, IBL’s and HDRI’s, Going Live, Reflection on Practice

Cymatics Test Part 2

To get this week started, I added in a little geometry and lens flare to the last test, to see if the combination would be better suited to provide a little more detail. I think it works reasonably well, considering it was a quick and dirty version! It still needs more detail in the particles, so not there yet!

Next, I’m going to try some animated textures to see what difference that might make.

Wednesday 12th February – Mike Press – Making Presentations that Work

Mike Press came in today to give us a good idea about what make presentations work. He has been doing this for a number of years and has a good reputation and experience. So, in bullet pointed fashion, here are some useful tips to note:

• Preparation – give yourself a week before the conference or symposium!
• Have a structure to your delivery
• For each theme within it, write down the key points

There seems to be a rule of three’s runnig through presentations, in this case – have a beginning, a middle and an end!

• Keep sentences short with simple constructions
• Read out loud as you write it
• Think of vivid, relevant (images) references
• Rehearse!
• Never forget, you’re telling a story!

How much material do you need?

• 100 words a minute is average (1500 words over 15 minutes!)
• Nerves do speed things up by around 20%
• Aim to talk for around 12-13 minutes – make every word count!

Important elements:

• The concept!
• Who does what?
• The start
• Introductions and signposting
• Transitions
• Rules of rhetoric – list of 3 questions etc
• The ending

If you’re doing a team pitch, it’s important that each member of the tean syas something initially, within the first minute preferrably, so no-one is standing around nervously waiting their turn. The start is important, as first impressions count – you need to get across your ‘joy and wonder’ or enthusiasm for the topic you’re discussing, or the story you’re selling. Signposts are a good way to keep the audience from getting lost – ‘we were talking about this, now we’re going to move on to this…’ And, of course, the ending has to be definitive – thankyou, questions?

Aristotle – the 5 canons of rhetoric

1. Invention – find ways to persuade
2. Arrangement – the structure of a coherent argument needs well arranged
3. Style – present the argument to stir the emotions
4. Memory – speaking without having to prepare, or at least knowing your subject well enough to improvise
5. Delivery – making effectivge use of your voice, gestures etc.

Rules of Three

In fables, jokes etc., there are always three! For example, 3 acts in a film, 3 main characters in a story, the 3 stooges, 3 little pigs, goldilocks and the 3 bears etc…This is something that resonates in our culture, but if you’re going to use it, make sure it’s subtle! (Remember the Sarah Pailin interviews!)

How to Rehearse

The key, as you should know, to good presentation skills is to practice – at least 10 times before you do it! For example, in front of a mirror, in the bath, when you’re out walking etc. Think about your posture as well, feet slightly apart, one foot in front of the other for stability. If you’re holding notes in one hand, don’t put your other in your pocket! Think about how you use your voice, not monotone! Try to look at your audience as a whole rather than focus on one person, it will freak them out! If you intend to use notes, use index cards and have them joined together using a ring or string or something.

• Breathe! It always a good idea!
• Read your notes before rehearsing
• Use notes only as a reference
• Don’t remember it word for word, it’s too difficult and unnatural
• Highlight certain words or phrases to remember
• Audio record and video yourself, regardless of how painful it is
• Try not to do ‘erm’s’ and ‘ur’s’

Nerves are a natural precursor to doing presentations for most folk. You need the adrenaline to be able to perform.

Recommended text: The Chimp Paradox, by Dr Steve Peters

On line – http://www.toastmasters.org/199-YourSpeakingVoice – this pdf file has exercises that will help.

Make sure that you’re within the word count, read it out and make sure it feels natural. As far as presentation software goes, try not to use powerpoint! It sends most people to sleep! Software is supposed to support your message, so use something that will help visually, but keep it simple.

Alternatives include: keynote (for the mac); iwork (online); timeline (beedocs) for mac or p.c.; prezi.

• The night before – go through it, don’t leave it till the hour before, it’s too stressful
• dress for the occassion
• Take control of your space/stage!
• Visualise success
• Smile, be positive, and remember that the audience are on your side
• If thngs go wrong, you’re in charge, you can always take a brief break if you need to
• Thank the audience

Afterwards, think back about what worked and what didn’t – take notes from other speakers – think what you cold do better the next time.

Be inspired – TED talks are useful! It’s all about technique, be your natural self!

IBL’s and HDRI’s – Malcom Finnie

Malcolm Finnie once again took the reins this week, this time to talk about Image Based Lighting (IBL’s) and High Dynamic Range Images (HDRI’s). The general idea is to take a series of shots from each angle (N, S, E, W, up and down) to create a 360 degree panorama that can be used for lighting, reflections and backdrops.

• To book the equipment from the Uni, you can book out the HDRI kit
• The camera uses a fish eye lens, so to protect it, keep the cap on when you’re not using it
• To turn it on, switch to the on + the next notch position
• Set the quality to RAW
• To rid the camera of old images, reformat the card – go to the yellow section – format card
• Turn the auto rotate off
• We’re looking to take 36 pics worth, covering the dynamic range from dark to bright from all angles
• ISO setting is at the top of the camera – film speed – approx 800 for indoors, 100 for outdoors
• Aperture – don’t change this between pics – choose fixed one of 5.6 (for example)
• The dial on top should be set to manual
• AV
• Manual focus
• Set the white balance – not auto! (AWB)
• Don’t use fluorescent lights – use the custom colour balance – look through the viewfinder and fill the circle with grey or white – take a pic
• Then, go to the menu – WB – custom WB – choose the pic you took
• Then, take another and see the difference
• Alternatively, you can set it to degrees Kelvin

Take a note of the middle shot (reasonable light) e.g. 1/25^th second – it says 25 on the camera! – f5.6 (or whatever the setting is) – 800 iso – then move it 5 notches and take note again.

The idea is that the shots should be 1 and 2/3 stops apart, from dark to light. If you need to take more than that, so be it!

• Pivot the camera on the nodal point of the lens – just in front of the gold line
• Set straight up and down on the 90 degree setting
• Look through the viewfinder and line up with the silver screw when looking down
• Match the gold line on the camera with the gold line on the stand (vertical)
• Set the stand to 0 degrees, take 6 shots, rotate 90 degrees and so on
• You need a remote to take the shots so not to shake the camera
• When dismantling, don’t take the plate off the camera

PT GUI

To stitch the shots together we’re using PTGUI in the 3D lab – there’s only 1 copy on the machine at the front. There is a free trail version available that leaves a watermark, but it’s fine if it’s for lighting purposes. Use iPhoto (mac) to get the images in order and make sure the auto rotate isn’t on. They need to be oriented in the same direction to work.

Alt + Drag the files to get them to remain as RAW files; otherwise they’ll be jpg’s. You could turn them into TIFF’s as an alternative as well.

• In PTGUI, load in the files, go to advanced mode, panorama tab – equirectangular option – for 360 degrees x 180
• Crop – get rid of the black outline
• Exposure – enable stitching
• Method – true HDR
• Mask – paint options – paint out the bits you don’t want (i.e. the camera tripod etc)
• Align images – OK
• Preview tab – preview!
• Panorama editor – create panorama tab – EV value close to 0 so you can see the image
• Centre panorama button
• Click drag the image to reorient it
• Drag the ‘hole’ down to the bottom level
• Go back to create panorama – restore defaults to turn all the images back on
• Preview again – check it out in quicktime (8 bit 360 degree image)
• File save – save project

Go back to the create panorama tab:

• LDR – tone mapped
• HDR – open EXR
• Create panorama

The sigma lens used on this camera was around £200. You can buy an attachment for iphone for around £500 – it’s a twin fisheye Ricoh lens.

Open up in Photoshop, and use the slider on the bottom left to see the difference in range of black and whites. Double click on the foreground colour to see the range of dynamics.

An alternative P.C. program is SIBL GUI – it churns out the 3 versions you need for 3D work. To clone in the hole in the floor – H2VR – Malcolm has it! There are a few sample projects in the coursework folder on line – VFX3 – elective VFX projects – with jpg sequences.

For anything that I may have missed here, refer to the handout!

Going Live

This week we had a meeting on Monday with the rest of the team to decide what the next step in the production was going to be. I have offered to model the eagle and the tree, as well as work on the dynamics for the film. So, I began to model the eagle based on updated sketches from George, which were themselves based on designs from both Lilly and himself. It will take a few days of work before I will post images of the progress, but the paper style of the eagle is proving some interesting challenges in terms of: the overlapping structure of the body; the wings being created to accommodate the riggers via having the ‘feathers’ of the wings separate but overlapping as well; smoothing the poly’s by adding in only one edge; and having sufficient thickness but keeping it thin enough for light to shine through appropriate elements of the model. This is an early version with much work to be done. More images to follow!

Reflection on Practice

This week overall, has been good in terms of setting things in place for the coming few weeks. I had my first meeting with Phil which was encouraging, in terms of where I am with my project, and I also had a meeting with Finlay, the director of Heartspace, which I will be using as a location for the film. So, things are going well on that front. My interview with Dave McCluskey from TouchBase in Glasgow has yet to be confirmed, however, which is not good as time is quickly running out. I had expected it to be plain sailing after having such enthusiastic replies from the East Coast manager in terms of setting up the interview, but the realities of a busy working environment there, means that my own time based agenda may suffer. I still live in hope that I can speak to him next week, as I don’t want to start looking afresh for a new candidate to interview now.

In terms of the abstract, I need to have the first version of that ready for Wednesday of next week – so much still to do on paper. In practical terms, while I await some talks with Dylan Gould, who may be able to assist on the particle front with my research, I aim to try using animated textures to create a ‘magnetic’ style of moving the flow of the sound from source to the edge of the geometry and back to source – creating a kind of circular flow. Something akin to what the arcs of plasma on the sun look like when they curve out from the surface and back again. I have a kind of gut feeling that my research should show some analogies to observable processes in nature. Of course, this is all wordy waffle until I create a test that backs up my ideas. Next week will hopefully show that!

Week 19 – Going Live, Particle Test, Storyboards, Abstracts, Reflection on Practice, Mattes in Digital Compositing

This week has been a busy one. The start of the week has seen a minor tweaks and a composite of the Going Live dragon fire test, followed by some test footage created for my research involving particles and a 3D track, the creation of initial storyboards for my project, advice on writing abstracts, a change of supervisors, sending off ethics forms, organising a location for my video, and reflection on practice amongst other things. So, one at a time then:

First off, here’s the short Dragon Fire video for Going Live:

Creating Proof of Concept – Testing 3D Tracking and Particles

I had received a test image from John Stuart Reid and the cymascope team over the weekend, which showed the last chord of my music: [image 1]

So, attempting to interpret this in 3D, I tried a couple of approaches including drawing curves, lofting surfaces from the curves, then converting them to polys to be used a goals for the particles. The result after duplicating and rotating looked like this: [image 2]

Next up I created a simple series of curves as an alternative goal so that I could key frame the changes between the 2, similar to what I had done before in a previous test. The first problem seemed to arrive in the shape of getting the emitter of the nParticles to ‘goal’ the whole shape at once. It would fire out bursts to separate areas of the geometry instead of all at once. I took some trial and error to get any kind of decent result. In the end I opted for an omni emitter set to a rate of 500 particles/sec – much lower than the rate of the surface emitter I had used in the previous test with purely curves: [image 3]

As you can see in the video clip below, I now need to find out a better way of image a denser cloud of particles to create a more detailed version of the goal.

I think it valuable to mention that my supervisor has been changed to Phil Vaughan now, for various reasons, and that Dylan Gould will also assist on occasion to help out. This could be beneficial as Dylan has been working with particles in the past and may be able to help.

The remainder of the initial particles animation was created by keying the goal weights of the 2 goals.

Before this, however, I had shot some low quality video on my mobile phone for test footage to try out some 3D tracking. So, using my own living room, I placed a radio on a stool in the middle of the room which would represent the sound source for the particles. After reading the files into Nuke, I created a 3D track which had a frame range from 1500 to 1740 or thereabouts. After much trial and error again, I realised that particles seem to have to begin at frame 1 – or at least that’s where my understanding lies at the moment! – For some reason, it’s not advisable to cut and paste the keys for the particle animation as it just does not work well!

Anyway, I used a time offset node in the final comp to offset it by -1499 frames to match the particle animation as seen in the following image: [image 4]

Before that, I should have mentioned, I used a combination of mergegeo and writegeo nodes in the initial 3D tracking Nuke file as seen below: [image 5]

In this file I created a checkered sphere and placed it as accurately as possible to represent where the speaker was on the radio. Hence this would be the source of the particles and the origin of the grid as well. NB – I also noted, but didn’t follow through to find out why, there was a problem with moving the particles system (emitter, goals and all) to the same coordinates as the 3D tracked locators that represented where the room was.

So, the exercise was 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but the main points to remember from this for the next time can be summed up as:

• Remember to cache the particles (even though Maya seems to be unreliable sometimes)
• Rescale the goal shapes to suit the scene size
• Start the Nuke file at frame 0 when exporting to Maya (to save time and messing about)
• When creating image sequences that will be used in Maya, (for example, as the reference sequence of a 3D tracked scene so you can set up lighting etc.) don’t leave spaces in the image sequence name! You can use ‘IfranView’ to batch rename files if need be!
• Maya hardware is the quickest way to render particles that don’t need shadow etc.
• You can scale down the locators brought into Maya from a 3D track by shift selecting them all and scaling down
• If you need to move keys in Maya, select the first key frame, and shift drag over the timeline – then cut and paste

Reflection on Practice –

The initial point of the ‘Explaining Your Own and Presenting Others Research’ exercise on Wednesday the 5^th, was lost on most students as we’d been so busy, we didn’t see the point, until we had completed it! It seemed hard enough explaining your own research never mind explaining someone else’s, combined with the fact that we have heard the same stories from one another on so many occasions we were becoming tired of it. Nonetheless, once again it helped to narrow the focus of what we are doing. What once seemed like a solid research question seems more likely to change on a weekly basis at the moment. On interesting question that arose out of the discussion, was concerned with the emotional impact of what my research was doing. For example, ‘what would the emotional responses be of the hearing impaired, in relation to the 3D music I aim to create?’ The answer at the moment is difficult to see. First of all, if music is indeed the expression of emotion, how does that work with someone who can’t hear? Is there an emotional response from feeling vibration through a solid surface? Clearly, this is something I will need to address and ask my interviewee at TouchBase to see if they can add to this point. I also need to bear in mind that there are other primary methods of collecting data, for example, observation.

Wednesday afternoon was a lecture delivered by Dr Anna Notaro on abstracts and conferences in general.

Wednesday 5^th Dr Anna Notaro – Abstracts and Conferences

Here is a shorthand version of the important points to note from Dr Notaro’s lecture:

• It’s important to have a website detailing your personal achievements, both academic and personal – the style is obviously important as it will reflect the work that you do and have done in the past
• ‘Scaffold or the stage’ – this was a quote that Dr Notaro remembered from her first conference as a young academic, not even having completed her degree. It is useful as far as remembering whether you want to make an impact as a professional in your area of study, in trying to enjoy what you’re doing, rather than feeling overawed by the occasion and feeling very nervous. Clearly this may very well be the case in the early stages of doing any kind of presentation, but it will improve with practice
• With regard to call for papers, you should respond to the ones that are suitable for you. Consider – is it practical? (travel, money etc.) Do the organisers have plans to present/publish the papers? This will raise your profile clearly!
• Seek out animation conference lists, find appropriate discussion networks and subscribe! Twitter could be useful – find someone influential and worth following!
• It’s also a good idea to seek out conferences with broader topics that may not initially be seen as being related to your subject

Abstracts

• Don’t exceed the word count
• Use 2 to 3 key texts in the bibliography
• Try to sell it! Is there a novelty factor/novel approach associated with your project?
• Include a short sentence about the methodology used
• Include a short biography (150 words). This is where a website comes in handy for more information
• Much of the research presented is in progress
• Learn from your peers – It doesn’t have to be a finished piece of work!
• Participate socially I conferences
• The title doesn’t have to be a question
• It might be better to have something catchier to capture peoples imagination

Conferences in general need to know what equipment you require as well, for example, a laptop, projector, any specialist software etc.

In terms of funding, Masters Research is generally not funded, however, if enough students were to email Stephen Partridge, the Dean of Research, who knows?

So, we were put on the spot to come up with a title and begin work on the abstract. As a beginning, I wrote:

“Music in 3D: Building the Unseen

Animated visual music has been used in the arts and media as a means of expression. How can scientific VFX methods be employed to describe the structure of sound to be used as a tool to enlighten, heal and teach, concerning the nature of all matter?”

For the mock conference that we’re presenting at the end of March, I only need focus on an element of my work, rather than generalising, as I will only be part of the way through the journey at that point.

A potentially useful interactive tool is Prezi – it may be Flash based, I should have a look and check it out!

Thursday 6^th February

Belbin workshop – today we had a short presentation and feedback from the Belbin questionnaire we filled in a week before. There are none main roles associated with a team in general, and it seems my role is as a specialist, which ranked the highest in my scoring, coming just above completer/finisher. This seems to be fair enough, as I have a fair slant toward focussing on something in an autonomous way and following it through, looking at the finer detail.

Friday 7^th February – Matte in Digital Compositing

Rotoscoping is usually done in ‘Silhouette’ in VFX or post production companies for TV and film, but we don’ have access to this! Jin recommended entry level artists start off as roto artists for a period of around 2 years for their career.

Mask/Alpha/Mattes – they’re the same thing, but usually referred to as Matte in film and TV. So, what are they? Well, when we only want a portion of an image we use mattes to block out the unwanted part. The value is between 0-1 [black-white], so an 8-bit image is fine (greyscale).

There are 3 ways to generate mattes:

1. Rotoscoping
2. Keying – blue screen is noisier than green screen
3. CGI elements – mental ray and other CG software packages create a matte by default – not Houdini, only RGB channels

Premultiplied – this is when a CG image RGB is matched perfectly with the matte!

1 x any value = value unchanged!

0 x any value = 0

So, think of blending modes – e.g. multiply

10 bit standard images can have lots of hidden data – you can see the details when you use gamma or exposure nodes – in compositing, you need to make sure the black values are 0, otherwise you might be in trouble!

As a reminder, here is the formula for the ‘over’ merge:

Over = (A x M) + [(1 – M) x B] – where A and B are the images

CG images are generally premultiplied, so you need to unpremultiply them before colour corrections, then add premultiply back in again!

[FYI – D.I. stands for Digital Intermediate]

Post production companies use LUT (look up tables) to get colour correction on monitors, however, in their absence we can use gamma (0.454) and exposure tool nodes to offset (0.454 on each RGB channels) the colour. [image 6]

So, in reference to the example that Jin was using, locked off shots even have a little shakiness. You need to follow the shakiness all the way through for the roto to work – we can use 2D tracker for this! Good clear angles are good for this, for example, the corners of the buildings. (The footage here was used in an earlier version of Nuke, so some of the nodes may vary)

He ‘Denoise’ node helps the tracker with film gain, as it may get in the way – you want to analyse a section of blank film in this case – if you’re using this, then add the tracker node after this, even though it isn’t used in Jin’s file. In the updated version of using a tracker node, you need to click the ‘add track’ button.

Tracker node:

• Careful which frame you start on
• Export settings – e.g. transform stabilize
• This creates a new node – you only want to roto 1 frame
• Shuffle node to key out the white matte created by the transform stabilize
• Then do the roto! ‘O’  shortcut for the roto, and ‘P’ shortcut for the rotopaint

What’s the best way to roto? Inside or outside the desired area? [image 7]

Some companies may ask for both – For example, with motion blur, roto inside the pixelised area – without motion blur, roto outside the pixels!

Next step – copy and paste the transform node, but choose the matchmove option instead of stabilize to offset the initial transform to add the shakiness back in – like a sandwich! [image 8]

Now, combine the 2 separate mattes – use a channelMerge node to merge the matttes. Don’t use an ‘over’ node! [image 9]

Then add a premultiply node to cut off the sky. [image 10]

Jin was using a colour wheel as an example, not to look good! So, add in the image – use a transform node to scale it down a bit – copy the transform node from above, but use the matchmove option (not stabilize) to add the shakiness from the original footage to the colour wheel. [image 11]

Now, add a blur then a lightwrap node for colour reflections on the building! Apply this to the original footage. [image 13]

To regrade the colour wheel, add the unpremult node first – this will add additional pixels, but don’t worry about that! Then add film grain to match the footage – add a grade node – then premult [image 14]

For the sky – a constant node (simple colour) – add grain – then a ramp node. Finally, to return the footage to its original look, copy and paste both the exposure and gamma nodes, remember to put them in the right reverse order with appropriate settings. So, if the original exposure settings were 0.454, then they should be -0.454 on the way back out – and if the gamma node was originally 0.454 then it should be 2.2 on the way out!

Check that the original image matches the write node! [image 15]

Storyboards

I’m certainly not an accomplished artists when it comes to drawing, nevertheless, here are the initial storyboards for my project:

Next week, I will upload an animatic version of these along with the soundtrack to provide a clearer idea of what I intend to do. The church space in the storyboards will hopefull come to fruition via a location called ‘Heartspace’ which is a converted church used for yoga in Dundee. I’m still waiting to hear whether they will help me out on my project.