After Effects Flowing Lights

Flowing Lights

You have seen this effect in the commercials, MTV and other music channels lots of time and always think of creating something like this. So, in this issue we like to create a simple version of flowing lights.

Step 1: Create a new composition 640 x 480 in After Effects. Then create a new solid layer Ctrl + Y (50 x 50) of any color.

Step 2: Open the Motion Sketch Dialog from Window > Motion Sketch

Step 3: Select a solid layer and press the Start Capture button in the Motion Sketch dialog box. After pressing a button start moving/drawing a solid layer in the composition like you want to move the lights later.

Step 4: Apply Window > The Smoother to the motion path and choose iterations 3 in the Smoother dialog box. This step is necessary to smoothen the path you drawn in the previous step otherwise motion can be jerky and also not looks good visually later.

Step 5: Now open the Motion Sketch position key frames in the timeline and copy those.

Step 6: Create a new composition named Comp 2 (640 x 480) and create a new adjustment layer. Select the pen tool and just draw one point on the adjustment layer, so you can paste the motion sketch key frames as a mask in the adjustment layer.

Step 7: Apply Effect > Render > Vegas and select the following settings.

Step 8: Apply Effect > Stylize> Glow and choose the following settings in the dialog box

Step 9: Duplicate the above composition (Comp) and change the few settings in the Vegas and Glow effects. Now drag this composition to the Comp .

Step 10: Create new composition named “final” and drag Comp  on this. Apply Effect> Distort> Turbulent Displace and increase the complexity to ..

Now you can create a camera and change the X, Y, Z position of the layer. Also duplicate the layer to create more flowing lights and enable to 3d layer to move the layer as you want. Also create a background as desired.

Breaking the Stone

Breaking any object and then animate the fragments manually is a tedious task specially when there are lots of fragments and getting realism on such animations also a difficult task. So, here comes Dynamics. The term dynamics refers to a system of controls that generate keys to produce animation that simulates real-world physics.

Dynamic simulation tool in 3ds max called Reactor. And in this issue we will break a stone in parts through reactor and fracture. The fracture feature simulates the breaking of a rigid body into a number of smaller pieces as the result of an impact. To do this, you need to supply the pieces that are glued together to create the whole object.

Step 1: Create a box and right click on that and choose convert into Editable Poly.

Step 2 : Select the Cut tool from Edit Geometry rollout in Editable poly and cut the box in various shapes and sizes like the way you want the chunks when broken.

Step 3: After cut the box. First decide in how many parts you like to break this box. Suppose if we like to break in  parts then select half polygons and click the Detach button in Editable Poly. Press Ok in the Detach dialog box. Now your box is divided into  parts.

Step 4: But when you move the parts then you will see from inside the boxes are hollow and when they break then not looks good or say nothing is visible. So, now we will create the inside polygons. First hide the other detach polygon. And start working on the other one. Select some inside vertexes and duplicate them by pressing the Shift key and move the vertexes.

Step 5: Go into the polygon mode and click on Create button. Now start clicking on the vertexes and polygon on those vertexes will be created. Remember on vertex where you click first, at the same vertex you need to click at the end to create polygon and don’t create polygon by choosing more than 3-4 vertexes. Same procedure need to follow on the other part.

Step 6: After creating the inside polygons your main part is completed. Rename all the parts. And create a plane in the scene to collide. From the reactor rollout create a RB Collection and Fracture Solver. Add all the objects in a scene to RB Collection and all the stone fragments into the Fracture.

Step 7: Go into the Utility>Reactor. And in the Reactor properties change to “Use Mesh” for the plane in the Concave Rollout. And also give different masses to different stone pieces so all of them behave differently.

Step 8: Click on the Preview Button in the Reactor Preview & Animation panel. And if you are satisfied with the results then you can click on Create Animation button. Now all the animation key frames will automatically created according to the preview you have seen. When you watch the timeline then key frame will be created on every frame which is useless and very cumbersome if want to change any animation. So, into the Utils rollout and under Key Management click on Reduce Now with threshold to 0.5.

For texturing apply a UVW mapping and select Box in the mapping coordinates. If the object is too complex and break seams are shown then duplicate the object in starting and select Acquire in the UVW mapping alignment dialog.

Hope you enjoy this small tutorial. If you want to show many small chunks in the air then you can also use a Particle Flow and on collide emit the custom object instances.

Melting Text

In this tutorial we will explore some tools and options of fluid to create melting text effect like smoke, this tutorial is very handy for those of you who are going to create short movies or demo reels to give it heading using this method describing in this tutorial.

Fluid effect is one of powerful tools inside Maya which can achieve realistic result easily within few minutes if you are expert and have creative mind, before going to start with this tutorial I am suggesting you that you should basic knowledge of Maya.

Ok let’s get started.

Step 1: First of all we need some text in (Targa), or (Jpeg) formats, write the text what you want with black background. Open Photoshop and create new fresh page with the same setting as in image describing below.

Note: this setting is just for this tutorial you are not bound with the size of document you can create it in any desired size you like.

Step 2: When your new file is open write anything you like in this case I wrote the words below, make sure your background is black and save it as .tga and name it (Density).

Step 3: Now create the duplicate of this image and change the text color to whatever you like, and then save it as .tga and name it (Color) like the picture below.

Step 4: We are done with Photoshop here, now switch to Maya. On the view port hold down (H) key from your keyboard and then hold down left mouse button from popup menus choose (Dynamics), now we have access to Fluid effects in the top menu, now click on (Fluid Effects) from dropdown menu hit on that small rectangular beside d container like the image illustrating below.

Step 5: Fluid option box will appear in the (X Y Resolution) give value of 300 by 300 in the box. This will increase detail when we import our text images, then hit (Apply and Close) like the picture below.

Note: the bigger resolution value the slower render and system performance, do not increase the values out of your requirement.

Step 6: If you look at your scene you have created a d fluid container, with the d fluid container is still selected again go to (Fluid Effects>>Add/Edit Contents>> then select the option box for (Paint Fluid Tool).

Step 7: Ok expand (Paint Attributes) tab, on the (Paint Attribute) dropdown menu by default it set to (Density) leave it like this, now expand (Attributes Maps) you will see one more tab (Import) expand it too this will reveal (Import) button, click on it and the file browser will open for this one choose (Density.tga) where you saved your images and import it.

Step 7: Press (6) button from your keyboard and you should see something like this image.

Step 8: Go to (Paint Attribute) tab again and this time choose (Color) from the dropdown menu and the this will ask you to (Set to Dynamics) and hit the Set to Dynamics button, Click once again on (Import) button and choose (Color.tga) image from your hard drive.

Step 9: Now you should see something like the following image if you follow me along the tutorial.

Step 10: Hit CTRL+A to bring the (Attributes Editor) now find out Dynamic Simulation tab and expand it and set the (Start Frame) to (45) whatever number you like your animation to start.

Step 11: Expand the (Contents Details) tab from (Attribute Editor) and then expand the (Density) tab too set the numbers like the image below.

Step 12: Scroll down little bit to find out (Shading) tab and expand it. Set the (Glow Intensity) to (1) or whatever you like your texts reflect the glow.

Final Step: Here we are done set your frames to 00 or as your choice then hit play you will see your texts are melting down and then dissipating slowly like smoke, these  renders are just to show you how its looks like after rendering.

I hope you enjoyed doing this tutorial and try it your own pace with different images to get different kind of results.

Author : Aziz Khan Email: a_k517@hotmail.com Website: www.3dgroup.3dk.org