End Of Week 07

This weeks tutorial was a storm system using PFlow & Afterburn. This was interesting since its not all about Particles creating other particles something I found out before while working on 'Kid Samurai'. When a raindrop falls if Max has to calculate every particle reaction for a splash things start to get heavy so you use a few Particle systems to create the overall effect. I used Cebas's FinalDOF for this which caused a few problems since it wouldn't export(or I couldn't find a way to) the DOF to effect every layer rendered out by 'Render Elements' in Max, it works great on single framed shots but on animations you can't apply it to all the layers in post. I also used Cebas's PSDManager which is a great idea but again so many different layers have so many tweaks to Alpha channels or DOF it was easier to render separate layers out. I do wish it would have worked with the FinalDof plugin, you would think that Cebas since they make both plugins would have sorted it out.
In AfterFX I added the drops on the camera lens to add more depth.

Steve

End Of Week 06

This week was a bit frustrating since we were doing crowd simulation using a demo of a plugin called 'Box tools #1'. This tutorial was one of the ones I signed up for the course in the first place. Overall the tutorial was good & easy as usual but when we started to use the plugin everything went wrong & I spent the whole week talking to people in America at 3am. I finally sorted the problem out by actually buying the plugin luckily with the course you get a discount so it ended up being about £35 instead of $200!!!!!

I'll post some pics when I actually do something with the tutorial since I'm working on a friends film making bugs using a crowd system!!!!

Steve

End Of Week 05

This week was all about Bullets & Grenades. We did 3 tutorials one on a gun firing with muzzle flash & smoke using PFlow & Afterburn. The other was on Bullet Ricochet, after a bullet hits a wall sprinkles of debris are produced & smoke. I took this 1 step further & made a system which spurts blood from some surfaces & debris from another. I'm hoping to take this further later with blowing up a car using FumeFX too. The last tutorial was about a Grenade explosion.

THE NEW WEBSITE IS NOW UP & WORKING!!!!! Check it out.
www.steviemac.co.uk

Steve

End Of Week 04

This week we did a hand smashing up through the ground I think the motion came out really well & the background didn't take too long but got the right mood for the scene. Since this week didn't take me too long to get a decent result I was able to sort out my new website so its nearly finished now just a few tweaks are needed.

Steve