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WEEK 1 -  BULLET RIGID BODIES

  • In this week we looked at the work flow and techniques for creating rigid body simulations in Maya, using the The Bullet physics engine and MASH network.

  • the Bullet physics engine lets you create large-scale, highly-realistic dynamic and kinematic simulation. 

  • To make dynamic simulation, I applied an Active and Passive Rigid Body on cube mesh and plane respectively.

DOMINO

  • I made domino shaped polygon cubes and created rigid body on the meshes. To simulate the domino fall over, I set the first block as a Collider Object by keying 'Initial Conditions' movements. 

  • For the advanced Domino exercise, I drew a curve and created a MESH. 

  • On the MESH, I applied a color and dynamic Bullet simulation. After that, I controlled the 'Fiction' values to make the Dominos look more realistic.

JENGA TOWER

  • I built a Jenga Tower, and I set Initial Condition key on some of blocks randomly.

  • After creating a Sphere object, I set key frame on the Sphere mesh to give it to animation. Just before the ball hit the Jenga tower, I set Dynamic Body Type, and set Kinematic Body type from the beginning to it hit.

  • I set Gravity Value from 'bulletSolver' attribute 

WEEK 2 -  NCLOTH

  • In this week looked at the work flow and techniques for creating cloth simulations, using Mayas own the Ncloth system.

  • Ncloth is part of the Ndynamics frame work in maya, which includes nCloth Nparticles and nHair.

CREATING NCLOTH

  • I created nCloth FX and applied on the Plane mesh. I set a Ground Plane using Plane. 

  • On the nClothShape attribute, I applied 'Silk' preset. 

FLAG

  • I brought Cylinder mesh to make Flag Pole.

  • I selected some of the Vertex of the Plane mesh and constrained to the Pole with applying 'Point to Surface' on nConstraint attribute. And then I created Passive Collider on the Pole.

  • To make Wind Effect on the nCloth, you can put Wind Speed and Direction Value on the 'nucleus' attribute and bring Volume Axis Tool 

NCLOTH CLOTHES

  • I brought Walking Motion applied Human model into the scene. And I brought Cylinder to make a skirt with using Lattice Tool. 

  • After creating the skirt, I applied nCloth Effect and constrained to the body. 

TEARABLE TRAMPOLINE

  • After creating plane and pipeline frame, I added nCloth and nConstraint. 

  • I randomly selected some edges on the middle of the Plane and added Tearable Surface on it.  And then, brought Volume Axis (Field Effect) to blow a wind. 

NCLOTH PRESSURE

  • You can even add Pressure Effect on the nCloth. 

WEEK 3 -  BIFROST GRAPH PARTICLES

Bifrost makes it possible for 3D artists and TDs to create complex effects in Maya quickly and easily using a new visual programming environment. TDs can create custom graphs in the Bifrost Graph Editor and package them up for artists at their studio to use across different shows, scenes, and shots. Artists can also take advantage of a wide array of ready-to-use graphs to create effects like fire, smoke, explosions, sand, and snow right out-of-the-box.

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Previously, Bifrost included the following features:

  • Bifrost Fluids, a procedural framework that can create simulated liquid and aerodynamic effects using a FLIP (fluid implicit particle) solver.

  • BOSS, the Bifrost Ocean Simulation System.

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With Bifrost Extension for Maya, two additional features are included:

  • Bifrost Graph, a new node-based, visual programming environment where you can build procedural graphs to create effects such as sand, fire, smoke, and explosions.

  • bifcmd, a tool that executes these procedural graphs directly on the command line.

BASIC PARTICLE

  • After I brought platonic polygon into the Bifrost Graph as a input node, I added 'basic_particles_graph' node and exploded in order to add more information. 

  • Basic Particles Graph sets up a simple default graph that will emits particles which fall under gravity and die after one second.

APPLYING COLOUR

  • To apply colour on the mesh, I brought 'set_property' and connected to 'source_particles', and put RGB colour value.

  • On the set property attribute, I named the type of data as 'color' to define what kind of data will be. 

  • To give variation of colour on the mesh, I added 'vary_source_property' and put minimum and maximum RGB colour value. 

  • Not only the colour, also it is able to give other value of property variation to the meshes. (eg. size, speed, spread....)

TURBULENCE AND MODIFIER INFLUENCE

  • The turbulence influence applies a curl noise acceleration, which is useful for effects like air turbulence. A nice feature of the curl noise is that the resulting velocities are incompressible, like an air flow, which results in more natural particle smoke simulations. In such cases higher drag values will help the particles to more closely follow the curl noise flow instead of building up velocity over time.

  • The modifier influence can be used to replace, add, multiply or clamp the value of a simulation property like voxel_density, point_velocity, or point_size.

WINDOW BLAST

ARNOLD RENDER VEIW

WEEK 4 -  BIFROST GRAPH AERO SYSTEM

FLUID EFFECTS 

  • Maya Fluid Effects is a technology for realistically simulating and rendering fluid motion. Fluid Effects lets you create a wide variety of 2D and 3D atmospheric, pyrotechnic, space, and liquid effects. In this week, I simulated smoke effects with using Bifrost graph 

1-1.jpg

  • I brought and exploded 'basic_aero_graph' node, which sets up a simple graph that produces a rising smoke plume.

  • I added Torus Polygon and connected to collider node. Colliders are obstacles to the flow of a Bifrost simulation. You can use them to form a barrier around which smoke must flow, or create a basin that prevents particles from falling away under gravity.

  • Cache node is an experimental node which can cache and read back simulations by writing them to a file.

On 'aero_solver_settings' node, there are different types of  Solver Globals which is

  • smooth: linear interpolation

  • fluffy: cubic interpolation with C0 continuity between voxels

  • busy: cubic interpolation with C1 continuity between voxels (Catmull-Rom)

  • wispy: monotonic cubic interpolation with C1 continuity between voxels

ASSIGN MATERIAL

WEEK 5 -  BIFROST GRAPH COMBUSTION AERO SYSTEM

COMBUSTION SET UP

  • The basic_combustion_graph sets up a simple graph that produces an explosion followed by a rising smoke plume.

  • I exploded basic combustion graph and added cache and aiStandardVolume material. 

COMPOUND VARY PROPERTIES

  • you can compound with lots vary properties by pressing cmd + G.

FUEL REBEL PACK INFLUENCES

  • The aero_pyroclastic_influence adds detail to aero simulations that resembles the pyroclastic detail seen in volcanic plumes and large explosions.

  • The aero_einstein_influence takes the existing velocity field and multiplies it with turbulence to create a turbulent secondary velocity field

ASSIGNMENT
Artefact Destruction and Cloth

DESTRUCTION

  • For my destruction dynamic simulation, I have chosen that throwing a ball to plastic cup tower. 

  • I built a plastic cup tower and threw the pingpong ball to the tower

REAL FOOTAGE

WORKFLOW IN MAYA

  • I modelled a cup and duplicated 10 cups, and created a tower with using 10 cups. 

  • I brought a sphere as a ball into the scene and created 'Rigid body' on cups and the ball.

  • I put free drawers and bed frame model from website into the scene and applied textures on models. 

COMPARISON 

CLOTH

  • For my Cloth simulation task, I have chosen that a movement of shower curtain in bathroom. 

REAL FOOTAGE

WORKFLOW IN MAYA

  • I modelled a curtain and applied nConstraint on the cube polygon to put curtain movement by adding key frame. 

  • I brought free a bath and sink models from website and put into the scene. 

COMPARISON 

WEEK 8 -  BIFROST LIQUIDS

  • Liquid simulations can be used to create all types of fluid effects including open water, fast moving, turbulent liquids, as well as semisolids such as lava, mud, and gels.

  • A liquid can also be guided by a polygon mesh or low resolution simulation to generate controlled splashes, boat wakes, and more. The steps for setting up guided liquid simulations are different than typical liquids

BASIC FLUID SET UP

  • To set up basic fluid liquid simulation, I applied Liquid Fluids effect on Sphere mesh and set 'Continuous Emission' on. After that, I added 'Collider' on Plane mesh, and added 'Killplane' under the plane mesh to eliminate particles. 

MOTION FIELD 

VIDEO

  • The attributes on the bifrostMotionFieldContainer node can be used to affect the velocity of Bifröst liquid, foam, or aero particles based.

BIFROST MESHING RENDER

  • You can generate a mesh from the isosurface of a Bifrost simulation for more control over the surface. The channels like velocity and vorticity can be transferred to the mesh as color sets.

  • The mesh is a separate object that is automatically added to the scene when you create a Bifröst simulation, but it has no polygons until you activate meshing on the bifrostShape node. This is typically done as a last step before rendering or exporting.

CACHE BIFROST MESH

  • To cache a Bifröst mesh, create a user cache for the simulation and make sure that Cache Elements: Mesh is enabled in the Bifrost Compute and Cache Options window.

  • You can import the resulting cached mesh into another scene as described in Cache meshes using BIF format.

RENDER IMAGE

RESOLUTION SIZE : 0.500

RESOLUTION SIZE : 0.100

MOTION BLUR (LENGHT : 0.080)

MOTION BLUR (LENGHT : 0.500)

FRAME 4

FRAME 5

FRAME 6

FRAME 7

WEEK 9 -  BIFROST OCEAN

WAVE WITH BOSS

  • To create realistic Ocean Simulation, I used Bifrost Boss system. It lets create ocean surfaces with waves, ripples and wakes. 

  • I made plane mesh and applied Boss wave generator on the mesh. After that I created Foam maps and added on the material 

TILING OCEAN

  • I made a plane mesh bigger and scaled the subdivision value up, and applied the same process that I created a wave simulation. 

SPLASH SIMULATION

  • To make Splash Simulation, I created sphere mesh and added a simple animation which get through the ocean surface to make splash. After that I added 'Guide' and 'Emission Region'.

RENDER IMAGE

WEEK 10 -  BIFROST GRAPH MPM

  • The material point method (MPM) is a numerical technique used to simulate the behavior of solids, liquids, gases, and any other continuum material. Especially, it is a robust spatial discretization method for simulating multi-phase (solid-fluid-gas) interactions

MPM SETUP

  • I created 4 different types of simulation (Sand, Water, Snow, Cloth) with using bifrost graph. I brought 'simulate_ mpm' attribute and created 4 different sources node(snow, sand, fluid and cloth).

  • I brought each meshes into the graph and connected each correct simulation. And I applied Color on the meshed by adding additional properties. 

MPM (LIQUIDS)

  • To render out the liquid simulation, I added Cache Meshing and assigned Arnold Material on the mesh. 

RENDER IMAGE

liquid_v01_frame_57.jpg

FRAME 57

liquid_v01_frame_69.jpg

FRAME 69

liquid_v01_frame_84.jpg

FRAME 84​

liquid_v01_frame_96.jpg

FRAME 96​

MPM (SNOW BALL)

  • To create snow simulation, I created simple sphere and wall, and added invisible cube box around wall shape mesh. 

WEEK 11 -  BIFROST STRANDS

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02

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WEEK 12 -  X GEN

  • XGen is an instancing tool most commonly used for creating hair or population a scene with instanced geometry. In this week, we have learned how to create hair with using XGen Description in Maya.  

Maya help XGen

XGEN HAIR SETUP

  • I created XGen Description on the head mesh. Once a hair added on the mesh, I did Rebuild Guide and raised the CV Count value to '8', and scaled and shaped the hair. 

  • To shape with the Sculpt Guides tool, with this icon in the red box on the picture, the hair is able to be edited. 

ADDING MODIFIERS

  • I added XGen modifiers to a Description. I put 'Clumping', 'Coil' and 'Noise' modifier. 

RENDERING

  • I assigned 'aiStanardHair' material on the XGen Description 

DYNAMIC ANIMATION

  • After I assigned the material on the hair, I set XGen Dynamic animation.

  • To make it look more natural, I applied the collider on the head shape. 

Final

WEEK 13 -  BIFROST INSTANCES

  • Instances are copies of geometric objects placed at the positions of points, such as the points of a particle system. Instances result in lighter scenes, because only the master geometry and the points need to exist. Instances can be used to create trees in a forest, objects falling into a pile, and much more.

CREATE INSTANCE NODE

  • I brought 5 different types of meshes and those are connected to 'create instances' node. The 'create instance' nodes allows the meshes aligned on the plane. I added 'scatter points' node to put the meshes randomly.  

  • 'randomised point scale/translation/rotation' node can change the meshes' direction or scale randomly. 

LEGO MAN 

  • I brought 'Lego man' mesh to apply on the scene with using create instance node. 

  • I exported the lego model as a ASS file and imported this file with Standin. 

  • I created a lego sized little cube to connect 'preview_geometry' pipe on the 'Render Archive Instance'.

  • To change specific mesh (lego toy hat), I created aiStandard surface and brought aiUserData, and connected to the base colour. After that I added 'aiSetParameter' and shader assignment on the property. I brought the material node into the shader, and dragged the material node into the bifrost editter and connected the operation 

  • operator Selection : /legoToy:C_legoToy01_low/legoToy:C_legoToyHat_low/*

RENDER IMAGES

ASSIGNMENT_02 - Environmental Effects

For this Assignment, I demonstrate three different real rendered environmental effects scenarios using Bifrost simulation form Autodesk Maya software. These scenarios will be defined by these three titles:

  • Natural – Simulated environmental effect mimicking a natural phenomenon that occurs in the world. Example -  rain, wind, fog, fire or shooting stars.

  • Fantasy Sci-Fi - Simulated environmental effect that has a fantasy or science fiction element. Example – Worm hole or glowing magic cloud.

  • Surreal - Simulated environmental effect that has an odd or unexpected element. Example – Diamonds covering every surface in the scene.

01 - Natural

  • For the Natural scene, I create Ocean scene using BOSS Bifrost Ocean simulation System which lets you create realistic ocean surfaces with waves, ripples, and wakes. And I added Bifrost fluid Liquid and Form property after creating Ocean waves from BOSS.

  • I put the wall on the scene to make this as a collider, and I applied the Collider properties on the wall mesh. When the wave crushes on the wall the liquid behavior interacts with the wall. 

  • After putting the wall as a collider, I added KillField Properties to delete the liquid and foam movement out of the camera angle.

Liquid Properties 

Foam Properties 

Playblast scene 

  • After the Caches out the liquid and foam properties (25fps / 250 Frames), I played through the scene. 

RENDER SCENE

  • I added aiStandardSurface materials on the liquid and foam properties and set a 'deep water' and 'foam' preset, and changed some properties. 

FINAL SCENE

02 - Si-Fi / Fantasy

  • For the Si-Fi / Fantasy scene, I had decided to create the sparky gateway portal from the movie "Doctor Strange". I used basic particle graph from Bifrost Editor in Maya and I added different type of influences onto the simulate node such as 'modifier', 'turbulence', 'drag' and 'radial'. I also set 'color' property with random RGBA values. 

  • I brought the basic Torus polygon into the scene and added more Subdivisions to make more particle simulated, and then I added the particle simulation that I created on the polygon. To make the effect look more vivid and shiny, I added 4 different types of influence. 

  • I added the aiStandardSurface material on the bifrostGraph. I brought 'aiUserDataColor' node in the Hypershade and I connected to Emission Color to make the effects brighter. 

  • To enable motion blur for my entire scene, I turned it on from the Render setting. (Length : 2)

FINAL SCENE

03 - Surreal

  • For the Surreal scenario, I got inspiration from some of the artist 'Lee Griggs' works. I brought free 3D scanned head model from website (Three D Scans - Free 3D scan archive), and I did remesh this head model to low poly with using Zbrush.

LEE GRIGGS' BLOG

  • Same as previous scenario, I created particle simulate node and added strands trails simulation in bifrost Editor and applied the effect on the head model. 

  • To make it look unreal, I added turbulence influence.

  • In this time I added aiToon material on the mesh. I connected aiUtility node to Emission Color and changed the Color mode. 

FINAL SCENE

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