nDynamics Simulations ftw.

Remember when I last updated this blog? Or maybe you remember when I last got off my computer? Neither does Pepperidge Farm. Also, boring paragraphs of my progress with Maya nDynamics follows...

I've been doing lots of nParticle and nCloth simulations. Hella fun to say the least, though it takes quite a lot of processing power. I'm still experimenting with some of the basic physics values like air density, wind, force field generation and so on. So far I've learnt a bit about simulating realistic liquid particles (my primary focus for the Masterclass thing). nCloth is just too much fun though (and for that matter more straightforward to work with than nParticles). Basically, it's your very own collision simulator. You can do anything from shattering simple objects to destroying entire cities. I heard about there being a much better plugin for that stuff (a little like RealFlow but for collisions) but I forgot the name.

Anyway, that brings me to the fact that, even right now, I'm rendering a realistic water simulation I made in RealFlow. I've been doing it so far for the last couple of days. The particles and the motion frames are done. Now it's just up to V-Ray to render out the mesh I imported from RealFlow into Maya (and then added some shaders to make it look like actual transparent water).  And yeah I have V-Ray now. Suck it, mental ray. I found this really great tutorial that shows you everything step by step on how to create a water sim on RealFlow and then do the whole V-Ray thing and then composite it in NUKE. I have yet to do the compositing of the three different renders. After that, I'll try to post it up (as well as some other things I did on Maya) on here and show you what I've been up to these past few weeks. Here are a few screenies:

Motion Velocity:

Particles:

V-Ray Reflection render:

V-Ray Mesh render: 

Rendering right now, 565 frames to go! 

"Only that many, pfft" you say? No no no, you don't get it. I have a pretty decent gaming rig, and I started rendering that out at about 9:00 AM today, and it's only finished 137 frames at 4:27 PM. So, it does take that freaking long unfortunately. 

Stay tuned for more folks!

EDIT:
Okay, so, I found that the render is going faster now because the main chunk of frames at the start with the really intensive and demanding work was done. Not too much faster, but hey, I'll take any amount of fast over the rate at which it was going before. It should be done tonight at around 11:00 PM, at which time I'll start compositing the damn thing.

EDIT2: 
YUSH. I remembered the name! That collision plugin I was talking about earlier was called RayFire. I can finally crush as many buildings as I want and make it look ultra realistic, like what I've always dreamt about :D

>__>

<__<

.....

Don't worry, I'm no terrorist, nor do I like causing destruction for the sake of destruction, but...it's just so fun to watch, y'know? :B

(Excuse the amount of smilies. I do that when I remember the thing that was at the tip of my tongue. It's like I've achieved an extraordinary feat that's one day going to save humanity or something).

EDIT3:
Well that sucks. It only works on 3DS Max. I guess Fracture FX will have to do then. Or, I could just go ahead and learn all about Max. Hmmm....

Oh yeah, I remembered another alternative, which is also opensource - Bullet Physics Engine. I'll try that out too. I've only heard little things about it, I don't know much.

EDIT4:
And would you look at that, the render finished at around 8:00 PM, ahead of my ETC. Tomorrow I'll stitch it all up and make it look pretty.