whispy fog?

# 1 07-02-2003 , 09:12 AM

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I have a shot (filmed) and am planning on using maya for creating a sort of whispy fog bank and then composiiting it together.

The thing is, i need the fog to react to one of the actors
(have tendrils of fog wrapping around the actor, and then clearing as he emerges from the fog bank)
Anyone have any ideas how to go about doing this? If doing actual tenrils is going to be too hard then it could just be the fog drawing back around him as he emerges.
Would it be a case of setting up a deflector object, matching that to the actors movement and use particles as the fog? could
i use Fluid dynamics?
any help greatfully recieved... mayas particles / dynamics is somthing I've not really touched upon before user added image

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# 2 07-02-2003 , 04:27 PM

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If it were me, I would go with particles. You can change the Particle Render type to "cloud" then create a simple white shader to assign to the particles, being sure to make it a bit transparent. To change the radius of the particles emitted, you can click the "Current Render Type" buttun under the "Particle Render Type" and adjust the value as you see fit. After that, you should be able to manipulate the particles any way you want with fields. If you want the fog to move away from your character, you could parent some air fields to his legs or something. That's probably not the best way to do it, but it's what I would do.

Also, to get that "wispy" effect, you could create a vortex and key the magnitude according to how you want it to look like. Create several of them and set their max distance to 1 or 2 for a good effect. Izzy has a tutorial somewhere in the tuts section that goes through the proccess of creating a fire ring explosion. I learned a lot about particles by watching that.

www.Darkware3D.com

Last edited by Darkware; 07-02-2003 at 04:31 PM.

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# 3 07-02-2003 , 06:10 PM

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Hmm... I'm having some trouble understanding what exactly are you trying to achieve... Will there be fog already in the room or is the actor "spawning" the fog?

Anyway, keying matte for the actor would be the first thing to do so the fog can exist and go around him/her. Then I would propably track the features on the actor which will affect the fog. From that point on it's just a matter of trial & error or research & development as some are calling it user added image

. You just have to think though or try every method that could work. Eventually one method will survive. It's like cooking you know user added image

. You never know for sure what the end result will be user added image

I believe both particles and fluids could work. You just have to try yourself. I'm not so familiar with fluids but with particles you could use a turbulence field to get the general whispy look. Then you could use air fields (based on the wake preset) attached to the actor to stir the particles more...

Kari
- My Website
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Do a lot, Fail a lot and Learn a lot!

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# 4 07-02-2003 , 07:42 PM

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Im not an expert by any means at this but I think one thing u could do to create the whisps of fog is perhaps to create a directional emitter. You could then assign a Newton field to the emitter and then parent the Newton field to a sphere. By animating the sphere, you can in effect direct the whisps of fog. and the Newton field it adds the whispy like effect. Obviously you can hide the sphere when u render. When I have some time i'll see if I can knock up an example for you user added image

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# 5 07-02-2003 , 09:04 PM

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Im not sure if this is what you had in mind but I have created a playblast with a small example of using a newton field parented to a sphere. The idea is that with movement of the sphere you can create amplitude in the whisp of fog. And because its a newton field, the emitted particles follow it - so in theory you could direct the whisp any which way you care to. Its actually pretty basic. Perhaps one of the other guys can expand on it or maybe they have a better idea. If you would like the scene file give me a shout and i will post it. user added image

Good luck!

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# 6 07-02-2003 , 09:33 PM

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Thanks for the great responses guys!

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 7 07-02-2003 , 09:50 PM

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thanks alot ! I dont have maya on this machine, but when I get home I'll try out all the ideas! user added image

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# 8 07-02-2003 , 10:11 PM

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Hey, nice one alexgc. You could also do basically the same with some added random movement with a turbulence field. That's what I like to use. Here's an example which I did in the early phases of my ocean scene:
https://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/karppa/anim/crestmist2_divx.zip

Kari
- My Website
- My IMDB

Do a lot, Fail a lot and Learn a lot!

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whispy fog?

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