Pancakes with RF syrup

I´ve been researching about a honey-like fluid over the past 2 weeks, and this is what I got, finally. Getting high levels of viscosity can be a tricky task due to complex calculations with extremely huge values in parametres like viscosity, density, sticky, etc., then the computing proccess usually becomes unestable or even may crash. However after many tests, and a long tweaking procces I could achieve this kind of fluid similar to honey (a little bit more liquid, maybe). Hope you like it, and don´t forget to post your own personal critics and comments. Thank you in advance.

Pictures from the work in progress (clic to enlarge):

Testing the shaders in a close-up

Trying a SSS configuration for the milkshake (that I finally didn´t use)

Next Limit Rocket (The 'Impulse' feature in RF4)

This is a very recursive but fun exercise to practice the 'Impulse' feature in Real Flow. I have not used it for many times but it´s really effective and you can get good results, and even with physically correct based results. Basicaly it´s just an emitter (in this case a circle) parented to an objetct (the rocket, at the bottom) that causes an impulse like in the real world. This is not the final render, but I find it really funny, specially because of the 'scale model' set.

And now... Rigging!

Once again, I´m taking an advanced rigging course at Oscillon School, this time about rigging and character setup. We began with a few small and easy examples, as usual, but a few weeks later we began to build our own bones groups, appling inverse kinematics propierties, etc. Take a look at this one.

Bullet in slow motion (Realflow egg)

I made this video specially focused on the depth of field with fluids. As I needed a liquid that slowly comes to the camera POV, I immediately took the references of the slow-motion filmations (usually with scientific pursposes) when a bullet is crossing an objet (apples, bottles, cups of milk...), so finally I took the main reference from here. Although the Realflow mesh it´s improvable (specially within the area of the egg white, and its particular fillaments), and the shaders too (yolk shader without SSS, plain color on the shell, etc...) I´m quite happy with the final result.

The egg shards explotion is simulated using the Maya Dynamics. Realflow for the fluids, and Maxwell Render for the final render. I used Adobe AfterEffects for the final composition (Color correction, Time remaping, etc.).

UPDATE: This video has been selected for NextLimit for the Maxwell 2.0 Reel THANK YOU, GUYS! Link here (at the very end of the video):
http://www.maxwellrender.com/mw2_product.php

The 'Realflow Bloodflush' video reaches 10.000 views in YouTube

I think this is the first time that one of my videos reaches more than 10.000 views in YouTube. Almost 10 mounths after posting it, it looks like the 'Realflow Bloodflush' video gets an average of 1.000 per mounth (wich is not bad for a 'fluid simulation' video). I made this video with the only purpose of learn the basic tools in RF4, explore the wetmaps feature and have some fun, as well.

I´m very happy if you like stuff like this, and I hope to post a new relevant video very sooon... but at this moment I just can say for ten thousand times at the YouTube users: THANK YOU!

How to... Batch render in Maya 2009 with Maxwell Render

Both in Win x64 and Mac OS X, if you want to render an image sequence for an animation using Maxwell, probably you´ll note when you press the 'Batch render' button, Maya begins the task showing the following message in the script editor: "Rendering wiht Maxwell render..." and look likes everything is going to run OK... however, when you take a look a the final result you´ll realize Maya has automatically changed the render engine from Maxwell to 'Maya Software' and the output images aren´t actually rendered via Maxwell as you want. It´s a known bug, and it´s still not working with the last plug in version 1.7.11.

To solve this, you can automatize the Maxwell Render task by exporting the .mxs sequence of your scene (1 .mxs per frame), and then batch process directly inside the Maxwell Render standalone application.

First step is set the Maya parameters as usual for an animation: File name prefix, Image format, name.#.ext for your outputfiles, and be sure to set the Frame padding to 4. It´s extremely important you pay attention to this setting or else Maxwell Render will not recognize your files in the batch rendering process later:

Set up your Maxwell settings as you want and select a minimum Sample Level (SL) or time (in minutes) that will be used by Maxwell to achieve the aim for each frame: when Maxwell achieves the the faster option (desired sample level or desired time) it will automatically close/save the render and will begin the render of the next frame:

Go to File > Export all Objects and select File type: Maxwell Scene and be sure to check Animation option. Then press Export All and select where do you want to save all the .mxs files: remeber one .mxs per frame will be saved, maybe a huge amount of data, depending on your scene:

Next step: Open Maxwell Render (standalone aplication) and go to File > Open MXS then select the first .mxs file recently exported in your sequence:

Go to Render Options tab and select the folder where you want to save the .mxi files and output images. Finally, set the your animation frames range (in this example, from 1 to 100):

Finally hit render, and... that´s it!: your batch render process will start immediatelly and you´ll have not to warry about render frame by frame your Maya sequence using Maxwell Render.

Note: I´ve been testing a few times this method, and it uses to works fine, but if you try to apply 'shake movement' to the camera via expressions, unfortunately the .mxs conversion process will not recognize the code and the camera will not achieve the desired effect.

Twitter Feed

I´ve linked this blog to my twitter account via twitterfeed (a free, simple and easy-to-use tool for feed blogs to twitter: official site) So, if you´re a twitter user, note you can follow me via twiteer too (the blog feeds twitter automatically).

As usual, comments and feedbacks will be highly apreciated. Thank you!