Yeah I should have pointed that out... There's always a sacrifice between the simplicity and emergent behavior of simulations and the control you can get by being more direct and specifying explicit positions per frame.
The more "custom" you get, the more you have to chase down and account for this kind of thing. The motionblur problem with nonsimulated ICE animations is the biggie - enough so that it might be advisable for the softimage devs to implement some in-box solutions, like perhaps an option for computing a per point velocity during caching, or writing special "absolute" point position and velocity variables after the post-process step... On Jun 3, 2012, at 1:36 PM, Jonathan Laborde <[email protected]> wrote: > Great answer Andy. But be careful with such a technique (blend between > simulation and manual positioning) as the point position will be as you > expect but point velocity will not be calculated properly. Your motion blur > will be wrong in that case, and you will have tu manually set it in post > process. > Rock n' roll > -- > JONATHAN LABORDE > FX Artist > > www.rodeofx.com > > > On Sun, Jun 3, 2012 at 11:33 AM, Andy Moorer <[email protected]> wrote: > Byron hi there. Can't answer your questions about differences between lagoa > and "normal" reaction to forces, but the results you are seeing with a > combination of forces (one to move particles along a curve, the other to draw > particles towards a curve) is one I'm familiar with. It's easy to fall into > the "simulation trap," where you drive yourself crazy trying to find a > perfect balance of forces to get the results you want. > > There are a couple of suggestions I can give you... The first is to clamp the > maximum speed at which a particle is allowed to move: get particle velocity, > get "length" or magnitude of the vector (this is "speed.") If the speed > a > max value you set, new speed=max value. Normalize your original velocity > vector and multiply it by new-speed. > > The result, particles obey the forces you set, but never travel so fast that > they get flung away, and never develop enough momentum to get out of control. > A drag force coupled with velocity can produce similar results . > > Another option is to replace or blend your "suction" and "along curve" forces > with a setup which places each particle at a specific position in relation to > the curve, animated of course. I haven't tried this kind of approach in this > particular context, but in general the result is a hybrid of a simulated look > and an "absolute" look... particles are simulated to a certain extent, > blending to an absolute predetermined position. I've attached a simple > example of this kind of thing, a simple post-sim blend between a simulation > and goal positions on geometry. > > Cheers > Andy > > On Fri, Jun 1, 2012 at 9:32 AM, Byron Nash <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm trying to make something along the lines of this video from Firebird > https://vimeo.com/29367269. It uses Lagoa and some of the vortex techniques > Brad showed in one of his videos. I can get it to move somewhat but can't > keep the points on the curve. They tend to fling off despite increasing the > "suction" controls. How does Lagoa respond differently to forces than normal > ICE particles? > >
