Maya Tasks Week 16 - Intro to Dynamics - Game Modelling

For the next few weeks were are learning about the various dynamic systems in Maya and also how to model for games. ie low poly modelling, starting with a character for a game.

To start with, all these dynamic simulations are achieved with the standard particle system in Maya.

First is a cloud, constructed from drawn particles on a wavy surface (its hidden). Then an air ship runs through it and the cloud particles collide.


The second effect is smoke. This time the particles were emitted from a volume emitter. The look of the particles are much the same as in the previous example, except a few extra things were changed to create the different behaviour. For example, they fade out and grow in size as they are lifted into the air. OK, this is shown slightly different in the tutorials, but I experimented a lot before I settled on this effect.


Then there is the fuse on the cartoon bomb. The sparks were emitted from an omni emitter, attached to a curve path that was animated with the fuse.


The last one is an explosion. I spent quite some time adjusting attributes in the sim, so in the video there are a few variations. Basically particles were emitted from one point in all directions, and the colour of the particles were changed over the total life of the particles.


Here is the video of all the effects.




Modelling for games is slightly different for films as you are limited by the amount of polygons in a model. In the first lesson we have started modelling a characters head.
Much of the same rules still apply with edge flow etc.
I didn't follow the tutorials as much with this example so the results are very slightly different.





That's it for now.

A Flock of Pixels.