BuzzLightyear

Hey Paul - I ran into Mark Granger years ago at MacWorld Expo in San Francisco (funny story about that for another time ;-), but don't know about the others. I agree about the black and white floppy discs - they're a real treasure from my really early days beta testing the first pre-release. Maybe I'll encase them in liquid plastic some day, and make a display out of them in my studio. It's hard to believe the entire compiled code fit on just three 1.4 Meg discs in the beginning! How times have changed... Chip

I hesitate to do this…, because it will really show how old I am! I dug out some floppy discs of the early EI software. The black and white disc is from Jan. 1991, hand labeled 1.00Beta96. The first color logo appeared 8 months later in Sept. 1991 (Release version labeled 1.01. Notice that the three company employees names - there were only 3 total - are no longer on the disc.) There are two 1.4 Meg floppy’s with Animator, and a separate floppy for Camera, for both releases. The “documentation†that accompanied the Beta version was two or three typed pages, which I unfortunately can’t find. I was running the software on Mac II-CX’s and Quadra 700’s back then. Even with 20 Mhz of “raw CPU power†and 10 Megabyte hard drives (!?), Camera still rendered like blazes (for the time!). There was no timeline yet, no reflections, transparencies, morphs, IK or bones (obviously), ray tracing, plugins, or even shadows of any kind. But even then, it still rocked!! I hesitated to include the only article I have from Macweek magazine dated 1993. (Gee! My work hasn’t improved much since then! ;-) The day it was published, I got calls from ALL over the nation (no joke) for a week from people asking me for a job, to “help with my workâ€. (This was sooo new back then…) I had to patiently explain that there was no Animation Department at McDonnell Douglas, and I was a “department of oneâ€. It’s hard to believe how primitive things were in those days (SWIVEL Pro. was my modeler). I had to explain the process to the Macweek guy on the phone, to describe how animation was created. It was all cutting edge back then…, and EI was really paving the way! (If anyone makes fun of my age after this, I’ll have to beat you with my cane…) Chip

Hi Apu, I just checked your posting a day after you uploaded it. I haven't had a chance to look at it yet, but just helped another user with his SimCloth problem. As it turns out, part of his solution was also a scale problem, as Richard discovered in your file. In the other users case, scaling objects too small causes SimCloth to create unpredictable output. Richard's Quicktime looks a lot better, and clearly gave improved results. Tweaking the tolerances in SimCloth will no doubt get the motion you're looking for. I hope you post the final results; it would be great to see them! Chip

Hi Apu - I agree, SimCloth is really amazing, but a bit quirky. If you could post the EI file, I could play around with it to see if I could improve the intersection problem. In general, I would suggest experimenting with the subdivisions in two ways. First I’d try modeling the cloth in different resolutions, without using the subdivisions option in SimCloth (just run the sim with your modeled resolution). Then I’d take the cloth with the best results, and then try subdividing it inside SimCloth. I can’t say if it will work, but I’ve found that SimCloth seems to like certain mesh resolutions over others. Must be something in the math…. If you’ll post your example file, I’ll take a look at it if you want. Chip

Thank YOU Tomas, and the Igors! Thanks to your efforts to improve EI and keep the software alive, 2011 most certainly WILL be a great year. Without your efforts, we would all have to "suffer in silence" using Max, or MAYA!!! ;-) We're all in your debt... Chip

I also just bought the reduced price PP Pro, aFraktal & aEdge during their final “fire sale†days ;-) I looked at all the cool smoke/fire/dust examples, and was most impressed. But when I couldn’t reproduce them, only then did I read the fine print, to find that the examples relied heavily on a cloud shader from AG. Hmmm… I can get a pseudo smoke effect, but only by cranking the motion blur up to 360 shutter, and blur noise 100. Problem is, motion blur has to be turned off on everything else, or the slightest motion blurs the geometry. I too would like to see a sample if someone gets a useable smoke/fire example (wispy clouds too). I also can’t get Rama to work with it, despite creating a detailed preview, and copying the data into my Slave folders. (I also couldn’t keep the smoke plumes vertical, despite the high exit speed of the particles. It seems to me that they shouldn’t slant from such a slow rotation speed of the model.) Just my 2 cents…. Chip BUZZ FLAMEOUT.mov

Hi vgd, Sorry for the delay in responding to your tire chain question. I spent some time on it, with rather poor results until I figured out what SimCloth wanted with regard to the models. At first I thought it might be the adaptive tessellation in the EI modeler that was the problem. Then I tried the more predictable tessellation of Maya, with better results. But the real key to all this is to make sure the scale of your objects isn’t too small. (The simulation breaks down and the models “explode†if your models are too small. Once I scaled them up, they maintained their shape.) As you can see from the attached file and Quicktime, SimCloth can simulate semi-rigid chains (they still flex a bit) attached to a flexible cloth. I’m not certain if the number of links in your application will result in calculation times that are unacceptable or not. It’s best to under-model the links to keep the calculations low, and then select 1 or 2 in the subdivisions box to smooth out the model for rendering. We’re really using SimCloth for something it wasn’t intended for, so there will be compromises. But I think if you look at the example, you might be able to come up with a workable solution. The cloth is a simple poly model with some loops to attach to the chain links. (If you look at the “Links†example file that comes with SimCloth, you can see another chain simulation as well. The links deform slightly as well, but it isn’t that noticeable. I haven’t been able to make them completely rigid, but that makes sense for a cloth simulator.) I hope this gets you going in the general direction that will solve your question. Chip FOR VGD.zip

Hi again Apu, Here are the setting to keep the cubes from collapsing. If you want your objects to be jello, use large polygons. The more you subdivide them, the more likely they are to collapse. (Think of the poly’s as having a spring at each vertex that could fold. Large, long poly’s will be stiffer; while lots of subdivisions will result in a more flimsy, cloth-like material.) The cubes have just two triangular poly’s per side. Stretch Forces: Springs, Stiffness = 50, Damping = 0.25. Bend Forces: Stiffness = 0.05, Damping = 0.25. Output Subdivisions = 0, Gravity = 200. If I had used a lot of poly’s along each edge, the possibility of the object crumpling would increase. See if these settings will help you achieve the result you’re looking for. (I’ve found that an object with few poly’s is a lot stiffer than the same object with many poly’s. Once you get the “floppiness†that you want, if the object folds or has sharp edges when you render it, select 1 or 2 in the Output Subdivision menu. It won’t add poly’s, but will interpolate as if there are more vertices, resulting in smoother looking cloth.) Chip

Hi Apu - All of the sample clips you're referencing were made with SimCloth. The physics is purely a function of the gravity and spring stiffness settings of the objects. I used a weight map to pin the corners of the main cloth, and played with the spring settings of the cubes, balls, etc. to achieve a "jello" effect when they bounced. All I did was place the objects in position, and let them drop. I didn't have to animate anything! Hope that helps - Chip.