ForCG - 3D and Photoshop Tutorials, Graphic and Design Inspiration » Animation

Create a Smash Animation With Slow-motion Effect

Dogacan Bilgili — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:55:43 +0000

Throughout this tutorial you’ll be learning how to use the new mograph 2 module to create a shatter animation with mograph tag. Also through keyframe manipulations you will easily combine the nice slow-motion effect with shatter animation. Let’s get started!

Final Product

Important: You’ll need Xbreaker plugin for this tutorial.

Step 1

Create a cube with dimensions set to 260 x 7.5 x 45 cm.

Step 2

Select this cube then open the “Xbreaker” plugin.

Step 3

Use the settings below for plugin. Then click the “Break Now” button.

Step 4

Create a “Cloner object” and make the new “Cube_XBreaker_15″ object, which was created by the plugin, child of cloner object.

Step 5

Change the settings which was highlighted in object tab of the cloner object.

Step 6

Copy that cloner object several times and reposition them to create a new cube like below

Step 7

Create a floor object and assign a “mograph” tag for it.

Step 8

Create a “Platonic object” then change the settings of that object under the object tab as 250cm / 3 / Dodeca , respectively.

Step 9

Make it editable (Shortcut “C”) then choose the polygon tool to select the faces and choose the live selection tool and change its mode to “soft selection”

Step 10

Choose some faces and manipulate them to create an irregular shape just like a rock.

Step 11

Click with right mouse button over the platonic object and add a “phong tag”

Step 12

Choose the subdivide tool and subdivide the rock object twice.

Step 13

Create a fracture object then make the rock child of it and add a mograph tag to fracture object.

Step 14

Select the mograph tag of “floor” object and change the Friction section under collision tab to “1″

Step 15

This time choose the mograph tag of the Fracture object, which contains the rock object we have created, and change the value of “Rotational mass” from 100% to 500%

Continue reading on the next page!

Create Audio Sensitive Animation

Marcin Kłosowski — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 21:31:40 +0000

In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create an animation that is sensitive to your audio track! We’ll create particles that will move according to the music. We’re going to use Adobe After Effects to achieve that kind of effect. Check out how it’s done!

Note: In order to complete this tutorial you’ll need Trapcode Form plugin for Adobe After Effects.

Create an Awesome Sci-fi 3D Tunnel Effect in 3ds Max

Marcin Kłosowski — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:18:51 +0000

In this tutorial, I will show you how to create an outstanding 3D tunnel animation! We will use 3ds Max to create a tunnel, add some materials and set up lightings and then we will use Adobe After Effects to post-process entire animation! So, let’s get started!

Final effect

Tunnel Tutorial – 3ds Max and After Effects parts

Adobe After Effects plug-ins used in the tutorial:

The Foundry – Tinderbox
Red Giant Trapcode Particular
Videocopilot – 3D Orbit

Create a Realistic 3D Cracking Effect Using 3DS Max

Paul — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:37:43 +0000

In this tutorial, we are going to create a very realistic animation of breaking surface inside of 3DS Max using some simple tools and tricky methods. So, let’s get into it!

Preview

Let’s take a look at the final examples of usage. First one is an animation of breaking ancient vase and the second one is just a breaking box. The second one is actually a test render which was made haphazardly but it reminded me ice bergs from Ice Age movie so I also posted it here.

How can we create cracks on surfaces?

There are several different ways:

Paint them on the texture – great results but they are not real
Cut your mesh first and then animate it – also great but complicated
Create a crack during animation
I’m sure there are even more methods but I’ve tried only these above

We will use the third one.

Objects to break

Create something that you want to have cracks on. In my case these objects were just a box and an ancient vase. I suggest to start with the box so create one with dimensions set to 350, 200 and 20.

Crack Path

Go to Shapes -> Splines -> Line and create an irregular crack path.

Crack cross-section

Create an NGon with three sides. Convert it to Editable Spline and drag one of its vertices away.

Crack Animation

The easiest way to make your triangle follow the crack path is to use Loft but for some reason Loft cannot be animated. We can use Loft with PathDeform modifier instead which will make our cross-section grow and follow the path at the same time or we can use AF Loft plugin for 3DS Max that allows us to animate Loft. Second solution seems to be less complicated so let’s just download AF Loft plugin.

Animation

Once you have the plugin installed you can add an AF Loft modifier to your path. Pick NGon as a shape.

Animation

Set AF Loft’s amount to 0. Jump to the end of your animation and with Auto Key turned on change the loft Amount to 100. Your shape should now follow the path during the 100 frames.

Cutting a hole

Select a box and go to Create -> Compound Objects -> Boolean. Choose the Loft as the second operand. Your loft should now carve a nice crack in the surface during the 100 frames of animation.

Animation adjustments

There’s only one problem. This animation doesn’t look realistic at all. To solve this problem we can make it happen less linear. Undo Boolean. Move the time slider to the second frame and turn on Auto Key mode. Change the loft’s Amount to the value that corresponds the distance between first two vertices on the path (see image below). Do the same with the other vertices.

Final animation

Apply a Boolean again and it should now break in less linear fashion which is much closer to reality. You can use the same technique to create more advanced cracks like my vase animation.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading it. If you liked it please give it a vote on Digg or Stumbleupon! Next tutorial is coming in the next few days. Subscribe to an RSS feed and don’t miss it!