jasonfugh.com: The Blog

Hey everyone just a keep update of what is to come. Working Several things right now. I'll be posting some new logo designs hopefully this week if not next. As for my effects work, I'll be starting on an fx shot using my rain tool. Also I am going back to a fx shot I worked on in college. Creating a blood clot simulation. Hoping to have both of those in 2 or 3 weeks. After that going to work on some flash, AE and either C4D or Softimage; if I have time.

Just a quick update. Took out the trail and cache SOP's from the fx tool. Check out the video in my projects page and my vimeo page (under links). This video now shows the render POP and the mantra ROP that are created. Also has a test render at the beginning and end. Let me know what you think.

Finally after editing the layout, parameters and fixing all the errors the "Rain" effects tool is FINISHED. Below is a link to my vimeo page where the demo video is. Sorry for the poor quality. Because of the quality of the video I will breakdown what each parameter does.

"Rain System Tool"
parameter 1. Rain System: click the create system button or "Make it Rain" button. This simply creates a geo node with 4 sop nodes inside it (grid, popnet, cache and trail SOPs). Inside the popnet there are 4 POP nodes (source(the grid is the source by default), force(gravity and particle speed), drag and an optional collision POPs).

parameter 2. Amount of Rain: This controls the constant birth rate of the particles in the source POP.

parameter 3. Rain Speed: Controls how fast the particles fall in the force POP.

parameter 4. Wind Speed: Controls how strong gravity is. (parm name will be changed to gravity).

parameter 5. Life: Controls the how long the particle live.

parameter 6. Collisions: There are 3 controls here. First is the on/off switch. Check the box to turn them on. Next is a "collide with" button. This allows the user to add a collision object to the collide POP. Lastly you have six behavior to choose from. Die, Bounce, Stop, Stick, Slide and Continue.

parameter 7. Bounce: Controls how hard the particle will bounce. (will be changed to a text box soon.  wxpython only reads whole numbers.)

parameter 8. Trails: On/Off switch. And "clear cache" button. Clears all simulation data that was cached. (if using trail, you need to clear the cache when you edit the parameters.

parameter 9. Trail Length: Adjust the length of the particle trails.

If anyone is interested in trying this out, feel free to contact me through email or twitter. Watch the vimeo video and let me know what you think. Feel free to leave comments here, on vimeo or hit me up on twitter.

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/fughfx/python-fx-rst


Thanks,
Jason.

Well in attempt to fix the label problem and text error I was getting, the fx tool isn't working. Have to figure out how to link 2 events to the scroll, and still fix the text error ( I fairly sure that it still enters and reads the inputs.)

After 2 weeks the RST, or Rain System Tool, is finally finished. It still has a few kinks to work out (error when you type in the amplitude boxes, but still adjust the amplitude; other problem is the slider labels are static, need them to show the user what number their on.). Other than that the fx tool works. Click the create button to make that particle system/rain. Then the user can adjust the amount of particles(rain), Speed of the Rain, amplitude and turbulence. Also the user can choose whether or not to turn on collisions. Once on the user can select the object to collide with and the collisions behavior, and finally if the behavior is bounce they can adjust the strength of the bounce.

Alright everyone. FX Tool is now working. Well it's basically working. I have the "create rain" button working. If you run the script in houdini the GUI will load up, then click "Make it Rain." Once you do that the "rain system" is created. You are given a grid input into a popnet SOP. Inside the POP network your given a source, force, drag and collision nodes. The render flag is on the drag node by default.

Starting to work on the GUI for the Rain System Tool (will be refering to it as RST ). A few minor changes have been made. First, since this is my first tool created in python, I've decided to keep it some what simple. So, I will be getting rid of the "hail" tab for now. I might come back and create it in a later version of the tool. The other minor change is getting rid of the option to instance an object onto the particles.