Pfx, Hair, Stoke

[bradon]

I posted a topic about how to control the twisting of the pfx stroke, and I got a cleaver solution to first make a hair node then attach the pfx to the hair. that way you can control the twist with the hair node and still output to pfx. well this is good BUT, in doing so there is another problem that now arised.

here is the origional post:
http://www.highend3d.com/boards/index.php?...mp;hl=pfx+twist

When I use the pfx hair system I loose the ability to stroke the pfx with the end bounds attributes in the stroke node. Now with the pfxHair I can still taper the stroke with hair width scale widget, and use the gap size and gap spacing under the brush attributes to "reveal" the stroke, but one problem arises with this. That being if the stroke is tapered on the end the taper does not follow the clipped leading edge. the taper always stays at the end and is only revealed at the end of the stroke. I could use the thinning attribute in the hair, but the thinning seems to change the shape of the taper as it grows. any way to stroke the hair with a taper?

also if anyone has a really good method for doing stroked lines in 3D I'd love to get a good lesson on what people are using. It seems that there are alot of limitations using pfx, or geometry, seems like there ought to be a better system for creating strokes faster and animated easily. I get requests all the time for creating 3D strokes and it just seems that with maya its always a pain. there is some aspect that always seems hard to control either the taper, the drawing or the twist.

The main things I'd wish to know is efficient workflow for creating a stroke using a flat, round, or custom shape (star for example) profile with or without a taper or to vary the taper angle, to control the "reveal" of the stroke and sometimes the twist of the stroke. It seems like pfx are limiting in the fact that it can't handle certain "profile" shapes and can not control twist. It seems that geometry is powerfull because you can extrude your shape and model the twist however you need it to be, but you cant very easily "stroke on" geometry or create a taper on the leading edge. I would be most gratefull if anyone cared to share what there method is and to finally put this issue to rest. Maybe its something that is not so good do in maya and i should be looking to another software package that can create a better stroke, so instead of cross posting on the other forums if anyone knows of a better 3D app to do stoked i wish to know that as well.

[bradon]

judging by the lack of response it seems that to make a stroke that has a taper control, twist control AND that grows on is extremely difficult and would take alot of setup and scripting to do so. If anyone can point me to any resources where i might learn how to ALL 3 of these things collectively I would appreciate it. I guess between paint effects and hair I can cover most ground but would be nice to have a wonder solution.

[goesb]

I'm not sure that this helps much, but Trapcode has a great plugin for After Effects that has helped me in this situation. However it's really more for a stylized effect; ie light streaks, silhouettes of lines etc.. You couldn't really use it for more realistic shading. There are two plugins they have that should work. One is called 3d Stroke, and the other Particular. Creativecow.net has great tutorials on Particular for creating that nice new light streak effect similar to the nano pod spots apple is running.

I've had the exact same problem with Maya and the inability to efficiently create growing tubes, vines, whatever. PFX are great from a far away viewing distance, but up close they generally suck. One solution I found is the XFROG plugin by greenworks software. You can control the growth very easily, and keyframe nearly every attribute. The great thing about it too, is that it can be effected by maya dynamics. You can also create a star shaped profile or whatever you want. However it's not free.

I get requests for this sort of thing all the time too and it's frustrating to say the least.

The last technique I can think of in maya is to do an extruded surface and then animate the sub curve attribute. That will allow you to animate the 'growth' of the tube, but I never found a way to 'cap' the end of the tube other than adding a piece of geometry to the path curve via a motion path animation.

Hope this helps in some way, and if you find an easy way to do this please let me know too. All of the methods I'm suggesting here are time consuming and although they've worked for me most of the time, it seems this is something that should be VERY easy to accomplish in Maya.

[joojaa]

QUOTE(goesb @ 08/26/07, 08:42 PM) [snapback]272295[/snapback]
I've had the exact same problem with Maya and the inability to efficiently create growing tubes, vines, whatever.

send me a pm if you need to know how this GEOMETRY effect was done! i can give you hint its 3 nurbs surfaces!

growmockup.mov

Thing is everything is hard if you don't know what tools you have at your disposal.