[loki74]

Okay so I recently got LightWave 8.3. (Those of you who read my posts in the Maya vs LightWave threads and other 3D topic threads probably know this) so I figured I'd share with you some of my early work using the new software.

1
2
3

On the first one:
For this picture I used HyperVoxels and a particle system. Frankly, as far as trying to achieve fluids, LightWaves particle system sucks. All you can get is low-resolution quasi-SPH thats really not based on any CFD mathematics AFAIK. Luckily, HVs are able to stretch in the direction of their movement, and LW's gradient editor is pretty good. Using a scale gradient I was able to achieve a fairly laminar flow, which was desired. I know the flow should be directly vertical in order to be accurtate, but try as I did, I could not get it to flow at another angle... I used 7 pass (I think, could have been 12) PLD antialiasing and DOF.

On the second one:
Well... this is probably my favorite. I think its the closest to photoreal ive ever gotten. Granted, it severy lacks detail and there is splotchiness due to low-quality interpolated radiosity, it is definately more real than anything I was able to pull off with my other software. I added DOF and grain in post-processing with Photoshop and a z-buffer export.

On the third one:
I actually made this before the second one; they are the same scene... This was a bitch to render, and the grass... oh hell, the grass. The main reason this was such trouble is because the plugin I used for the grass (Worely Labs SasLite) is not very mac-friendly!! It is modal and has NO titlebar! The render hit I took sucked, even with minimal antialiasing. Also, the plugin deactivates adaptive sampling on subsequent renders, so including this overhead, the render times got pretty ugly.

... So what do you guys think?

PS wires upon request.. just remmebred im supposed to show them, too lasy to upload now.

[The Godfather]

Hard to say which one looks more realistic, since all 3 of them have elements that makes me think of the real thing. That's a very nicely done Phoenician (???) column; probablye it took you 10 hours to model.

How do you qualify a fluid model to be laminar or turbulent? Can you provide pictures of the water detail? A speed/pressure profile maybe?

In 3D design I am stuck on triangles, and never ventured into anything modern.

[starman]

Damn impressive.

I started doing 3D programming in 1986, but I never pursued it. I tried again using Alias in 1990-1993, but that never took off either.

Mike

[andi*pandi]

very cool. How long did it take you?

[acadian]

The first is my favorite. I would suggest adding a tinted texture to the liquid, and perhaps some bubbles. I have yet to experiment with particles in C4D but my work is not quite at this level yet.

[loki74]

Thank you for the replies!

Godfather:
...Hmm. I'm not entirely sure how the whole laminar vs turbulent thing works, but it sounds to me like it has to do with momentum diffusion, convection, pressure, velocity and viscosity. Mathematically, whether a flow (or part of a flow) is laminar or turbulent seems to be determined by these variables and something called the Reynolds Number.

From what I can make of it, the viscosity of a fluid will cause it to adhere to a given surface it is passing over, resulting in a smooth laminar flow. However, as it continues to pass over the surface, it loses speed due to friction, thus bunching up, becoming thicker, and turbulent.

This is my understanding of what is explained at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laminar_flow

Regarding the column... well... I'm not sure exactly how long it took me to model. The entire scene took me probably about 9-10 hours. The most difficult part was getting the corners of the base and top to pull out at the right angle. It would have been much simpler to do this if LightWave allowed subdivision of n-gons. (This is one of those things about LW I REALLY hope they fix in 9.0) Everything else was pretty simple; the braidwork was very easy as I learned how to do this quickly and without thinking about it from a video tutorial. Basically it uses a spline, rail extrude, copy paste x 3, shift each one up or down as desired. And then the thickness could be changed with the very useful Point-Normal Move, which translates everything along its normal...sweet.

As far as it being Phonecian style... well I'm glad its some sort of style; I was just in a rush to finish the project (these are all school projects...) and needed a quick way to make the column look ornate. I had in my mind the egg and needle design which is very common in crown moldings, but it would have taken me much too long to model. I also wanted to carve out vertical lines in the column, but once again it would take me too long. (Well, not if LW did subD on n-gons)

Starman:
Ah, thats unfortunate... I really want to venture into the programatic side of 3D, but I just don't have the math skills. I would LOVE to try to make a realistic CFD simulator, but the calculus is just way above me. I kind of get the concepts, but I have no idea how to apply them. And if ANYONE here has any clue as to what all the symbols in the Navier-Stokes equations mean and could explain them to me, that would be GREAT.

andi*pandi:
Thank you... I dont really know how long the first one took. I think it took 4-7 days, not entirely sure

As for the other two, the entire project took me about 5 days, including render times. I would have spent more time on it, but as I mentioned before, these are both for school. I'm in the high school AP Studio Art class at my school, and we have to produce two finished works every 3 weeks, as well as have a common "concentration" or theme among them. My concentration (as you may have guessed) is "fluids." (This is also why I've done some serious looking into CFD) Frankly, this project was a last-minute effort, which I actually ended up turning in late. *sigh*

acadian:
Thanks. Yeah, I actually have the fluid colored (same texture as the glass in the BG) but I guess that since the background is a similar color, it looks very clear. I contemplated making it look more like a red-wine color, but decided that sitting through another bunch of renders to perfect the look would not be worth it, especially with a due date looming...

And how is C4D? I was actually considering getting it (it was one of my options--LW vs Maya Educational vs C4D). but the inclusion of Vue 5 Infinite with LW and its recent price drop, really sold it for me. But I must say, looking at the demo videos, I was very impressed with D4D's dynamic simulations, particularly with soft-bodies and cloth. It was very cool how they used the cloth-sim as a wave generator.

[loki74]

dp.....

[loki74]

wtf... tp?