Cebas Insights Interview with Jignesh Jariwala, Master of thinkingParticles from Surat, India !
Cebas: Thank you to you and the studio productions for giving cebas Visual Technology some insights and visual clips highlighting your immense work. We're very excited to showcase your projects on the cebas site http://www.cebas.com!
JHJariwala 3D/VFX Demoreel June 2012 from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
Cebas would love to hear your insights on the whale and jaguar projects using thinkingParticles 6.0, as well as anything from the past that was a major success.
Jignesh: First of all, thanks for giving me the opportunity to do this testimonial. ?
Recently I did 2 projects on fluid simulation. The first project was a commercial FX : "Jaquar's shower product" visualization and I did fluid simulations for that. The other one was on another commercial video on "Whales" which required that I do an ocean/foam/splash simulation. I used Thinking Particles 6.0 since it was the best choice for me to do fluid simulation inside 3ds max.
Cebas: which shots/images in particular were you involved in?
Jignesh: for the "Jaquar Ring Shower' and "Jaquar Bucket Shower" visualizations, I was responsible for fluid simulation. For the "Jaquar Ring Shower" shot, I worked on water stream coming out from those tiny shower holes, jet spray simulation from Ring Shower and In "Jaquar Bucket Shower", the fx was a continuous fluid simulation from nozzle to bucket and then bucket rotates to splash on a 3d female model. It was quite a fascinating first for me in terms of fluids.
For my "Gray Whales Video" project, I did the ‘Whales Breaching on Ocean’ fx shot, then the 3D Orcas approaching Whales shots. It included mostly breaching on ocean surface. In one shot, Whales were near beach so I had to simulate beach waves. I used Thinking Particles 6.1 in all those shots and it has been profoundly rewarding in seeing the actual results.
Jaquar RingShower Playblast from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
Cebas: which were the cebas visual technologies used in your project and how did you use our software to achieve the desired effects?
Jignesh: I used thinking particles 6.0 for both projects. For the "Jaquar Shower" project I used "Flowsolver", "Flowgroup" and "FlowBoundary" operators to do water fluid simulation.
I did the "Jaquar Ring Shower", firstly, I had to simulate water coming out from these tiny holes of the shower head. In the beginning, I had some challenges in finding the right settings/workflow within "FlowGroup" operator but after doing a few more tests, I figured it out for the correct settings. Once I got the first fluid sim done from shower head and it was creating nice splashes on the 3D character body, I decided to go further to create a jet spray effect splashing over female character from "RingShower" body shower. The fx showed splashes over body and then the water falls onto the floor, a nice visual display, before draining out. Again for this, I used thinkingParticles 6 "FlowGroup" operator with balanced "smoothing radius" and "decompress" value to get the desired result.
In the "Jaquar Bucket Shower" fx, I used thinkingParticles 6 “FlowGroup" again. In that shot, water emits from spout nozzles and fills out bucket and that bucket rotates and creates splashes over the 3D character. It had to be a continuous shot and rendered from different cameras. So I had to do one continuous simulation for this shot with the given timing to fill up bucket and making splash.
Coming to my "Gray Whale's Video" project, I used the TP "Hydrofield" to simulate ocean and within "Hydrofield", there exists good options to create foam, splash, sprays etc. I mostly used "Foam" to create foams and splashes. I used the TP "Splash" feature of hydrofield to create splashes in some shots.
Cebas: what features in our plugin in particular helped you achieve your creative goal(s) and did you have to figure out a lot of things? Was this your first time using cebas VT plug-ins?
Jignesh: the "Jaquar Shower" projects, TP "FlowGroup" operator was used to create fluid simulation. It was my first time using "Thinking Particles" in commercial FX work. Before that I use the old classic "beer pour" test with flowgroup operator to learn it. But most of the FX, I learnt by myself during this shower project.
And for the "Jaquar Ring Shower", I needed to create these thin water lines from shower and I had to find the best "Smoothing radius" and "Decompress" value to keep those thin emitting stream of water from the shower and to get a nice, neat splash/volume over the 3D character body.
I figured that out using the "half subsample" or "50 subsamples or 75 per frame" (for 25fps, if it's 30 fps then it will be 30, 60, 90 etc)… finally, giving me the nice splash fx sequences and a more realistic simulation. Then it became easier for me to get the smoothing radius to keep the fluid volume and to work on "decompress", "tension", and the "viscosity" feature to create nice splashes.
I find that one important feature in thinkingParticles 6 called the "Boundary Friction" in flowgroup operators. If you use a value more than 0 like 0.2 +, it will create nice splashes on collision object and slow down on the flow there. Also it can be used to avoid particles/fluid going through collision objects.
For example, in the "Jaquar Bucket Shower" I had trouble keeping particles in bucket and increasing the friction value a little did in the end helped to keep particles inside bucket and stopped particles/’droplets’ leaking through it. In that particular shot, water emitting from the spout nozzles were very near, so if I were to use high "smoothing radius" to expand fluid volume after collision inside the bucket (to fill up the bucket faster), what happens would be that it also gave me trouble creating nice fluid mesh. As the gap between two nozzles were very little, it was difficult to show 3 separate water stream from nozzle when creating fluid mesh. So, instead of using thinkingParticles "Flowgroup" from the beginning, I decided to make a collision test condition. So when particles collided with bucket body, it entered into "Fluid" group to use "Flowgroup" operator. This type of flexibility found in thinkingParticles is what I like as a FX Artist working within tight deadlines as it is powerful and has helped me to achieve amazing visual effects for my"Jaquar bucket shower" simulation. This way I was also able to keep 3 separate streams of water emitting from the nozzle, which was what I wanted.
And for "Gray Whale's video" I used the TP "Hydrofield" operator. I was provided an alembic animation of gray whales and with "Obj2particle" operator, I imported/brought them up into thinkingParticles.
Whale Breaching Phoenix FD simulation test from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
To create ocean surface, I created a "plane" object with 1000x1000 segments (that's maximum polys I could use with "hydrofield") and then, used the plane as ocean field inside HydroField. Once whales were brought up into TP, I needed to assign "mass" operator to give mass value to whales and I had to use pretty high numbers to keep whales being bounce off from "Ocean" field :).
"Dimensions" and "Cells" count are important features in the Hydrofield operator of thinkingParticles. Once I had nice waves simulation going from whales over ocean surface, I turned on the "Foam" feature to create foam particles simulating life like ocean condition. The "Foam" particles gave a pattern mostly based on how hard or soft ‘gravity’ force you use in TP. Like 20 to 40 value, I was getting slow moving foam particles and it would expand less on ocean surface. When I wanted fast moving and more expansion of foam I used high value like 250 to 980.
I remember in one FX shot, when whale was coming out from water like jumping literally and creating splashes on ocean surface, I had to use low gravity value (with some wind turbulence force) and then for "Foam" to create a "splash" type appearance as the "foam" feature gave me automatically a nice "splash" pattern.
Cebas: Thank U for the very exhaustive answer.... what do you find… usually are the most difficult aspects of 3d/ fx design work - is it technology or artistic creativity? - and how do you resolve it?
Jignesh: it is mainly a mix of both. Generally, I get the storyboard details from client on artistic style/look needed for project and we research on how to use software technicalities to get those things done. Sometimes you just wish you can do it in a straightforward way but doing it procedurally gives greater control and it is also easier to modify. I generally create many preview iterations and after getting feedback from client, make changes and send again. It's kind of back and forth to get to finally what is needed by client to be done. We break things down into many small setups and each small feature of software contributes to certain changes/result. It requires a kind of knowledgeable balance and blend things with procedural fx, but the end result is more satisfying.
HydroBoat and HydroField RnD Test (Thinking Particles 6) from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
HydroBoat and HydroField RnD Render (Thinking Particles 6) from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
Cebas: can you give us a step-by-step breakdown of a typical shot/image that you do? Do you use MaxScript/ any scripting at all?
Jignesh: I have used some readymade script provided by talented artists/TDs out there. Mostly, I use single liner code etc that I learnt myself from the Internet to be frank.
For any typical shot/image, it mostly starts out from reference. I am at once provided animation of a shot and then references for the look and feel, I then break them down into difference stages, for example, for the "whales", I created waves simulation on flat surfaces and then the ocean simulation and then worked on "Splash" and "Foams". Once I got all the elements, I worked on shading and lighting/rendering.
Cebas: please give us a few particular memorable experiences you have had while creating the special effects / animations with the cebas plug-ins
Jignesh: after messing up with the setup for fluid simulation and seeing it making nice splashes, it feels very relaxing. Particularly, I liked the "jet spray" shot in "Jaquar Ring Shower" and the way it was making splashes on floor and draining out. It was so pleasing to the eyes.
Cebas: how did it compare to other software you may have used ?
Jignesh: for "Jaquar Ring Shower", I found thinkingParticles the perfect fit. I was able to do simulation inside 3ds Max using particles system which I can amend the way I want to have a good fluid system within 3ds max environment. I also used Thinkbox software's frost for meshing out fluid simulations.
Cebas: how did cebas software integrate into your production pipeline? How straightforward was it?
Jignesh: it was pretty much straightforward. Once I had a good shot done for "Jaquar Ring Shower", the next shot in different scene instead of creating a blackBox system, I decided to directly merge the thinkingParticles system into another 3ds max scene. And I didn't have to recreate anything, just add collision objects or change emitters. It was same for the "Gray Whale's Video". And it worked in most cases where the scale matches.
Cebas: what was the most fun or rewarding part of this project for you?
Jignesh: of course, I find the most fun and rewarding part of any FX project was seeing the improvements I achieved with the thinkingParticles system and that I was able to make more powerful FX as time progressed. I was pretty new to thinkingParticles and I learnt/explored new things in different scenes as I progressed doing it.
Cebas: in your view, what is your wish for cebas software to achieve that is not currently doing for you?
Jignesh: right now I would wish for a faster "Caching" system for thinkingParticles. I remember waiting for 10 to 12 hours for the "Jaquar Bucket Shower" fluid simulation. And cache data was being generated with a size into 1.5TB. Same thing for the "Gray Whale's video", final cache size was getting in TB after each shot and I found that when I was making preview straightforward, it was taking less time in simulation compared to making the thinkingParticles Cache. So in the end, I had to use "Krakatoa" to render out particles into "PRT" format without caching TP system. Also I would like to see in future release of thinking particles, Static initial state (with zero velocity) for fluid system, like fluid into container and dropping objects into that fluid. Also ability to create fluid simulations with large amount of particles like flip fluids.
Cebas: what projects can we expect from you in the future (if you're able to tell us...about the BIG fishes).
Jignesh: I can't say anything yet :-)
Cebas: whatever it is, we are sure jignesh will keep the TP community informed and enjoying his latest RnD on our facebook 'cebas thinking particles' !
You can catch all of Jignesh 'whale in ocean' vfx playlist at cebas Youtube channel!
Thank U Jignesh for sharing
your insights with everyone today!
Beer Test (Thinking Particles 6 Flowsolver) from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.
TP6 Beer RnD from Jignesh Jariwala on Vimeo.