Re: LK Fabric from Leonard Koch
Posted: 22 Oct 2013, 23:28
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I don't see any "thread count" input in LKF core, is this the "Number of Thread Curves" or the "Thread Repetition Length"?You can decrease the "thread count" values for performance, and increase to the full number at render time.
Yes, most of our setups were pretty straightforward. We approached the complex stuff like the shoe with multiple pointclouds, each which had a simple setup like this to cover a single part of the model. I think the most detailed shot had about 17 LKFabric pointclouds, each one animating a small section of the shoe to create the overall illusion.Bullit wrote:Many thanks it appears nicely simple at first sight, at least the construction tree is.
It would be the "number of thread curves." Sorry, some of the names have changed over time. The "thread repetition length" is how many times the shapes of the thread input curves are repeated down the length of a thread, the smaller the number the more "twisted" the look (and the more strand points used, more memory etc)I don't see any "thread count" input in LKF core, is this the "Number of Thread Curves" or the "Thread Repetition Length"?
That's valid. The behavior of the "mode" drop down changed several times and I forget how it ended up, this changed since we used it. The idea is to be able to turn off the "threads" behavior and just see a single strand for each thread. Kind of a "level of detail" control. But it also was used to handle an inner "shadow core" strand which is used for a rendering trick I won't get into here and some other things, and I'm not sure just hat it does now. We should ask Leonard to do a walk thru video sometime (I know he wanted to, he's just been super-busy lately.)There is also a drop down menu: Full mode, Simple mode, etc but i didn't saw any noticeable difference in performance between those first 2. I ended up tweaking the LKF Surface creator parameters to get speed.
Some patterns need pattern curves which loop back on themselves. An example would be a knit pattern, which is shaped kind of like the Greek symbol "omega." But looping backwards takes a little more horsepower and we had scenes with many millions of strands so we needed a switch... This is one of those things which can probably be hidden away and left on the slower-but-more-flexible "backwards" setting.What is the sideways and backwards moving pattern?
Yes that's true. When we had areas like that we would make two separate surfaces and ice trees, one for each direction of travel. You can also do a cheat, which we had in mind but never had to do:It seems with way it is constructed it can't start irregularly in middle of the grid and spread in UV positive and negative directions from there unless some modification and also start at several places.
Hah! ;)Bullit wrote:Thanks Andy for explanations and the tip about strand scale, also Leonard for added input.
Added: it only works with Nurbs isn't it? - Nevermind of course with UV's...
Added2: since i am a person i was trying to break it, so i put a 90º step and passed the trap with flying colors.