Object turning to dust

[shushens]

I requested him for a little bit of details, but never got any response. But he did mention it was done with gradients.
A little more information on this could be very helpful. It's a very useful effect.

[Hirazi Blue]

I got the (probably wrong...) impression, you'd be able to fake something like that using the fabled "Lagoa Multiphysics". But this could just be wishful thinking on my part!

[shushens]

But this guy has done this using the default ICE nodes. That's why I am wondering, how could he achieve this?

[Hirazi Blue]

Well the thing I am wondering about concerning the video you showed us, is if it's a solution tailor-made for this one block or if it's usable in more than one situation? I mean, we all know that the lack of a proper shatter plugin can be faked with a "little" bit of hard work, i.e. generating all the shattered pieces beforehand (and I know this example has not much to do with shattering per se, but I'm using it as a general example)

And judging from his work with the ICE-SPH framework, there might be a lot less custom ICE nodes involved in Lagoa than we might think...

[shushens]

Thanks for the responses, Hirazi
It's good to be back, been away for a while
I guess the smart thing will be to wait for Lagoa to be shipped with the next release then.
What a shame... it's only mid 2010.

[Hirazi Blue]

Oh you haven't heard: Subscription Advantage Pack, or aren't you on subscription?

[shushens]

No man, I have not touched XSI or visited any relevant websites in quite a long time. Let me check it out.

[dwigfor]

It would need some tweaking to match the attached video, but have you tried Helge's scene in his ICE tutorials archive? It should be available somewhere on this site. Turns text to dust.

[Bellsey]

But this guy has done this using the default ICE nodes. That's why I am wondering, how could he achieve this?

I would say that this isn't using a shatter of any kind, from what I can see.

I think there's a object hidden that the particles are being emitted from. Set their initial speed to zero and they will stay put. They buy using States and some form of trigger/condition, you apply a force like gravity to make stuff fall away. You can turbalize the effect so particles don't just fall straight down.

I demo'd at Siggraph when we launched ICE, as scene very similar to this.

[Hirazi Blue]

and I know this example has not much to do with shattering per se, but I'm using it as a general example

Do you even read my posts or do you just like to criticize them?
I never claimed it has anything to do with shattering,
I used shattering as an example for an effect that can be "easily" faked...

[Bellsey]

hey, easy tiger

I read the posts, I was just commenting in case other may have thought some kind of shattering (faked or not) may have been used.

[shushens]

If they stay put, that will make a hollow box. How will it simulate a gradual decay?
Here it does look like the particles tend to hold on to an invisible box, but the box has been filled with particles.
Let's say, I do not want to make them fall but slowly blow away in the wind. The guy did mention gradient.
There is a way to drive the decay with a gradient, I suppose?
I will try to construct it, but here is my first stupid ICE question:
by default, the particles do not have any actual dimension, do they? They are just small 2D sprites.
I can't really pour them into a box and fill it with them.
How do I create a dense solid particle volume?

[Bellsey]

I wouldn't get confused with trying to 'fill' an object. This is just a particle emission, which are points, and not sprites.

If you use an poly object as the emitter, with zero speed, the particles will go nowhere and basically form the shape of the emitter objects. You can use gradients and also weight maps to control where particles will appear.

Then by using the State Machine and setting different states, you can control the particles at different stages. All particles start with an initial State0, which is when they are created. State1 could be when the particles fall away and you can control the trigger for swtiching states by many means, time delay, frame number. This is done using the 'Conditionals' compounds. YOU test for a certain condition and then upon reaching that condition the particle will move to the next state. Once its moved you can control it in a different way to the previous State

[xsisupport]

If Bellsey is talking about the character that crumbles into a pile of cubes, here's an overview of how it was done:

You need two ICE trees.

A (non-simulated) tree to generate the points

- Generate a Box Grid around the model
- Filter out points that are outside the model (use Point in Volume)
- Set the particle color from the texture map color on the model
- Initialize particle attributes like mass, static friction, dynamic friction, and elasticity

A simulated ICE tree that applies the rigid body dynamics

- Use a weightmap to control whether or not to mute the RBD (the example in the video mutes the RBD if the weightmap value is greater than the current time)

[Bellsey]

it's the video at the start of the thread, not the scene you mean.

[xsisupport]

I was referring to the Siggraph demo scene you mentioned:

I demo'd at Siggraph when we launched ICE, as scene very similar to this.