Equivalent to ICE's "Dent" Modifier

 
 
 
Posted by:cashley
Data created:7 November 2013

We are evaluating whether or not LAB would work for an upcoming project. 

We need to create objects dropping into a very thick viscous liquid (dont worry no fluid sims needed). The objects would fall into the surface, displace it slightly volumetrically and that's it. Check out the quick test we threw together in ICE. We are trying to keep this production in Max and would like to know the steps involved if we were to use LAB. Is this a simple task? Is it fast? Does anyone have examples they've seen in LAB?

Thanks,

-chad

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/206 ... est_sm.mov


Attached Files:

>ICE_Displace_Test_sm.mov (801305 bytes),

Hello Chad.

Well, we could try to implement this with Lab and see how it goes.

A question - does the liquid surface need to "remember" the denting if the dropped objects get lifted up, or should it be completely elastic, i.e. fully restore its original state? I guess you'd say "why not make a parameter which controls the amount of elasticity?"... ;)

Another question about the denting behavior. In the movie it looks like the surface isn't simply pushed down, but also bulges a bit sideways, improving the realism. If that's indeed the case, I suppose that either the surface mesh should be quite dense, or the modifier should subdivide the mesh around the bulges. Do you know if ICE's Dent modifies the surface's topology (subdividing it), or just pushes its vertices around?

Ivan Kolev (Software Developer, EPHERE Inc.)

E-mail: ivan.kolev at ephere dot com

Discord: ikolev

The surface does NOT need to remember the denting. It restores it's previous shape. The dent pushes down slightly and bulges up to give the illusion of maintaining liquid volume. The surface mesh is quite dense to allow smooth bulging. I hope this is achievable in LAB, we are also testing GENOME and it's already giving us decent results.

Thank You!

-chad

I've attached the simplest implementation using a Lab modifier - a collider object dents the target object by pushing its vertices inside along their normals. It's a Max 2014 scene with a plane and a sphere, the sphere is animated to show the effect on the plane. The Skew modifier on the plane (which is disabled initially) improves a bit the topology of the mesh, giving a slightly smoother result around the edges. And applying a MeshSmooth over the LabPolygonModifier would further smooth out the result.

I have no idea though what formula could be used for the bulge, I'm open to suggestions. I'm also thinking of a way to further smooth the initial result by pushing along the vertices that are not directly affected by the sphere, but are close to the pushed ones.

I also attach the .ctx file containing the Lab modifier, in case you can't open the scene for some reason. Just create a sphere and a plane, add a LabPolygonModifier to the plane, open the editor, load the .ctx file, then select the sphere as collider in Command Panel. I'm assuming that you have the Lab demo version installed. If not, I could send you screen shots, renderings, or I could bake the plane using a PointCache.


Attached Files:

>Dent.ctx (76297 bytes), >Dent02.max (249856 bytes),

Ivan Kolev (Software Developer, EPHERE Inc.)

E-mail: ivan.kolev at ephere dot com

Discord: ikolev

Thank you for your help! I think we are going to use a different method. Thanks again! -chad