AB_Molecule

Hey what’s up guys, my name is VikasNagolkar and i bring you another exiting tutorial on Afterburn. Let me tell you something first about this plugin.

Introduction:-

AfterBurn is an advanced volumetric particle effects engine plug-in that works exclusively with Autodesk Media & Entertainment's 3ds Max program, and gives you the ability to create realistic smoke, clouds, explosions and other organic fiery and gaseous effects. This plugin is designed to work in concert with the integrated 3ds Max particle systems to augment their effects, and, in many cases, to create visual effects that you could not achieve easily using the 3ds Max program’s native tools. AfterBurn makes it possible for you to create convincing exhaust trails from rockets and missiles, fiery explosions that rival the real thing, swirling tornados that can rip buildings to shreds, gooey lava flows and much more. Just think of this tool as your organic effects generator within the 3ds Max environment. AfterBurn is an incredibly powerful plug-in, used currently by major film effects companies, computer game developers, and”boutique” video production houses to create amazing visual results. AfterBurn is a complex system, and may appear confusing at first.

Now let’s begin this tutorial. All you need is Afterburn 4.0 plugin. And if you don’t have this plugin, still you open up this file  , 3DS  Max will prompt you an plugin missing up dialogue box naming “Afterburn 4.0 missing”. Though even if you open the file accepting that you don’t have this plugin, you’ll get blank render window. Not limited to this but also just open up your Environment and Effects window and check out “Atmosphere Tab” just below Common Parameters and Exposure Control tab you’ll get for sure “Afterburn and Afterburn Combustion missing”.

So now let us see how to create this effect.

I have saved 3 files in Core_Files folder as.

1. AB Molecule Start .
2. AB Molecule Finished .

            Now to get on with this tutorial first, follow up this steps in orderly fashion.

• Open up “AB_Molecule_Start.max file”. Accept units if prompted. Or-else results may differ.
• Select the camera and re-name it as “Molecule_Lens”. Go to the modifier panel and check the camera parameters.

1. Lens:- 19.561
2. FOV [Field Of View] :- 85.24
3. Type:- Free Camera
4. Near range:- 0
5. Far range:- 1000.0
6. Target Distance:- 128.78

            While rest of the parameters will remain the same.

            See this screenshot for better visualization.(screenshot_camera_molecule_lens.JPEG).

• Once this has been done we’ll just hit “M” from our keyboard to open up “Medit (Material editor)”. Select anyone of the slot. Go to “Get Material” button [ ] and hit it. OR keeping selected Medit dialogue box hit “G” from your keyboard to open “Material/Map Browser” window. Select “Noise map” from it.Rename this map as “Molecule_Designer”.
• Now as for this map , you’ll find this map in each and every application of CG. No matter it is 3D application, Compositing and or Designing apps. This map will provide us the basic nomenclature of so called molecule body. So in order to achieve that nomenclature, let’s change this noise map settings a bit different from its default one. Shall we then.
• Noise Map parameters goes something like this.

1. Leave the Coordinate tab as it is. No need to change it.
2. Now go to the noise parameters tab and amend these following settings.
   1. Noise type = Turbulence
   2. Size = 50
   3. Noise threshold [High / Low] = high[0.9] , low[0.2]
   4. Levels = 0 to 10. Animate the levels according to your timeline. Not necessary you animate to full scale of your max timeline. If you want you may end it up a bit earlier and make a long duration too. Here I have 100 frames of set working under NTSC[30 fps]. What levels do is they give more prominent look, but here we’ll tell levels to act like opacity. YES we can use Opacity channel from our Medit Slot, yet we can’t. As we are working under the direction of a single map, even though we want a more prominent look, more detailed one and also a opacity too. So we have to animate this system.Using Auto key at frame 0 make level 1 , drag the slider to frame 100 and boost up  level to 10 keeping Auto Key on. Go to Graph Editor  and change the tangents as you like.
   5. Keep the colors intact. No change in that.

      3 Now go to the “Output Tab”.Enable color map check box and amend the following settings.

1. See this screenshot_output for better visualization.

• Alright now for as all our Medit stuff been finished, we’ll head over to our main system of this tutorial…adding Afterburn in our scene.
• Now just go to Environment and Effect Tab and hit ADD button there. This would open up a new floating dialogue box. There you go BOY.you’ll get Afterburn and AfterburnCombution. We’ll select Afterburn Combustion. Just double-click it and it is selected. OR select it and hit OK button.Kindly do not delete “FusionWorks Renderer”. It is by-default added in our tab.
• Moving forward open our AfterburnCombution parameters…here it is our route where we need to play. A little tweaking can give various types of results. Not only limited only to this tutorial, but also many other effects can be easily carried out without any pressure.

            See this screenshot (screenshot afterburn  combution.JPEG)

• Here we have to feed some values, some data we have created earlier in this parameters.

1. Now here you see 
2. Source Gizmo/Deamon” and “Light Source”. Now we need to add some kind of particles or gizmo to activate Afterburn combustion. So go to the “Atmospheric Apparatus” from the Helper from Create Panel and select “SphereGizmo01”, rename it as “Molecule Gizmo”. Now select the pick gizmo/deamon hand button and select “Molecule gizmo” from our viewport. You see it gets added up in that little stack. Same way create an “Omni Light” and add it up in light source stack and rename it as “Central
3. Lume”. Amend Omni these following parameters.

1. Similarly add “Spot_Light” in our scene and rename it as “External_Lume” See this screenshot (screenshot_external_lume.JPEG) for modifying spot light.

            Here are the values fixed with spot light…

                                                   I.            Multiplier = 1.0

                                                   II.           Color = White

                                                   III.          Shadows = AB Shadows

                                                   IV.           HotSpot/Beam = 43.0

                                                   V.            FallOff/Field = 45.0 , while everything remains the same.

1. Now go to the Global setting from Afterburn Combustion and feed this parameters.

                                                        I.             Rendering Type = Raymarcher

                                                        II.           Step Size = 0.25

                                                        III.          Regularity = 0.5

                                                        IV.           Density = 2.0

                                                        V.            FallOff = 0.15

            NOTE:-

• Step size:-A lower Step Size value will produce a better-looking image. With very high density and a big step size, rendering artifacts may be produced. To avoid them, you should use smaller step sizes. Small step sizes are also required when rendering HyperSolids.
• Regularity:- How homogenous the noise patterns are that are applied to the AfterBurn Combustion effect. Lower values will look more random and sporadic while higher values will be more uniform and fill the volume boundary more completely.
• Density:- Controls the transparency of the overall RaymarchingEffect.Higher values produce more solid effects while lower values produce more transparent effects.
• Fall Off:-This spinner controls the opaqueness for the AfterBurn Combustion effect. The higher the value, the more opaque the final volumetric effect will be. Smaller values are good for clouds.

1. OK, now let’s see how this scene looks. Alright Hit “SHIFT+Q” or hit Render button from Renderingdialogue box.

           This is how it looks.

 Looks pretty shabby now.

1. Just below  Globalsettings comes Max 3D texture…enable use for Density check box and drag our noise map that we created earlier. And if you try to enable “Use for Color” and if you render it now.you’ll probably get white color in you final output. But you’ll also find some bluish color at the center of it, because Omni light emits blue color rather than default white color.

            Check this out.

1. Again going to Shading system, switch the shading type to Lambart and shading normal from Shape to Volumentric. Keep the shape size to 1.0 .
2. Finally, go  to the “Characteristics” and our molecule the following colors.

           Inner Color:-

           Red [0]                                  Green [123]                          Blue [218]

           Outer Color:-

           Red [30]                                Green [88]                            Blue [128], and

           Smoke Color:-

           Red [26]                                Green [26]                            Blue [26].

1) Now we here finish our scene. Just one more thing  and the most important thing which we daily carry out in our work. “Rendering SetUp”.Go to the Rendering TabàOutput SizeàHDTV (video)à1920 * 1080.

2) And more importantly is , you can also animate your camera to give more dramatic look to your entire scene.

3) And here is the final rendered version from 3DS Max.

 The above render resolution is 1150 pixels in width and 550 pixels in height. Rendering time was 01:38 mins.

 While this render took nearly 04.54 mins at 100^th frame.

• Well that’s it for now, I do hope that you like this tutorial and create amazing medical based visual effects for your personal, client or in production stuff too.
• That’s all for now guys. Till then HAPPY  RENDERING.
• Taking it further.ou can drop your render pass into any of your compositing application and go for more drastic look.here is my screenshot.

• About the author:- Hailing from Mumbai, India, VikasNagolkar is  a Asst. Director, Digital FX Artist and Research Visionary. He started out as an junior faculty at MIDDS(previously known as DASA), where he use to teach 3DSMax and Photoshop. His shift of taking Autodesk Certified plugins became the first to qualify and technically certified of FX from MIDDS round over in India. Also becoming the first researcher of "Physics Algorithmt in CG Application(s)"and "Proof of there contains no 3D in any 3D Application", which finally leaded him to take roles like  FX Concept Designer, Environmental FX Artist, Technical Head and Technical Trainer, Public Speaker, Pipeline designer and Technical Supervisor and now as Research Visionary. Due to his experience in this industry he’s known as “Particle Boy”, “Technical Kid”. The author has been interviewed by Emiko Amagawa from Miyazaki Film Production for Japan Broadcasting Corporation in a special project “NHK (Nippon HosoKyokai)”.

           VikasNagolkar [FX Artist, Research Visionary]

          Email-Id:-vikasnagolkar@gmail.com / vikasnagolkar@indiatimes.com

           Cell:- +91-9004528717 / +91-9967513049 / +91-9867575583.