Posted by Ken Pimentel, 7 February 2012 7:00 pm
OK, so first of all, this is an experiment in teasing, if you can't have fun with it, then move on. I promise not to make a habit of this.
Here's the idea, give me your best interpretation of what this picture might represent, and if you get close, I'll insert the video. I don't think beta people can play this game as they know too much. I'm looking for a particular magic word to unlock this video.
Clue: it's going to make a whole lot more sense when you see the video sequence than a static picture

OK, you guys really got into this and yes, several people said the magic word. Now you'll get the video. Please note, the video was an "over the shoulder" capture of something in the lab, it is not a professionally narrated piece. You're not supposed to be seeing this...
From the designer:
This scene is a MassFX simulation that includes mRigids (using a new concave meshes option), mCloth objects, breakable Constraints, and mCloth tearable cloth. A lot of the scene geometry (all the stacks of logs) were stacked running separate simulations, just to get a nice realistic distribution, and then baked into their final positions.
The highlight of the simulation is the use of standard Max forces. The forces used include a spherical Gravity, two PBombs, and a Vortex field. These affect the rigid bodies, and mCloth, which not only reacts to the forces, but is also capable of respecting pinned verts and tearing under the influence of the force.
There is a PFlow system, but it’s a pretty standard particle system under the influence of some of these forces. The particles are not dynamic. The shattering windows were pre-shattered using a free script, and then the fragments were assigned as rigid bodies.
The render came from the free script PowerPreview (which uses the Nitrous viewport to render with). Looks nice because the Nitrous viewports were using all the nice bells and whistles… photometric lights, exposure control, realistic shading, shadows, AO, etc.
Please only report comments that are spam or abusive.
44 Comments
sandykoufax
Posted 6 February 2012 8:10 pm
Is this a new MassFX test? It looks like a MassFX + PBomb + Vortex forces.
ChangsooEun
Posted 6 February 2012 9:14 pm
ChangsooEun
Posted 6 February 2012 9:18 pm
timd1971
Posted 6 February 2012 9:20 pm
timd1971
Posted 6 February 2012 9:24 pm
timd1971
Posted 6 February 2012 9:44 pm
larex
Posted 6 February 2012 9:46 pm
timd1971
Posted 6 February 2012 9:55 pm
timd1971
Posted 6 February 2012 10:07 pm
3DRealism.com
Posted 6 February 2012 10:38 pm
Mike Owen
Posted 7 February 2012 12:12 am
johnkomnos
Posted 7 February 2012 1:37 am
Zogrim
Posted 7 February 2012 1:46 am
VitalyM
Posted 7 February 2012 1:55 am
artishtry
Posted 7 February 2012 3:29 am
artishtry
Posted 7 February 2012 3:30 am
larex
Posted 7 February 2012 3:34 am
Royal Ghost
Posted 7 February 2012 4:19 am
berdi
Posted 7 February 2012 4:27 am
is that a docked layer manager? perhaps an outliner like?
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 4:47 am
Also you can see the outliner on the left.
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 4:49 am
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 4:50 am
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 5:00 am
Ken Pimentel
Posted 7 February 2012 5:04 am
Ken Pimentel
Posted 7 February 2012 5:31 am
larex
Posted 7 February 2012 5:58 am
Zogrim
Posted 7 February 2012 5:59 am
sandykoufax
Posted 7 February 2012 6:32 am
timd1971
Posted 7 February 2012 7:29 am
timd1971
Posted 7 February 2012 7:31 am
static electricity?
timd1971
Posted 7 February 2012 7:35 am
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 8:03 am
PiXeL_MoNKeY
Posted 7 February 2012 8:40 am
Floating Viewport/Game Engine: It appears to be a preview being played back in Ram Player. Which is why we see the viewport axis during playback.
Outliner/Layer Manager: The selection boxes on the side/bottom are Scene Explorers, and doesn't appear to show anything new there.
iray: doesn't show any rendering or scene manipulating.
Hopefully Ken doesn't get fired for showing us this so he can bring/leak more secrets to us. :-)
-Eric
Ken Pimentel
Posted 7 February 2012 8:53 am
Ken Pimentel
Posted 7 February 2012 8:53 am
timd1971
Posted 7 February 2012 10:46 am
Zogrim
Posted 7 February 2012 12:30 pm
For example, one guy alone has implemented SPH PhysX Fluids node in Softimage, which runs with crazy speed on CPU/GPU, why can't Autodesk/Nvidia do that ?
http://vimeo.com/35816441
Samab
Posted 7 February 2012 1:03 pm
I expect fluids would be intergrated into Pflow, but in a true unified system Pflow and MassFX should interact, that would be brilliant.
I still miss Reactor. I know it could be clunky and awkward sometimes, but it was the most complete physics system Max has had out of the box to date, and could do some good things in the right hands.
I have been a critic of MassFX, but it was more a case of not liking that Reacor was dropped before MassFX was a complete replacement for it, beng RB only dynamics. Hopefully things are heading in the right direction with MassFX now. And I would welcome a brand new cmplete unified dynamics system. I just fear we will have a long wait untill it is complete.
Of course Ken and the others will be tight lipped about what we will get and when.
bended
Posted 7 February 2012 1:14 pm
ChangsooEun
Posted 7 February 2012 1:16 pm
1) As you said, he is "implementing". It means he is just building a bridge between library and users. It is not a difficult to make "a" bridge, but making a good bridge is a very difficult task.
2) It may looks good as a demo, but would it be usable in production? There is a reason why people paying los of money for NAIAD.
PiXeL_MoNKeY
Posted 7 February 2012 2:04 pm
On the topic of fluids, I think we need a unified system to have something to implement fluids into. However, you also need a system for rendering the fluids, which simulating the fluids mean nothing without being able to render them. I hope they build the foundation up so adding stuff like fluids will be possible, and it would be ever better if there was a way for 3rd parties to tie into the systems. Sine there are multiple fluid systems for 3ds max already, I think we should let the devs focus on problems that need to be handled internally.
-Eric
AdrianG
Posted 7 February 2012 2:22 pm
of course integrating Frost will be a better solution, but anyway )
PiXeL_MoNKeY
Posted 7 February 2012 7:28 pm
Partially, for liquids only. You would still not have rendering needed for fire/smoke, or mixing of liquids, or mixing of liquids and smoke/fire, etc. It is a problem that requires multiple items to be addressed. One at the data generation/simulation level and the other at the rendering side. Then there is a question of caching data, etc, etc, etc. All of it needs proper investment into the development to ensure they can scale to production levels, or we just end up with something only valid for technical demos.
-Eric
ggledyhiggles
Posted 10 February 2012 3:13 am
about time we got decent physics though.
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