Modeling smoke and importing from Inventor

[klasanov1]

Hi. I am a drafting student in high school who's just been given the keys to Viz and am having a lot of fun with the program. One thing I want to is model a howitzer (one of the big, new, modern things) firing a barrage, but already I'm running into a few problems.

The first one is, how do I model smoke? I think I could do a whole bunch of little grey spheres but this seems very time consuming and inefficient. Also, I imported a muzzle break for the howitzer from inventor (since i couldn't figure out how to draw one using Viz) but I can't change the color or anything on Viz. Is there a way to do this? or do i have to import from inventor again?

[Steve_Bennett]

Hi. I am a drafting student in high school who's just been given the keys to Viz and am having a lot of fun with the program. One thing I want to is model a howitzer (one of the big, new, modern things) firing a barrage, but already I'm running into a few problems.

The first one is, how do I model smoke? I think I could do a whole bunch of little grey spheres but this seems very time consuming and inefficient. Also, I imported a muzzle break for the howitzer from inventor (since i couldn't figure out how to draw one using Viz) but I can't change the color or anything on Viz. Is there a way to do this? or do i have to import from inventor again?

welcome to the world of design viz!

a very amitious first project, i hope this doesnt discourage you but to really do smoke or any other volumetric type object similalar to smoke you will need MAX and not just viz. there are particle systems and other tools in max not included in viz.

as for the material for the muzzle you most certainly can change it. depending on how your objects are modeled and connected will affect what material type is used. either a single or multi subobject material should allow you full control on the materials.

[dellis]

VIZ is pretty limited when it comes to the COOL stuff but there are ways around the limitations of the program. Some solutions are more elegant and effective then others. It sounds to me that you want to simulate muzzle flash...the fire you see at the end of the gun when fired. This can be done quite easily since the actual fire only lasts a couple of frames. I would use a texture map on a plane object at the end of the barrel with an on/off visibility controller to have it flash on and off. The smoke that follows is a little more tricky but can be done. Although the best solution would be to use particles you can use deforming geometry and some shaders to get you some of the way there.

Some suggestions:

-Take a run through the tutorials to familiarize yourself with the program.
-Search the internet for reference material, stills and video, of the howitzer firing.
-Try and understand what is happening in the real life situation and then figure out the best way to recreate it in 3d.

Here is a sample of geometry based fire. I created it in MAX 9 but it should transfer over without issue in newer versions of VIZ.

http://www.dwayneellis.com/misc/other/GeometryFire.rar
And a short movie of the effect.

http://www.dwayneellis.com/misc/other/GeometryFire.mov


Hope this helps.


Dwayne

[klasanov1]

Thanks.

Although this is really a second project.

I'm more daunted by the timeline I have in which I can work on this project (until I can buy my own comp and versions of the program) than trying to figure everything out. I chose this project because I understand completing it will allow me to know a LOT about the progam, I think.

Although I might take a small break and work on other stuff, too.

It's not a program I see myself not wanting to use in the future if this proves to be way over my head at the time, though.