|
In this tutorial we will animate a group of missiles being shot towards the sky using the 'Instancers' features in Maya. Play the animation below to see an example of what we are going to create in this tutorial. This is an intermediate level tutorial, you are expected to be familiar with the fundamental tools in Maya.
Start a new Maya file, access the preferences and change the to and the the to Real-Time (24 FPS). This should make our animation smoother. 
I am going to provide you with the missile model to save time as this is not a modeling tutorial. You can create your own model if you would like to do so. Insert the model into the scene and make sure that it is laying along the X axis as it so much easier to deal with instancers that way. 
Scene and Missile Setup Select the missile on the stage, this should make you see the transform pivot "X Y Z" in the center of the missile. We are going to move this pivot to the tail of the missile.* To do this hit the key on your keyboard to be able to move the transform pivot online without moving the missile itself. Move the pivot now to the tail as illustrated in the image below. Exit the transform pivot mode by hitting once again.  
The transform pivot was moved to make the rotation of the missile an easier process, you can see the difference from the image below. The pivot had to also be moved to the back so that the particles that we will create later to simulate smoke are going to be generated from the position of the pivot.  
We are now going to lock our pivot at the location 0,0,0 so that we do not accidentally move it anywhere. This is done by going through as illustrated in the image below. 
Creating and Setting The Particles Select the plane present in the scene and then go through and hit the small rectangular box to open the property panel. 
You will need to make the changes highlighted in the image below. Click when you're done. 
You can now hit to see the small particles emitting from the surface. You can change the shape/size of the particles if you think that they are too small. Hit on your keyboard while the emitter is still selected to open up the . You will need to select the tab labeled and then scroll down to , select the shape you want the particle to take from the drop down list and then hit and set its properties. I selected as the type and set the size to . 
Instancer "Geometry Replacement" Select the missile and all particles while holding down Shift. While the particles and the missile are selected, go through and click on the small box next to it. 
The previous step should open up the , under the , set to , and then under the , set the to and click . 
You can now hit to watch the missiles come flying from the surface! 
Enhancing the Missile Motion We will make our motion a little bit more realistic by adding a gravity effect to the missiles. To do so, we will first be required to select all the particles. Go through and then choose from the list as illustrated in the image below.  
Now that all the particles are selected, we could add gravity to them going through and selecting it as the image below shows. 
This should do it. Playback the scene to see the difference. 
We are going to use the again to create a smoke tail by generating another set of particles. Start off by select from the window the same way we did last time. Go through and hit the small box next to it to open the window. Make the changes illustrated in the image below and hit . 
Note: You should always make sure that you keep the Rate of Particles low, as the higher the rate the slower your computer gets and this could increase the render time by a great amount. You can click at this moment to preview how are animation is going. 
Select the small set of particles coming out of the tail and then hit to open up the . Click on the tab and then scroll down to . Choose from the dropdown menu and then hit the button to change the radius of the particles as illustrated in the image below. 
Cloud: a render type that displays particles as blurred or cloud metaballs which are used to simulate smoke tail. Scroll down to the section, click on the button, and then check the box next to it to in the small window that pops up, click to close the window. 
Now that we have the new field added to the , right-click inside it and then select as illustrated in the image below. 
You can now click to see the new particles fade away with time. Ramp on OpacityPP gives a grayscale colour to the particles that changes with time, i.e. age. You can refer to the Maya help file for more details on Grayscale Ramps. 
We are now going to add the fire effect, open the and click on the tab. Go down to the section, hit button and the Particle Color window shall open up. Check the box and then hit the button as illustrated in the image below. 
Now that the new field has been added in the , right-click inside it and then select as illustrated in the image below. 
You can now click on to see the particles change color with time. Ramp on rgbPP gives a colorscale to the particles that changes with time. 
Before we go ahead and render the scene, we need to hide the original objects to create a nice and tidy scene. To do this, you will have to select the plane first and then reference the missile and then go through as illustrated in the image below.  
Here is a render view of the result that I got after using some advanced techniques that I hope to write a tutorial about in the near future. 
Download the End Scene
Tutorial Soruce Oman3D
|
