Create a Logo Dispersion Effect using Particle Flow and After Effects
Tutorial Details
- Software Used: 3ds Max and Particle Flow
- Difficulty Level: Easy
- Completion Time: Approx 30 min
- Additional Files/ Plugins: Genarts Sapphire plugin
Final Product What You'll Be Creating
As you may know, when you get a grasp on particles in CG, the possibilities of what you can accomplish are nearly limitless. In this 3ds Max based Particle Flow tutorial, you will learn an easy method of dispersing a logo into particles using materials.
STEP 1
First of all launch 3ds Max. Now go to “Create > Shapes > Text”, and in the text field type “CG TUTS”. Apply the “Extrude” modifier to it to give it some depth.
STEP 2
Now go to “Create > Space Warp > Forces > Wind”. This will create a “Wind” icon in the view port. Put it on the left side of the text in the view port.
Step 3
In the same way create a “Drag” and put it beside the “Wind” in the view port.
Step 4
Now it’s time to tweak the values of these space warps in the view port. Select the “Wind”, and in the parameter rollout, set the “Strength” to 0.5, the “Turbulence” to 0.88 , the “Frequency” to 1, and the “Scale” to 0.02.
Step 5
For the “Drag”, sin the Parameters rollout, under the “Damping Characteristics” group, set the X-axis to 15.0, the Y-axis to 13.0, and the Z-axis to 15.0.
Step 6
Now make some random shapes with the help of the Line tool (as shown). Note: The final effect will depend on you how do you make these in random shapes. Select them all and make a Group.
Step 7
Now go to “Create > Particle System > PF source” and drag it in any of the viewports.
Step 8
Select the “PF Source” icon in the viewport, and in the “Setup” rollout, click on the “Particle View” button, or hit 6 on your keyboard.
Step 9
Now your Particle View window is displayed. Create a Standard Flow and delete the Position Icon, Speed, and Shape from it, since you won’t need them for this task.
Step 10
Drag a “Position” object into the event, and under the “Emitter Objects” window, add the text “CG TUTS”. Select “Grayscale” in “Density By Material”, turn on “Use Sub-Material”, and set Material ID box to 2.
Step 11
In the same manner, add a “Shape Instance” and “Force” to the event as well.
Step 12
Select the group of line shapes for the “Shape Instance” and for the “Force”, add a “Wind” and “Drag” in the “Force Space Warp” window.
Step 13
Now open the material editor, and in an empty slot assign a multi/sub object and
set the number of materials to 2. Now click on the sub material 1 and in the Diffuse channel, select any color (in this case white).
Step 14
Put a Gradient Ramp in its Opacity channel. Animate the black ramp, in linear from left to right. Do it in such a way that it must overcast the white untill the 80th frame. Give it a bit of Noise also to have a better look.
Step 15
Now go to the other sub material 2, and put a Gradient Ramp in its Diffuse. Animate the ramp in linear from left to right in such a way that a strip of black color must travel through the white until the 80th frame. Also make it invert in the “Output” panel.
Step 16
Copy the Gradient Ramp of the opacity from id 1 and paste it in the opacity of the id 2.
Step 17
Apply this whole Multi/sub object to the text in the view port.
Step 18
Assign a “Material Static” operator in the event, and drag a white material slot to the “Assign Material” button.
Step 19
Press “F9” to render and you will see a beautiful scene of the text “CG TUTS” turning into broken random shaped particles.
Step 20
Press “F10” to open the render setup window, and set the render frames from 0 to 143, and the output size as HDTV(1280/720).
Step 21
Set the file format as TGA with 32 bits per pixel (which will give it transparency), and then render the scene in an image sequence.
Step 22
If you have After Effects, you can use it for some post work, like adding shine from the back side. For this I imported the image sequence into After Effects. If you are not familiar with the After Effects interface, kindly visit www.vfxrider.com, or AEtuts.
Step 23
Make a duplicate of the “cgtuts” layer by selecting it and pressing “Ctrl+D”, or by going to “Edit > Duplicate”.
Step 24
Select the layer which is behind the first one, and apply “Effects > Sapphire Lighting > S_Rays”. You can get the Genarts Sapphire plugin from www.genarts.com. Play with the values of rays length and the color. You can use the Trapcode Shine plugin for this kind of look as well.
Step 25
Now if you hit the play button, you will have a beautiful logo dispersion scene!
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Pretty basic effect, but good tutorial, easy to understand and to follow Great Job
I like the effect, but the same could easily be done using Particular.
Allan Mckay has a tutorial covering this exact effect, in greater detail, as well as many other helpful PFlow tutorials at the link below (remove the parenthesis and the word DOT and replace it with an actual dot):
www (DOT) vfxsolution (DOT) com/allanmckay/2009/11/legacy-fx-tutorials/
Evan, go through my tut first and then compare it with Allan’s tut. There is a huge difference between his way and my method. He did it with deflector and I did it with materials.
Hey Evan, Your website gone dead! Don’t you pay for it on time?
Although you yourself use the ideas of Allan Mckay. Don’t you?
Pretty cool tutorial, could be more explained, because i don’t think a newbie, will do it correctly….especially in using the noise..But great job for the idea :D
This tutorial was stolen . this guy Chandan Kumar is known in india
for stealing peoples work , this is yet another example .
i think this tutorial should be taken down .
We give all of our authors the benefit of the doubt with regards to claims of plagiarism. If you can provide a link to the tutorial that this was supposedly copied from, then we will be able to substantiate you claim (or not), and take appropriate action.
Benchod Jake, before blaming ,do provide the proof.
Throw Jake into hell coz jake sucks! He couldn’t provide any proof. Up with Chandan Kumar ! You rock Mr. Indian!
I would like to see where the tut has been copied from. otherwise Jake is fake.
Nice tut though!
Cool, simple and effective tutorial!
i very need this type of tutorials. I like the effect great work
HI,
This is nice one
I have done some videos based on Motion Graphics ..all done in After Effects
Do watch
Sending u link
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sagar11091&aq=f
Bye
sagar From Mumbai
Great tutorial, only one thing i can’t figure out. The material stuff. I can’t get it right in 3ds max 2010. The material editor is different. Can somebody help me out?
hey. great job. nice tuts. :D but is it possible for you to making a video tutorial base on this tutorial? because most other text effects tutorial in this site has been captured on videos which make people to understand more easier. but this one dont have. if anyone can do it. would be very helpful. thanks :)
Tried this 4 times. It doesn’t work. First of all, the lines are pink and look ghastly. Second of all, you need to resize them, 3rd of all, the text looks shattered, yes, but it also stays that way and doesn’t animate. The particles do, however. But the text stays the same.
Try one more time and be the Platinum Member of this site and in this way you would be able to get the source file of this tut. Spend some time with that file and analyze the things. I hope you will achieve the effect then.
sorry
i really doesn’t understand step 13-19
it doens’t work
do u have tutorials video ?
i’m a 3ds max of freshmen ><"
Hi Nuage, These steps tell you about “Multi Sub” and “Gradient Ramp” materials which are very important ones in 3ds max. I wish if I could help you someday while making a small quick tip type of video tut on these things.But for now you can watch some free tuts in youtube related to these two. I hope it will help you.
Can anyone download me premade whit any text, ’cause it doesn’t work for me :|
Hi
Can u pl tel me or explain me step 11 and 12