Tutorial Details
- Program: Maya
- Difficulty: Intermediate
- Completion Time: 1-2 hours
Twice a month we revisit some of our reader’s favorite posts from throughout the history of Cgtuts+, and today we have an awesome Maya particles tutorial by Abed Ibrahim. This tutorial was first published in December 2009 and proved incredibly popular! Let’s take a look…
Particles are one of the most powerful and versatile tools that you can use to make your CG art more interesting, and many would agree that no one does particles better than Autodesk Maya. In this tutorial Abed Ibrahim will walk you through the process of creating an animated logo using particles in Maya, and then reverse the rendered animation in any video editing software of your choice.
Final Effect Preview
Step 1
Open new scene, go to “Create” and open the option box for
“Text”.
Step 2
Adjust the following options then press “create”.
Step 3
Hide the text curves in the “Outliner” by pressing (Ctrl + h).
Step 4
Select all the letters, then go to “Mesh > Combine”.
Step 5
Delete the history for the shape, then go to “Modify > Make Live”.
Step 6
Switch to “Dynamics Menu” by pressing “F5”, then go to “Particles > Particle Tool (option box)”.
Step 7
Press on “Reset Tool”, then adjust the settings as shown.
Step 8
Hide your grid, switch to the front view, and start to draw on the letters. Make sure to fill from the inside and on the edges as shown.
Step 9
Press “Enter” then, in the “Attributes Editor” for the particle shape, go to “Render Attributes > Particle Render Type > Cloud (s/w)”. Note: When you press “Enter” you have to wait for the program to calculate the particles.
Step 10
Press on “Current Render Type”, and set the radius to “0.025”.
Step 11
Hide the original text surface in the outliner, then open “Hypershade” and select the Volumetric Node “particlecloud1”.
Step 12
Modify the following attributes for the particle cloud:
Step 13
Extend the playback range time to “200 frames”, then select the particles, and go to “Fields > Volume Axis”.
Step 14
Modify the following attributes for the volume axis field:
Step 15
Modify the “Transform Attributes” for the volume field as shown:
Step 16
On frame “1″, set a key for the volume axis field at “Translate X” with a value of ’20′.
Step 17
Go to frame “100″ then set another key for volume axis field “Translate X” with a value of “-3.000″.
Step 18
Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences”.
Step 19
Select the “particlecloud1” material, set its transparency to “0”, then set a key on the current frame (200).
Step 20
Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences”.
Step 21
Go to “Solvers > “Create Particle Disk Cache (option box)”.
Step 22
Make sure that the options look like following image (except for the scene directory), then press create. Note: Wait for the particles cache to be generated, and until it stops at frame 200.
Step 23
Select the “particlecloud1” material, set its transparency to “0” or a “White” color, and then set a key on the current frame (200).
Step 24
Set the current time in the time slider to “160”, change the transparency to “1” or a “Black” color, and then set another key.
Step 25
Repeat the last 2 steps. Set a key for “Transparency” on frame “20” with a “white” color or a value of “0″, then set a key with a value of “1” or “black” on frame “1”. Now show the original hidden text shape in the “Outliner”. Go to “Display > Show > Show Selection”, or press “Shift + h”.
Step 26
Switch to Edge Mode by pressing “Ctrl + F10”, then press delete.
Step 27
Extrude the text shape to about “0.250” on the “Z axis”.
Step 28
Center the text shape to the particles.
Step 29
Select the text, then separate the letters by going to “Mesh > Separate”.
Step 30
Create 6 new “Blinn” materials with the following settings:
Step 31
Name the 6 Blinn materials as the text letters (Blinn1 = M, Blinn2 = A etc..), and then assign the first one to the letter “M”.
Step 32
Go to frame “66″ and set a key for the “M” material “Transparency” with the color set to “White” or “0″, then go to frame “64″ and set another key whith the color set to “Black” or “1″.
Step 33
Assign the “A” material for the second letter, then go to frame “54″ and set a key for the “Transparency” with the color set to “White” or “0″, then go to frame “52″ and set another key with the color set to “Black” or “1″.
Step 34
Repeat these steps for the rest of the letters simply by using the following chart:
Step 35
Make sure that the default light is turned on from the “Render Settings” and no other light source exists in your scene.
Step 36
You can now render the scene to video (AVI) or sequenced images (TIFF) from any camera view, and then reverse your animation in any video editing software (Adobe Premiere, After Effects, Sony Vegas, etc).
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Good tutorial, easy to follow. Thx for sharing.
KOOL!!!!!!
Thanx for tutorial but that doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m too newbie for Maya or there is something that I don’t understand. When i try to cache particles only thing i’ve got it an error and key on frame 1,100,200 disapears. Next time try to do some extra explanations for us newbies. If you have some free time of course. Thank you anyway.
you skipped a step at 18 and 19 which makes it very confusing
I’m a real newbie to maya, but I found this tutorial pretty amazing to understand and the final product, also amazing :D
I had to google a few terms, but I learnt a lot from here :)
Thank you so very much <3
thankyou so much man! works so well have been creating new effects using this method! you just opened up a whole new ideas and stuff for me so thanks so much :)
there is something missing in the tutorial i guess
my outcome dont look very similar to your preview video ..lol
but thanks for sharing anyway
greetings from germany ;)
In the last step you didn’t specify how to start a render… For a true newbie like me was a problem. And to see the movie as you rendered it, perhaps you should specify that range should be set from 200 to 1, step -1 (as it is intended to be seen from its end to its start)
Very Useful Tutorial, but how does the table in step 34 work…. what is the logic of the table, that i can create such a table if i want to use more than 6 letters. i tryed but i don´t checked it out.
greets
I think there are some missing steps. For example, how can we render the scene as we can see in the video, becouse with these settings, i think just reverse everything of the video. Sorry for my english, i hope you understand my problem.
sorry. i see now. that was made in video editing software
Heeey!! really great tutorial, i´m a noob on this, but it works just fiineee!! thank you from Colombia.
Hi there, i was reading your profile, i would really like to offer you a freelance job, i need a few things. let me know andresc@live.com.ar.
I would really appreciate it if someone could help me; I am new to Maya. I googled and did not find anything to help me. My problem is this: I can’t find the mesh tool…. where is it?
you have to switch the top left drop down to polygons for it to appear across the top of the screen will be 9th one along, hope this helps
Nice!
I’ve done it, here is the video: http://vimeo.com/19017636
How did you get your particles to move likt that?
Hey Mate.
Amazing Tutorial.
My problem is however, that my particles are not moving at all…
what exacly are you doing in Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences”. at step 18 ?
Thanks for a great tutorial.
I hava been having one issue and thats that it is alot of glow from time to time so when i play the video it flashes alot. i have tried to adjust the glow but it does not help. Any suggestions would be great.
And thanks again.
hey!!!! yeah!!! that’s really very great …………………… thnq…. for teach us…. love u…
wow……… what a amazing tutorial
Nice Tut!,
But something is missing! Step 18!! Window-> Setting Preference..?? And than what??.. Because the volumeAxisfields.. is not attracting the Particles.. I see in you movie.. that they are moving.. in my movie.. they are not!?
Please help!
Thanks
Hey tutorial is great till step 18… after that ?
its tough me.. as i am new to maya…pl help
nice tute thanx m8….!!!
Thanks mate, i`ll try tonight.. and share the video link…
I could not get anything to work my keybord has not Crtl Key it makes me mad any other way to get to edge mode
You can select the Edge Tool by holding the Spacebar in the middle of your work space and holding in the left mouse button and selecting the Edge Tool from there. Hope this helps.
Thanks great tutorial =]
Thanks
Dear sir,
Very grateful maya /3d video tutorials works continuous .
thanks
Nice Tutorial, Great way of teaching.
Thanks for Sharing
nice , thanks , need video tutorial for all maya tools and technique , and character animation production tutorial and how to making of movie scenes in maya like kung fu pand , tangled
need video tutorial for maya pls
u re awesome man…………………ur tutorials rocks………………………..
Hi there thanks for posting this tutorial, I did have some trouble though. In steps 18 and 20 it says (Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences”) ??? but you don’t explain why or what for. I’m using Maya 2012 if that makes a difference? I would love to see a video tutorial of this.
Thanks again
for step 22 for the particle render cache options when i click create at the bottom it says as follows:
// Error: Could not open file for export. Please be sure that permissions are OK and that path is correct. See command documentation for -path argument.
what do i do?
Thanks for sharing this great information. Can you please do more of these regarding Particles However with other elements.
Creating amazing logo intro we see a of those on Youtube but never a step by step. I am sure if these were video tutorials. Those of us who get what you’re doing but get stuck in a section just because there something we could not get past, would really help.
Thanks for you contribution :)
Hey there, great tut so far however im stuck on step 18, i dont understand what im ment to do in prefrences, im very lost now, can somebody tell me what im supposed to do
Step 18
Go to “Window > Settings/Preferences > Preferences”. ?????????????
lol. this tutorial is rigged, steps 19 and 23 are exactly the same. also steps 18 and step 20 are the same, making no sense. They say, “go to window, settings and preferences, prefernces.” without any directions on what to do in the preferences. and then it repeats it again, obtaining no purpose. waste of time
Thanks, mate. Nice Tutorial.
Here’s my version of it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdzsnhYwVOU
nice……..description…..to geting at least idea of animation…..
relay nice tutorial Thanks for sharing this great information….
Thanks for the tutorial but I seem to be having the same problem that a few others are having. My particles are not moving. I’m not new to Maya but I am new to animating with particles. This is a great effect I would love to get it to work. Has anyone with this problem figured it out. Do I need to turn on something in the plugin manager? Is that what he is doing when he goes to settings and preferences? I’m using Maya 2012 has anyone using Maya 012 gotten this tutorial to work? I would really appreciate any help anyone has to offer. THANKS!!!
I have already read all the comments on here and tired all the fixes people have gotten to work. None work for me I think it may be that this tutorial was written in 09 and does not work in Maya 2012 I’m just trying to confirm this.
can someone do the same tutorial in the video. Thus, the complex is full. I would be very grateful to the experts that can make on youtube with Turial.
My particles keep shooting down instead of forwards, what do i do?
really good one ,thanks
hi thanks for this tutorial,
i have a big problem in render,the particales doesn’t have light in rendered out put ,i don’t know why ,i checked all the attributes for particle cloud but it doesn’t work, help me
Great tutorial. I am going to get Maya 2012 next month.