Colors flying away

[lecameleon]

Umm.. my first thread.. and I hope I'm not being stupid.. or end up being vague AND stupid.

 

I have a problem getting a certain effect right. I have a scene with a table and a paper plane landing on it. The textures are all pastel shades to begin with. After a few seconds the pastel colors turn into particles and fly off revealing the "real-world" texture layer underneath. Sort of like paint peeling off a wall; except, here it is more like someone blowing the pastel textures away in a dust cloud which flies out of a window.

 

I am not sure if I am explaining this right..

 

So far, I have done this scene with a particle flow source and a rectangle placed on the table top with the particles distributed over the rectangle (plane) surface) using the position object operator. To cover this plane completely with particles I would probably need a super-computer. I've used Wind and Vortex forces to get a rather realistic "flying away" effect. But here is the thing - When I render the scene, the table is never covered completely with particles and I can see the wooden texture peeking through at places.

 

I tried increasing the particles - (and the really irksome thing is that PFlow doesn't have the vertex option in the 'position object operator' filling up the entire set of vertices, but rather randomly distributed over most of the vertices not ALL the vertices) - but to no avail. And even if I do manage the table, there are other objects and furniture in the room which "lose" their particles and uncover the texture underneath.

 

So the question is, Is there any way of doing this without using a super-computer and/or without using the position object operator? Or, if someone else has done this sort of thing elsewhere ? maybe some ad or movie that I can look up and deduce the solution

 

PS: I have uploaded a really lo-res preview with just 1% particles showing only over the tabletop.. so you can get an idea of the magnitude.. and a preview render frame which shows all the objects that need to have their "colors fly away"...

 

Thanks in advance

[Claudio Branch]

You might want to try and start the transition of "pastel to actual" with an animated texture in conjunction with the P-System.

 

Try experimenting with a Noise Map and/or Speckle with some bump to it. You will want the P-System to begin emitting a few seconds after the animated map starts to reveal the "actual" underlying material.

 

The only other thing I would recommend is using AfterEffects and the plug-in "Particular"

 

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Plugins/Trapcode-Particular.shtml

[lecameleon]

Claudio, Thanks for the reply. Yes, that is a possibility. I thought of that earlier, but I am afraid getting the particles to emit from just the areas where the noise map (animated) disappears in the texture is a difficult proposition. I mean, I understand what you mean.. but how can I make sure that the particles don't emit once the noise map reveals the underlying texture.. I hope you get what I am trying to say ... I am not explaining this very well, I am afraid...

 

As for Particular.. heard of it, don't have it and i am not too sure whether it would help me with this either.. But I am trying something at the moment. Let us see where this attempt leads me .. Thanks a lot

[Claudio Branch]

 

...how can I make sure that the particles don't emit once the noise map reveals the underlying texture.

 

 

You would do that by controlling the lifespan of the particles...

[lecameleon]

I would like to see someone doing that by controlling the lifespan ...

 

Imagine a pan with little patches of water being heated up.. as the water evaporates (akin to noise map area disappearing) ... the vapour rises above the evaporating water(particle source area). Once the water patches have evaporated completely, no more rising vapors...

 

If it were a question of using multiple particle sources and emitters then this would have been feasible.. using the particle age properties..

 

In my scene there is one large rectangular patch as the emitter and the lifespan would work uniformly throughout the area. Wouldn't work...

 

Furthermore, every object in the scene has its pastel color blown away as particles.. this method wouldn't work.. Will try something and update this post once I get a test render..

[lecameleon]

You would do that by controlling the lifespan of the particles...

 

Thanks Claudio, it gave me an idea to follow this up.. My old relic, however, cannot render the number of particles required to make it realistic. The attached movie shows what effect I was looking for, except not just limited to the table top but rather all the objects in the room. Unfortunately, it looks like an impossible render for my antique PC. Even this test render took an age and that too with the tabletop partially covered..

 

thanks to you all... just wanted to follow this up..