has anyone used particles for people/cars?

[Ernest Burden III]

I was thinking about the problem of an animation which shows a large site and must have many people and/or cars moving about. It seems like a nightmare to program all the paths and speeds.

 

But then I was thinking about how a particle generator could spit out a set of objects (in this case low-poly people or car models) whose overall path is defined, and who could be given some general behaviour. To some extent that is how large-scale fights are done in movies--the figures are given interaction behaviours to follow, and so a crowd behaves very naturally without each character having to be programed. It's brilliant, really--if another character aproaches with sword raised, then raise your shield, run or fight on--if one runs, the other chases, etc.

 

No fights in arch-vis, but I think the technique hold great promise. Has anyone tried it?

[Frosty]

Consider the older plugin for C4D call "follow the leader". Its a great flocking tool for schools of fish and I think, would be perfeect for this.

[STRAT]

i went through this laborious task a couple of years ago -

 

i had my marlin studios animated peeps and my low-poly car models. about 30-40 peeps and 20 or so cars.

 

i spent a good week going through each one setting up a looping animated striaght line walk path. standard to 25 fps. i hated it. a thankless task it was.

 

so atleast now when i have a scene which requires moving cars or walking peeps i got them all ready to go and just drop in to whatever animation i want to. (as long as the animation will be 25 fps that is). all i then need do to vary the walk paths is literally rotate them with a single click.

 

but a plug in would be just the ticket

[Ernest Burden III]

Consider the older plugin for C4D call "follow the leader". Its a great flocking tool for schools of fish and I think, would be perfeect for this.

 

Where to get?

 

Last night I was reading the tutorial on emmitters with this in mind.

[Ernest Burden III]

i spent a good week going through each one setting up a looping animated striaght line walk path. standard to 25 fps. i hated it. a thankless task it was.

 

And it worked as I was imagining it?

 

Would you continue to use it, or is it just as easy to program individually, when you take into account a real site situation? Did you use an assumption of a flat earth? I suppose you could do gravity an collision detection--if you wanted a really slow render time.

 

From reading the info, it seems you can define any object as a particle, so with your 'rig' you could easily swap in or out new models.

[Frosty]

From reading the info, it seems you can define any object as a particle, so with your 'rig' you could easily swap in or out new models.

 

Yes particles can be anything - lights, cars, dolphins, animated sprites.

 

I know I have the expressions "crowd" and "follow the leader at home. I'm currently on the road, but I will be able to send them to you when I return on Weds. Both were by Paul Everrett if you want to try and find them yourself.

[Frosty]

http://www.c4dstuff.de/progs/followmyleader3.zip

http://www.c4dstuff.de/progs/crowd.zip

 

http://www.c4dstuff.de/plug_index.htm#C

Found them

[Ernest Burden III]

Found them

 

Show-off.

 

Thanks!

[Ernest Burden III]

I got the tutorials and files mentioned above, have been playing with them.

 

I think particles are going to one way I handle animation traffic in non-critical ways. When you need a car to drive up, turn into a garage, etc. it would not be something to do with particles.

 

But here is a VERY basic test.

 

http://www.oreally.com/temp/emmitercars02.mov

 

I made a little car shape and have it spit out of two emmitters, then attempt traffic control.

 

I still have to figure out how to get the emmitter to operate on a single line, as I now have layers of cars, not a roadful, but I'm picking it up.

[Frosty]

Haha, that pretty funky.

 

if you're trying to control the cars on an exact path with stops and starts i think using align to spline is the best method. you may have to look into ditools and a few other plugs to get particles to follow a spline and then maybe some ramping in the velocity of the particles.

[Ernest Burden III]

if you're trying to control the cars on an exact path with stops and starts i think using align to spline is the best method. you may have to look into ditools and a few other plugs to get particles to follow a spline and then maybe some ramping in the velocity of the particles.

 

I don't think the particles CAN be 'ramped' in velocity. I find that once emmitted, they have a certain speed, and once slowed or stopped, cannot easily be speeded up again. If you know of a way, please share.

 

I did it with wind. My 'intersection' is a friction box with wind generators. The friction slows and then stops traffic, the wind is then turned on to accellerate it. It works, but not that well yet. The cars turn the corner using a 'bend' mod, but it deforms them in the process.

 

I need to make the cars not intersect eachother, I could add some 'repulsion' perhaps (I'm trying to get an 'attractor' to repulse with negative values, no luck yet). I could simply add deflectors fore and aft like a train's snowplow.

 

Maybe there are other ways, but I'm not going to be good at writing coffee stuff, and the solver dynamics seem like overkill (but DOES have collision detection AND reaction).

[Frosty]

Thats a lot of experimenting so far. I'm certain Thinking Particles is your ticket. I have no experience with it, but I think it can do everything you want.

 

In regards to using friction, did you just ramp the strength to cause a slow/stop then go?

[Ernest Burden III]

I'm certain Thinking Particles is your ticket.

In regards to using friction, did you just ramp the strength to cause a slow/stop then go?

 

'Thinking Particles' would be the regular particle system of C, what I'm using?

 

I ramped both the strength and size of the friction box to slow, stop, traffic. But once the value returns to 0 there is nothing to make the cars start moving again, so I turned on wind machines to make them go. Weird, but it worked, sorta.

 

Oh, I get v9 today! Yea! Where is that big brown truck?

[vizwhiz]

hi There

 

Ernerst,

 

have you considered RPC content by Archvision??

 

**

 

compatibility Matrix, it lists C4D

 

http://www.archvision.com/GetCompatibilityMatrix.cfm

 

direct Link

 

http://www.archvision.com/GetCompatibilityMatrix.cfm?ViewPlatform=15

 

includes 2.5 Moving People, Automobiles

 

**

 

demo Animations

 

http://www.archvision.com/demoanimations.cfm

 

**

 

just an Idea

 

**

 

Randy

[Ernest Burden III]

Ernest,

have you considered RPC content by Archvision??

 

Yes, I have. I may get it now that I have Cinema v9.

 

I have figured out that Thinking Particles are different than 'regular' particles. Yikes, I have to write code! Well, it's visual code.

 

RPC is fine, if you like their content.

 

I'm developing my own cars, trees and people. I don't need trees to move, but do the others. So, I was thinking about using a semi-automatic way to make them move--particles.