The concept for this commercial, consists of a live action footage where an actor tries to take, what appears to be his dog, for a walk. However the dog is far to strong for him and he is pulled through doors, puddles, grass and mud. In the end we see that the dog was not actually an animal, but a jug instead.



The challenge in this spot was two fold. The main concern was the ability to give a static plastic jug, life like dog qualities. The second was being able to remove the mud from the dog in an interesting and believable way.

The animation was done using a very simple forward kinematic bone system for both the jug and collar/leash. The animation had to be realistic, but not so dramatic as to cause problems with the mud removal.



Included with this tutorial are all my working example files for you to take a look at. These are not the same files used in the production of the commercial, as Im unable to give away any of our source. Instead I modeled/animated another jug, and simulated new Realflow files as an example of the process that was used. Hope you enjoy it!

PROJECT SOURCE FILES

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me via my web form. http://www.vertx.ca


From 3dsmax 6.0 to Realflow 2.5
In order to export your animated objects into Realflow you must first make sure that you have installed the NextLimit plugins. They should be placed into your "plugins" folder ie: C:\3dsmax\plugins

Next you need to go to your "utilities" panel, then chose the "more" button. In the list you should see an option for SceneData Saver. Click the "SD Saver Settings" button, and select the objects you wish to export to Realflow. Press "Set", then "Save Sequence". Finally save the SD file in your Realflow project directory under the "objects" folder.

If you havent set up a realflow project yet, its ok. You can save the SD file anywhere and move it later.

Inside Realflow 2.5
Im not going to go into great detail on every step I took to achieve this result, but I will comment on some areas that you should be aware of. First this project was not done all in one step, as the FLW files will indicate. In order to make this transition as simple as possible it was broken into 3 distinct areas.

Step 1: Spraying the mud onto the jug and surrounding areas
Step 2: Simulating the mud particles flying off the jug
Step 3: Creating the mud mesh

STEP 1: Setup [Mud_01.flw]
The mud was created by spraying 12 different emitters of varying sizes at the jug and surrounding ground. Each of the emitters was given different V & H Random values to help break up the fluid before becoming "stuck". It should also be noted that the jug and ground have extremely high stickyness values.

Also note that the "Lock Animation" button is applied. I wanted to make sure the mud has the chance to settle before the animation begins.

STEP 2: Simulation [Mud_02.flw]
The next step is to save out the particle animation to BIN files and ignore the mesh. Normally simulation and mesh production are all done simultaneously, but by breaking them up into separate steps it gives the artist more control over the final look of the piece and over any changes the client may request. Its far too time consuming to resimulate an entire scene just because one part of the mesh needs to be a bit thicker or have more blending applied. By saving out the particles separately and loading them back into your scene you save yourself a lot of time and headache.

I should also bring to your attention that the stickiness of the jug is animated from 50000 to 0 when the jug starts to shake violently. This helps with the removal of any particles that are too stuck to be flung off by the animation alone.

STEP 3: Mesh Generation [MUD_03.flw]
Once your particles have been saved out, you will need to load them back into Realflow using the "N-Binary Loader" emitter. This will allow you to scrub your particles and have them generate a mesh, but they will not be affected my any animation/forces/daemons etc. Be sure to remove all your other emitters since you dont need them anymore.

You will also need to export your final mesh using the same process as the particles.

From Realflow 2.5 to 3dsmax 6.0
To bring your Realflow mesh back into 3dsmax you will need to use the RF Loader tool. It can be found under Create - Geometry - Next Limit panel. Once opened, press the "Select File Sequence" button and choose the mesh BIN files you just created, then press the Create Mesh button. By scrubbing the timeline you should see your mesh updating.

All thats left is to texture/light/render!