Visual Effects Project - Particles

For this assignment, we were to include three different particle effects from scratch into this steel mill Maya scene. The three particles I chose were smoke, liquid, fire and because I felt daring, I added a fourth - smog. The process was overall pretty simple; add an emitter, create the particle, create colliders, and then tweak the behavior of the particles until you get the desired effect. We started off by creating pre-pro in the form of thumbnails to convey to instructors what we were going to emulate in the Maya scene. I chose to use the provided scene (being the steel mill). The scene had a very warm tone to it, so I decided almost immediately that I wanted to add a lava texture to the liquid particle. 

For the most part, I had a relatively easy first experience with particles. The only real struggle I encountered was the smoke - the main issue being the path it was supposed to take - it would always go in a spiral-shaped path despite how many fields I was applying to it. Eventually, the fix was to move the emitter a bit away from the rim of the cauldron/bucket. As for the other particles, the workflow for them went well (the fire was a little stubborn, but not nearly as much as the smoke), so I was making good use of my time for the most part. I ended up using a lot of ramps to control the lifespans, movements and colors for different particles which I enjoyed a lot. I also used a couple of expressions (specifically for the fire and smoke particles).

Overall, I really enjoyed this project (it was probably my favorite one in the entire class). Tweaking particles until you get the desired effect and then seeing your work finished is just so rewarding (plus, just watching simulations and how they change is fun by itself). I definitely wouldn't mind working more with particles in the future!

Here was my final submission: