Creating a Planet Shockwave Explosion in Space
By Ali Muhmmad Rizwan | 3D Studio Max | IntermediateThis tutorial will teach you how to create an animation of a planet shockwave explosion in outer space. This tutorial will involve using a set of tools including the built-in Earth map/material, ring wave, bomb, and the PArray particle system. We will start off by modeling the planet then we will texture it, add a ring waver, bomb, and a PArray particle system. This is an intermediate level tutorial, make sure you know the basics of 3D Studio Max before attempting it.
Creating the Earth Planet
Start off by creating a Geosphere, go through Create>Standard from the dropdown menu and then click on Geosphere and drag it onto the perspective viewport.
We will assign the Earth material to our geosphere now. Press M on your keyboard to open up the Material Library, select the first slot and click on the Get Material button, this should open the Material/Map Browser, select the Mtl Library to open it and then select the Earth material, assign it to our geosphere by doubling clicking on it.
The Particles Explosion
We will create the basic animation for the explosion now. Access the Create panel, select Standard from the dropdown menu, click on PArray and create one in the viewport near the sphere as shown in the image below.
Under the Modifier List of PArray, click on the Pick Object button and select Sphere. Look for the Particle Type rollout below and select Object Fragments as the type. Look for the Object Fragments Controls and set the Minimum Number of Chunks to 100.
You can test the effect now by hitting the play button. You should see the particles explode while the planet remains the same.
Creating the Shockwave
Access the Create panel, select Extended Primitives and click on RingWave to create one at the center of the sphere as illustrated in the image below.
Access the Ringwave Modifier panel and set the Radius to 21 and the Ring Width to 33 under the Parameters rollout. This should make the ring go inside the Earth sphere and therefore it will no longer be visible at the start of the animation.
Creating the Shockwave (Ringwave) Material
Open the Material Library and select an empty slot. Click on the Diffuse button and select cellular from the list as displayed in the image below.
Adjust the cellular colors and the cell characteristics as shown below.
Click on the Go to Parent button, open the Maps rollout and click on Opacity. Select Gradient from the list and leave all the settings the way they are. Assign this material to ringwave and PArray as illustrated in the image below.
Animating the Shockwave (Ringwave)
Hit the N key on your keyboard, this should toggle the Auto Key animation tool, move the timeslider to frame 25. Access the RingWave modifier and up the Radius to 325.
Creating the Bomb
Access the Create panel, select Space Wrap and then select Geometry/Deformable from the drop down menu. Click Bomb and create one at the center of the sphere. Hit the F3 key to change the the view mode to the wireframe mode to be able to do this.
To make this bomb work, we will have to bind it with the sphere. Simply click on the Bind to Space Wrap tool and then click and drag the mouse cursor from the bomb to the sphere.
Access the Bomb Modifier and apply the following settings.
You can move to the timeslider again to frame 25 to view the effect, you can hit F9 to get a rendered preview.
Now it is time to enhance the flame effect resulting from the explosion. To do so, we have to create a Sphere Gizmo. From the Helpers in the modifier panel, chose Atmospheric Apparatus from the drop down list, then click on Sphere Gizmo.
In the top viewport, create the Sphere Gizmo by clicking on the center of the sphere and then drag the mouse to set up the radius of the Sphere Gizmo. The Gizmo Sphere should be inside the sphere that we have already created. To have a better control on the radius of the sphere gizmo you can use sphere gizmo parameters and reduce the value from there.
Access the Gizmo modifier and lower the value for the Radius so it starts inside our sphere. Open the Atmospheric rollout and click Add, then select Fire Effect from the effects list as illustrated below.
Fire Effect should appear in the Atmospheres & Effects rollout, select it and then click on Setup. Apply the settings illustrated in the second image below for the Fire Effect Parameters.
It is time to do some Auto Key animation once again. We will repeat the process we did earlier. Move the timeslider to frame 25 and increase the Radius of this Gizmo so that it comes out of the sphere after the explosion to get a result similar to the third image below.
Now we will create a Target Cameras in the viewport. To create a Target Camera, click on Create panel, and then click on Cameras tab, then chose the Target Camera.
Assigning IDs to The Objects
We will add an ID to all of the objects that we have created. This ID will be used later on for the glow effect in Video Post.
Select the "Sphere" then right click in the viewport from the list click on "Properties", then under G-Buffer option, change the channel ID to 5 for the Sphere.
Open the Ringwave properties and assign the channel ID 10 to it. Repeat this process to the PArray and assign the channel ID 3 to it.
Animation Special Effects
We now move to adding some effect to the animation. Click on Render, from the dropdown list click on Video Post.
Click on Add Scene Event button (highlighted in the image bellow), then under View, select the camera that we added to the scene named Camera01. Click OK to close the window.
Click on the Add Image Filter Event button, then from the window under Filter Plug-in in the drop down list chose Lens Effects Glow.
Click on the Setup button to configure the settings of the Lens Effects Glow. We will start by applying this effect to the PArray. In the properties tab change the Object ID to 3. (this is the ID that we previously assigned to the PArray)
We have to adjust the glow parameters now. Access the Preferences tab and apply the settings illustrated below, click OK once you are done.
Repeat the process above to add another Lens Effects Glow, apply this to the ringwave. This will require accessing the properties of it and assigning the Object ID to 10. Access the Preferences tab to set the size of the effect to 5 and the color intensity to 50.
Create another Lens Effects Glow for the sphere, set the Object ID this time to 5. In the Preferences tab change the size, and intensity to the values in the image bellow and then click "OK" to close the window.
Adding the Star Field Background
Click on the Add Image Filter button (inside the Video Post window if you have closed it) and then select from the drop down list Starfield.
It is time to a blur effect, to do this you will have to go through the Rendering menu and select Effects.
Click the Add button and select Blur from the list, click OK to confirm.
Access the Blur Parameters, select Radial and apply the changes illustrated in the image below.
This is it, render the scene and watch the result!
I hope that this tutorial was helpful. Please feel free to email me any comments or questions regarding this tutorial, you can alternatively post at the Oman3D Forum.
- End of Tutorial