Bloodish Metaballs

[DigiLusionist]

This is for those of you from the CGTalk forum (because I couldn't post the anim there due to size)...

[js33]

Why do you always post zip files?
Why not a still image with a link to an animation?
I never bother to download zip files from the forum.

Cheers,
JS

[DigiLusionist]

Because I can't currently post an anim on another site and link to it. And, this forum will not accept .avi or .mov as a postable file format.

Maybe I'll learn a gif making tool and post those instead.

[DigiLusionist]

Found one and made this...

[cavalos]

they lok very well...some kind of terminator T1000 mixed with kool aid! :)

[js33]

Thanks for taking the time to post the gif.
You could always get a free hosting account to put up your anims on. I haven't looked into that in years but I'm sure there are some still out there.
Yeah HVs are fun to play with.

Cheers,
JS

[DigiLusionist]

Actually, these are metaballs. I got bored one night and wanted to play with animating metageometry (metaballs, metaedges, metafaces).

Can get some good effects with these, as you can with HVs.

[dobermunk]

Looks great!
Would you mind sharing settings? I haven't done anything with metastuff.

[DigiLusionist]

When you create the metaballs in Modeler, use the blue widget to size them at least twice as big as their normal size. Surface to taste.

Create all of the metaballs in the same layer, and then create endomorphs of the metaballs moved to different parts of the grid.

Set Metaball Render Resolution to 20-25. Watch out, sometimes when you render, the app can't calculate too high a metaball resolution, and it automatically changes the rez back down to 3. That will look crappy. If this happens, lower the resolution from 25 to 20 or 15.

In Layout, I set Subdivision Order to Last in the Object Properties panel. Bring up MorphMixer and animate the endomorphs.

That's pretty much it.

[dobermunk]

Thanks!

[riki]

Thanks for posting that. Looks great. I'm sure you can do some good stuff with metaballs. If you want to render them with hypervoxels set the Subdivision Order to After Deformation.

[mrxd]

your animation reminds me of the the John Carpenter remake of 'The Thing". There's a scene where the 'thing's' blood scoots across a petri dish.