Complex vortex animation

Hello to everyone!

I have a very urgent task to create quite complex animation:

  1. I have some certain parts of an compound object laying on the surface randomly (but certain number of parts).
  2. Then they should gently lift up from the surface and begin to spin in a vortex for some time.
  3. Then they should start exiting vortex for certain time range and form the whole object, each resting at it’s designated place.

I tried particles, but they aren’t what I need at all. Then I tried rigid bodies, but I can’t image how to guide physically all the parts in the way I need.
Now I see only one way - animate all things manually - tedious but quite precisely.

May be I’m wrong. Can somebody to give me advise, how to perform this task efficiently? Thanks in advance!

You might want to look into ‘Keyed’ particles. This is Blender’s way of causing particles to form from one shape to another yet still be affected by fields such as gravity and vortex.

Hello!

Thanks for fast reply. =) I will illustrate what i need.
I tried and used keyed particles before for dust animation, but I haven’t any idea, how to make my animation with them, there are straight flow within keys. Moreover, I can’t figure how to make my particles represent certain number of detials, each in it’s place. The are random, aren’t they? And I need certain order in their positions.




This is exactly what I need: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wewRQHcLgho
It’s created with keyed particles, but I can’t understand some important things about this: how the particles form certain form - robot in this case; how was sustained certain number of particles.

Edit, nevermind just saw the video.

There is about 60 elements.
The animation should last for approximately 40 seconds.
It should be one-shot animation, but may be I will convince my customer that it is bad. =)
Vortex should make about 5-10 revolutions - it depends on the properties above.

I have found breakdown of that video (from my previous post) and things looks clear more or less except final stage: when particles land on the robot framework. I still can’t find out is there any option to set order of objects in the group so I can predict where this elements would land? (The vertexes of the framework could be ordered and here is addon to visualise it)

Okay, I have figured that! =)
This is the setup:


You can do it in reverse, start the simulation in what would be the final position and use rigid bodies and forces to create the vortex animation, if you keyframe the vortex force to 0 all the elements will fall to the floor creating a state similar to the first you showed. Then, after the render is complete, you can just play it in reverse and it will look like if they’re all coming together to form the shape you want.

I hope that’s clear… :slight_smile:

EDIT: Nevermind, I just saw the video you posted… Seems like we were posting at the same time.

My reverce-ingineered solution above worked somehow, but not as I supposed it to:

  1. Parts lay on the floor - PASSED
  2. Parts begin to flow up - PASSED
  3. Parts moving to tornado, but they do it in much wider circle than tornado’s width - PARTIALLY FAILED
  4. Parts spinning in tornado for desired time - PASSED
  5. Parts forming final object simultaneously spreding wider for some time - FAILED TWICE

I can’t figure now, how to avoid particles spreading between two keys (I’m using keyed particles timing - time and duration) and how to make them form object consequentally.

Does anybody have any ideas? Thanks in advance! I have only 2 days to finish this.

BTW
I was wrong very much about parts count: there are 135 parts ))) I have underestimated it’s final number. And one more thing: sorry, but I may not show any part of my project until it’s finished and published - it’s commercial. But I will write all about making of when it’s done.

You can use additional fields to affect the particles as they travel between two keyed locations. Animate their influence or factor to affect the stray particles. Fields must be on the same layer as the particle system to affect them.

Thanks alot, but force fields won’t affect keyed particles. =(

I messed around with particle systems, and learned a lot about keyed particles – they are a lot of fun. And then I said, the hell with it, I’ll just parent everything to an empty and spin it. It looks like this, if you want a breakdown or a blend let me know. It could be made to match the video pretty easily. It took about 40 minute, mostly randomly keyframing rotations on the legos. It lacks the full vortex feel, but you do have a simpler, less abstracted control of everything. The lego model is from blendswap (from artist rioforce)

Photox, this is was my first idea. But I was scared of 60+ (135 really) particles, so I decided to give a try particle systems. Moreover, this video has encouraged me alot: http://youtu.be/BZUS3b3MXR8?t=14s
As you can see, I placed tima at assembly part - it’s sequential, what i need. But I can’t achieve this result. What I have now isn’t what I need and what we can see in the video above: http://youtu.be/AM7hEbAmH_c
All my particles are assembling all at once. They are spreading wide twice in translations between stages. They are translating to fast between stages, because other way they are spreading much more.
May be I will spend rest of my time till 26 august for making hand animation - hard but reliable. Chelyabinsk-style ))

And the last but not least, most important circumstance is that custumer will say “Let’s change this part of %something% to %something%” and then I will begin to shit tons of bricks if I will make it by hands.

Yeah I don’t really know how to get access to their positions with a particle system. One though I had was doing it with a vortex, slowing it down, and then applying the system and then keyframe them coming back together by hand. But yeah 120 objects isn’t going to be fun.

For sure it’s possibler to do all with a system, just not sure how.

So, for now I haven’t any more time for experiments. And now I’m animating by Photox proposal - thanks alot for courage you gave to me! =) 135 parts is still scary, but not impossible. There is only one very frustrating thing: blender lags alot in dope sheet window - there are many keys, abou 500-1000. And most of work I have to do in graph editor - it’s much faster, but not all the actions are convinient in it.

Still i’m sure there is solution to perform this task by keyed particles and I’m quite interested in investigating - how. So it would be very interesting if somebody has any idea. That videos I posted in the beginning confirms it absolutely.

I did it with much fewer keys that that. Trying to remember. I started on the last frame by arranging the pieces how they would look put together at the end correctly. On the last frame (500) I inserted a keyframe for all of them. Then I moved to frame 1 and scattered them on the floor, and keyframed them laying still. I moved forward 50 frames and keyframed them again, laying motionless. Then I picked up 3 pieces and raised them up maybe 50 frames later, same thng for a couple more pieces so a few lift up first. Then I used the master empty to life up the whole shebang. I used maybe 4-6 keyframes spinning it. Afterwards I grabbed random objects and tossed in 2-3 random rotations. It’s going to be a royal pain to do that many pieces though.

Here’s the blend if you want to have a look, and have fun keyframing…
Again the lego man was modeled by rioforce on blendswap (link above)
Blend on dropbox

Hello!

This is final version (it really differs from starting concept) of this project:

Thanks to all who helped me! =)

Bravo. That is some portfolio-worthy work right there.

Wow, very nice!

Did you ever figure out a way to do it with force fields, or did you just keyframe it all?

Thanks!
It all was keyframed because a haven’t anymore time to find a way (or prove that there isn’t such way) to do it with forces and particles.
I spent about 28 hours at all animation stuff, according to my records. And about same amount of time or even more at limitless “improvements” and “creative ideas” of customer. ))))
Basic tornado animation took about 6 hours from the end to the beginning: there are about 150 individual objects (I teared phone apart manually too to avoid any chance of bugs with anything) linked to severad helpers, some of them linked to another helpers too. It were animated simultaneously and most tedious part of work was offsetting keys for every part for certain amount of frames and the fine-tuning resulting animation:


That is a serious looking graph editor. The result is excellent though.