Max Explosion: Addendum

By Alex Kiriako, Associate Editor, 3D Artist

We've had several questions from readers about the Max Explosion article by Stefan Didak on page 18 of 3D Artist issue #24. One problem a reader had came from not synchronizing the particle object's G-buffer ID to the same ID in the Video Post Glow filter event. Another difficulty resulted when the default setting in the Video Post Glow filter dialog was left on Material Channel rather than being switched to Object Channel.

All the necessary steps are there in the article, but here they are again in a simpler order just for creating a single particle object.
___ Go into a new Max scene and create a single spray particle system. For quicker rendering, set the render count to 500, and, for better visibility, set the Drop Size to, say, five.
___ Select your particle's object and then right click to select its properties attributes. Make sure the G-Buffer is set to one and click OK.
___ Go into Video Post and create your Edit Scene Event and simply select the viewport from which you want to render (try Perspective), then click OK. Now create an Edit Filter Event and choose Glow [in 3DS Max r1.1, it is Glow (frame only)].
___ Next click on the Setup button to go into the Glow Control dialog.
___ Make sure Object Channel is checked and the spinner is set to the same number as it was set in the Properties G-Buffer setting for the particles object (set it to one).
___ Size should be about 15 to 20.
___ Create an Output Event to an AVI file and run it.
___ That's it, one part of the basic explosion.

Thanks to the readers who told us where they had problems. For more about the Glow buffer and filter, see the r1 3DS Max Manual pages 36-10 and 36-14.

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Revised: 31 Dec 98
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