3DS Max Space Combat Test Revision 1

I changed up the lighting with Vray lights in this version. Also made the fighters move faster, a little bit more nimble. I also redesigned the fighters a little so that the missile ejections seem more realistic. I also redesigned the main cabin on the big ship to show a surrounding hallway and visible people running on the inside.

I still have some issues with a couple of the fighter animations both of them being right before both missile fires, I spent several hours trying to fix the keys but they just seem to jump around unrealistically.

I wanted to continue rendering the sequence but, in the explosion scenes, the Afterburn particles were taking 1.5 hours to render each frame!!

Made: 7/21/08

Re-uploaded for higher quality.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• 3ds
• max
• space
• combat
• missile
• explosion
• fight
• film
• animation
• visual
• effects
• studio
• vfx
• battle
• star
• afterburn
• mindbend

[Enigwolf]

Neat job! I love the attention to detail there.

I'm guessing the explosions were done in After Effects, and the missiles/missile smoketrails were particles?

[MindbendStudios]

The only thing that was done in After Effects where the people running in the bridge (last scene). Explosions/smoke were done in 3DS Max using Afterburn. They looked good but were really inefficient at 7-9 minutes render time per frame (which is why the video is cut short!).

[Enigwolf]

Grumble. I was looking for alternatives to Afterburn. =X Yeah, that does render REALLY slow.

[MindbendStudios]

Efficiency with Afterburn gives very impressive results and very difficult. Allan Mckay is a master at afterburn, and some of his tutorials show that you can get really great results with few particles. I'm still going through his DVD tutorials, they are really good.

[moviemaker933]

I'm a noob with 3D's Max, I started a week ago, so forgive me if this is a dumb question. But what is the difference between FumeFX and Afterburn. I've never heard of Afterburn, just FumeFX for explosions and stuff.

[MindbendStudios]

FumeFX is a fluid dynamics simulator, and Afterburn is volumetrics effects. Both are used extensively and for different purposes, I like FumeFX for smaller more controlled fire and explosions (like a car bomb, or C4 detonation), I like Afterburn for larger explosions and using pflow. But that's just personal preference, either of them can be used for any purpose, it just takes a lot of practice.

[Arjunyg]

Wow this is amazing...*stares blanky at screen for hours*

If only it was longer

[TheodenN]

@MindbendStudios

You don't really have to use Afterburn for this scene.

Afterburn is a really high quality simulation plug-in but compared to the overall visiuals of this scene Afterburn's effects look too good. The particles can be rather simple like the rest of the visiuals. Nice animation by the way.

[t3t011]

Haha, this makes the little project I spent a month on look like a piece of crap! Nice one man!

[Kroy23]

friggin epic, you should work on this scene a bit more and make it even better :D