Dynamic Effects

Maya Techniques with Alex Alvarez

Sample Clip

Maya Dynamic Effects Series

$86

Bullets, Dust Hits and Debris

  • Duration: 179 min
  • # of chapters: 4

When objects impact the ground, such as bullets or footsteps, one often expects to see an effect such as a puff of dust (dust hit) or a burst of debris. This four part tutorial demonstrates how to create dust hits and debris from bullets hitting the ground, fired by an animated jet fighter composited into a live action background.

Pixie Dust Using Sprites

  • Duration: 94 min
  • # of chapters: 2

Pixie dust... magical powder that emanates from the land of faery and those that inhabit it. Associated with Disney films, Pixie Dust also manages to find itself in movie theatre promos, bumpers, commercials and many video games. This tutorial demonstrates how to create a dynamic Pixie Dust effect using sprites.

Creating and Rendering Sparks

  • Duration: 60 min

Sparks are a fairly common, yet simple, effect that can be effectively created using Maya dynamics. This tutorial demonstrates sparks from a collision, as well as from a pulsing (expression driven) emitter. Starting from scratch we generate the required elements to produce the effect: volume emitter, particles, fields, animation, expressions, Collision Events, particle shader and utility nodes. For rendering we utlize the Tube software render type as the final output, yet we also discuss how sparks can be rendered using the MultiStreak hardware render type.

Sprite Rendering Fundamentals

  • Duration: 26 min

Sprite rendering of particles is an incredibly efficient and powerful method for designing an almost unlimited variety of effects. When particles are set to Sprites, an image or sequence (with transparency) can be mapped onto the individual particles. As any image can be used, the possibilities are endless: Snowflakes, optiFX, smoke, fog, dust, fire, splashes, flying birds, dust hits, etc. This tutorial demostrates the fundamental knowledge necessary to utilize sprite rendering in Maya. Shader set-up and managing PP attributes (spriteNum, spriteScale, spriteTwist, lighting) are discussed.

Ground Explosion

  • Duration: 180 min
  • # of Chapters: 3

This tutorial demonstrates how to generate a volumetric ground explosion that is software rendered with cloud particles. Through the use of emitters, particles, fields, collisions, instancing, expressions, cloud shading, lighting, rendering and compositing, the effect is generated from scratch.

These videos are available as Digital Downloads only, at a resolution of 1024x768. Software requirements: QuickTime Movie Player (Version 7.0 or higher).

Alex Alvarez

Founder, Director The Gnomon Workshop,
Gnomon School of Visual Effects

Alex is founder and director of The Gnomon Workshop and of the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Hollywood. Having dedicated the last decade to educating students and professional artists around the world, Alex has helped change the face of computer graphics and design education. He has been published in industry magazines, websites and books - plus he has taught courses at several major trade conferences. Alex is president of the Los Angeles Maya Users Group and sits on the Advisory Boards for Highend3D.com and CGsociety. He continues to work on personal and professional projects, recently as a creature development artist on the James Cameron film Avatar. Prior to Gnomon, Alex worked for Alias|Wavefront as a consultant and trainer for studios in the Los Angeles area. Alex is an alumnus of the Art Center College of Design and the University of Pennsylvania.

"Whenever I need to breathe life into my characters, Alex Alvarez is where I go. Whether it be to collaborate on concepts with him directly or to watch his DVDs, I am always confident in accessibility to great information. Not only has his technical prowess pulled me out of many holes, but his character sense has given rise to some wonderful moments on some major motion pictures (Avatar and Star Trek). These new DVD's encapsulate what I gush about. Crazy and creative character design coupled with empowering technical know how."

- Neville Page
Character/Concept Designer