HelicopterNow Addon, Work in progress

[tree]

3DTree_HelicopterNow! addon



The video just about shows it all.
Best viewed in full screen. Can take a look over Here if you like to comment directly on the video

Helicopter:
I hope to have 3-5 different helicopter models (with the same basic rotor system, so animations will match)
using the multi-parts system (much like how ms houses are made) so it will be easy to change textures and even meshes.


4 of Mesh used in 'helicopter004' prop
The simple one will be set as default (at >300faces) with a choice to change the mesh to higher specs.
The default makes a great 'place holder' until you are ready to setup for rendering.

Currently the helicopter has only one auto-animation (takeoff, land and takeoff again)
and can easily be pulled along with moviestorm's 'animation paths'
I hope to add: 'start-up' and 'hover' auto-animations.

Adding and changing textures is also very easy by clicking on the areas you like to change with the popup options.

I'm unable to do 'menu driven' keyframed animations because that would mean moviestorm core
updates because 'animation-states' and 'verb' files extensions aren't written into addons.
Oh, And no knowledge of how to do it properly yet.
I'd Like to ask MSinc. if or when it's going to be possible...

------
Terrain:

At present 1 simple, huge terrain, built for using without the standard moviestorm mountains.
1 1024 default and 1500 high res alternative texture maps; spec, diff and normal included.


Grass:

This is a 2 sided viewable face grass patch that only can look good from 2 angles.
From the video, it's pretty realistic for such a simple prop.

Trees:

A very simple cross-section (mostly) palm grove that for the background.
From the video, you could probably see how well it looks at a distance though
poor at closeup.
Built only for background placement.

Pyro:

'Movable' smoke and explosion pyro props that can be key-framed to explode
and smoke up the place.

movable smoke makes for a great smoke trail in the trees with a choice of any colours.

The movable feature of these pyro props is unknown if this is a standard feature or
it will be changed in future MS versions.
Question to MovieStorminc. developers:is movable smoke/explosions pyro a standard feature?

Required addons:
No required addons, though you will need a moviestorm subscription to run.

3DTreeHelicopterNow is Not going to be a free addon,
though it'll be more then reasonable.


Possible release date: End of May or early June.

[lucindamc123]

How do you do auto animation and have it work in Moviestorm? Is this something new we can do?

[squirrelygirl]

Wow! Awsome job, tree! I'm not sure which prop I love more, they're all great!

[ed]

Wow indeed!

[andy_price]

very nice work

[Armanus]

awesome!

[tree]

A good question (from Lucindamc123) for the "Moviestorm modding" forum. It's not new and yes everybody could do (even in blender though 3dsMax is preferred) Not so easy though. :-)

Hey thanks (squirrelygirl,Armanus,andy_price and ed) everybody who liked it.
You'll get a chance to experiment which you will like the best soon.


The helicopter animation was a bit tricky to get the 'rotation per frame' right for it to look good at rendering. and to make a good animation that can be happily used with 'path-animation keyframes' within moviestorm...
Fast animations of the rotors can't animate 100% properly in 'real-time' views, so it may look a little slow or different until it's rendered.

Imagine if i could use "menu driven keyframed" animations: key in takeoff,hover, landing then let 'path-animations' do the rest. There are so many things i could do with "menu animations"; ceiling fans,revolving doors,windmills....
Until i can do that, I plan on making a 'hover' and 'takeoff' variation on the original animation prop.
No plans for interiors/cockpits though :-(

Still building a little more versatility into the textures and meshes ;
mending a few minor bugs... maybe even building a few extras....

Any wild ideas and extras for this addon and WIP with the same theme is welcome

[kv]

Well these look stunning as is, personally I cannot think of anything else for it

[AngryBlack]

Tree! I need you GRASS!

[roguevirus]

gob and smacked great work

[alonzo11208]

woot neato!

watchya mean by theme?

helicopter? military?

[tree]

Building up the scene with a few more props for the helicopterNow addon.
another pictorial WIP.


Six props but many variations:

1. Bungalow with 4 stages of integration
   2 shown here in Max:
   More in moviestorm: just the one prop:
   Fun to pull a prop apart like this, though it does get 4 times more complex with all the extra faces...
   The original hut had to be made simple with only 500 faces and 60 something components..
   smash it up just a bit and it grows to more then 2000faces then beyond what moviestorm would be happy with...
2. few more terrains that can transform in to a few different shapes
   Just one shown here:
   
   3DTree terrain ;-)
3. banana grove or just a banana tree variation.
   
4. More simple vegetation:
   Some of the things you can do; cross and layer them to end up with this:
   
   Click here (http://img710.imageshack.us/my.php?image=file22159.mp4) for how i made the picture above in mp4 video
   Generally there is no need to do this, as long as the vegetation is shown at the right angle
   most of the time only a few props would be enough.
   The main component of these vegetation props is transparency textures rather then mesh complexity.
   
5. bunker and a variation a bit more smashed up.
   In Max:
6. coconut grove
   ....

Working on a few more props for the scene.
IF You got any ideas for extras in the scene welcome to add your comments and PMs.
Sorry No set release date yet... 1 prop can take a week or just a few minutes...

Until the next update.... :-)

[iceaxe]

I'm impressed! I had no idea this sort of thing was even possible!

[bpgueze]

I wrote to you thre tyimes already with no reply, can I buy the Grass and the shak, I am waiting to finsh a movie and I need these items the move is 2 hours long.

SO again Can I have the GRASS and the Shak

[kkffoo]

This looks wonderful Tree.
Is there an automatic poly reduction system within 3ds max, or are you tweaking these variations by hand?

[tree]

I wrote to you thre tyimes already with no reply, can I buy the Grass and the shak, I am waiting to finsh a movie and I need these items the move is 2 hours long.

SO again Can I have the GRASS and the Shak

Appreciate your enthusiasm bpgueze, and replies were sent.
clearly, the addon isn't quiet ready yet, still a work in progress.
There is nobody who is paying me 50-60 plus dollars per hour to do this... it all takes time and a bit of enthusiasm from me for this hobby.

This looks wonderful Tree.
Is there an automatic poly reduction system within 3ds max, or are you tweaking these variations by hand?

Thanks, I do hope it would look even better in the final output.

'tweaking these variations by hand?' ? :-) yes.
'is there an automatic poly...?' No

The variations of shack and bungalow are done in various ways. For the shack i used some modifiers to warp the shape. For the bungalow i used some physics modifiers to pull all the parts away from their resting place then re-positioned them into cool places and cut them up a bit.
(I'm sure this can also be done in free programs like blender too)

Your question on 'automatic poly reduction':
Not automatic though there is a modifier called pro-optimization in max that can sometimes successfully reduce a mesh but that is rare to ever look good and be as small as a simple shape can be. Just about all the time, it's faster to re-build and use photos and objects as references.
Poly reduction makes things look ugly and ends up with so many gaps and irregular shapes (making so much tweaking necessary later); also it can almost never be as good (and low poly) as working with simple shapes.

There is a few stand-alone poly reduction softwares for sale that can help a little but still present the same problems as mentioned above...

The bungalow

has 70something component shapes/primatives in many modifying 'stacks'. Then it can be packaged all together as one mesh.
For the bamboo support post; the simple shape of a cylinder can easily be modified and built up into many variations.
If i have bungalow as one poly mesh and then try to reduce the poly count with a "pro-optimize" it gets ugly and never as poly small.

[ralcoast]

nice

[PapaG]

any Estimated release date?

[brandon_montoya]

This looks to be a nice add on. I'm new to MovieStorm and I've seen a few lame add ons with people asking for pay but this is NICE. I mean seriously NICE. I will definitely buy this one off of you.

[Nahton]

Just amazing stuff Tree. So the take off and landing is animation and not the drag along a path capaibility? I didn't actually see a helicopter take off and then fly in a horizontal path or go from a horizontal path into a landing. So is it a case where you can't do that and have to use cut aways to film it? I'm just trying to understand the animation of the prop which to me is baffling.