How did I deal with…?
Simulating a Fluid Injection for a Shoe Sole Using nParticles in Maya
The goal of this project is to make a video showing the fabrication process of a rigid sole. First, visualizing the plastic injection in fluid state and later, how it solidifies. Here are some frames from the finished video (© Manicx for Bauerfeind):
I'm accomplishing this commission dividing the tasks in 3 chunks:
Briefing
The briefing is providing the following information:
- I'm modeling and texturing from a physical sample, and
- I have to make the pre-production from scratch.
Once I can count on an approved pre‑production and my model is ready, I am using them as containers to simulate the particles.
Simulation tactics
- Making 2 animations from the same camera, first for the solid and second for the fluids (I'm using Maya nParticles)
- Applying similar materials on both
- Using procedural textures only for the simulation, and
- Letting 2 Nuclei solve the simulations plus several emitters, colliding with a copy of the soles' geometry.
These are the simulations for the X component and envelope:
Rendering
Once my simulations are complete:
- I'm caching them
- Lighting the scene using HDRI
- Rendering to EXR, and
- Importing into Nuke for compositing.
If you want to know more about VFX, click on these case studies:
