Chapter Descriptions

How DMM Works

Before we begin, lets take a look at how DMM works and get a better understanding of how it works. With this understanding we can get a better idea and feel more confident working with the plug-in.

Loading DMM

A quick tut showing us how to load the DMM plug-in and getting it ready for us to use.

Primitives

Primitive DMM objects are a quick way of creating already made DMM objects and can be used in so many ways, let's discuss how to create them and see how they can be used in this tutorial.

Creating DMM Objects

In these tutorials we will learn and explain the different ways how to create DMM objects and why we would use those different ways, how we would use them

and finding the best ways to suite the project at hand.

Applying Materials

In this tutorial we will apply and create our own materials for our DMM objects which will give us objects that look,behave and mimic real world materials such as glass, metal, wood and many other materials seen in the real world and even allow us to create materials that don't belong in the real world. We will be learning how to change existing materials and control them by understanding the attributes at hand.

SplinterCages

We will learn how to import image files to create obj objects to define the shapes of our actual fractures. Also, how to duplicate and bind them together giving us the results we are after. We will learn an understanding of SplinterCages, how they work and how to set them up with our DMM objects.

Creating Your Own SplinterCages

We will learn that there are no limits to what we can create, and we can have absolute control over the shapes of our fractures for our DMM objects. We will create a SplinterCage from scratch and learn how to use them to define a specific fracture, and only effect the regions that we want.

Passive Regions

Passive regions can be used in a variety of ways. They allow us to really mold and fix our objects in place. In this chapter, we will learn how to use them and what they can be used for.

Glue Regions

Glue regions help us to stick objects together and still be active DMM objects, in this tutorial we will learn how to use them and how to control them.

Density Regions

Density regions can really help us focus on areas that we may need higher resolution in, without effecting the areas that we do not need the extra resolution. We will learn how to create them and control them and place them in areas that we would like to focus on.

Maya Fields

We will learn how to apply and bind maya fields to our DMM objects and help control our objects to get the results that we are looking for within our simulations.

Carry On Force

In this tutorial we will learn how to animate a passive DMM object and then turn it into an active object and allow the animation keyed for the passive object to follow on into the simulation once turned into an active DMM object. Allowing DMM to complete our animations in the most accurate way.

Materials and Shaders

We will learn how to texture both the outside of a DMM object including using a different material for the inside  fractures of our DMM objects.

Cache

Once we are happy with our simulations and have set up our scene we can the learn how to cache our simulations freeing up our scene to be able to work

quickly and allow us to scrub back and forth on our timeline to see and work with our simulations allot faster, This will allow us to tweak other aspects of our scenes and allow us to fix our simulations in place so we know exactly what we can expect.

Master Project (Large Scale Destruction)

In this exercise we will apply allot of what we have learnt in the lessons before and learn how to use them in a real scene. We will set up a few simulations and allow them to all interact with each other, We will find a few problems that might occur and learn how to sort them out,  once we are happy we will cache out our simulation and add a camera to complete this little exercise.

About The Artist

Ryan Lewis, 32 years old, working in London as a Visual Effects Guru and Generalist for top end clients, finds himself among friends now that he has joined the cmiVFX team. We are happy to be working together, and are looking forward to a future full of top notch training in all different aspects of the industry. As an expert generalist, Ryan has a slew of new tricks up his sleeve that he will be sharing with you. For now, this video is a must for any Maya or 3DS Max artist…. PERIOD.

Project Contents

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