Animating Fluids in Maya

Back in the Maya class that I took last semester, our final project was to explore the uses of a tool that we hadn't covered in class, or to find other ways of using a tool that we had already used. For my project, I decided to take a look at how fluids could be simulated in the application. Fluids consist of anything without a defined shape that can be acted upon by forces, so I created some brief simulations of an explosion and fire. Through the use of particle emitters, along with other variable modifiers (such as turbulence and directional constrainers), I was able to create the renders I've included along with this post. Seeing as how we've just started using Maya in this class, I figured I'd talk a little about the experience I've already had with it.

Artistic/Creative Thinking and Me

I've never really considered myself good at creative and artistic thinking. I get too bogged down in either why any sort of creative idea that I come up with is either too difficult for me to actually do or too silly for me to seriously consider actually following through on. Conversely, I do consider myself pretty good at learning how to use a particular application with which I could create creative and artistic works, such as Maya and (hopefully) After Effects. The issue then becomes getting those two things to work in tandem, so I don't either have what I consider to be a good idea that's way too difficult for me to actually do or know exactly how to make something, but think that the idea is too stupid and scrap it.

It took me a little while, but in the last class that I took that involved thinking like that (my Maya class), I was able to create some pretty cool stuff when I got my act together. I figured that I'd share one of the only animations that I made there, because I like how it turned out and it could give anyone who hasn't seen Maya before a very small (and very simplistic) glimpse at what can be done in it. The animation is of a toy robot assembly line, because toy robots can be made out of simple polygons and those are easy to work with.

Apparently Quicktime files don't work too well...