After realising Gnomons 'Dynamics' series wasn't going to be a good source of learning for me, I decided to give Digital Tutors a try. After a quick look through their material, I started on their 'Introduction to Dynamics in Maya' lessons (more information here).
Looking at the individual tutorials within this lesson, there was bound to be some overlap. However, I felt that it would provide a good opportunity to consolidate the learning I already have, and fill in any gaps in my knowledge (I find Digital Tutors to be extremely thorough in explaining features).
After completing the first 5-6 lessons, I decided to experiment with some colour techniques which will prove useful for my project with the University mathematics division. Part of this project will feature cells which change type, and each type is associated with a different colour - I needed to find a way to animate an object between colours effectively. More importantly, I needed to find a way to control the colour changes in particles, as these are more likely to be used moving forwards.
The first example shows some simple 'particle rain/snow' which has keyframed colour changes, and works very well. Although the particle effects are not what I'm looking for, I was testing colour here, and this has worked as hoped. Since I already have Lambert shaders setup with the colour changes, I also needed to find a way to use these, as particles use Particle Cloud shaders. Fortunately I can simply plug the coloured Lambert into the colour input of the Particle Cloud shader, providing an additional level of control.
The second example shows something a bit more fun. After my experimentation in the first video, I realised I could make some decent-looking snow. After modeling a basic landscape, with a hill and some simple trees, I created a snow particle effect, with a small amount of randomness applied to it. After creating this short clip, it really made me wish there was snow outside!
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