United3dArtists Archive

Started playing a bit with Pyrocluster in trueSpace 5. It has been a WHILE since I last used it, so I had anticipated a total "re-learning" of the interface would be required. Surprisingly it just sorta "came back" to me as I was experimenting.

The one thing I can't figure out (and I believe I didn't get satisfactory results with this back then) is the best way to render out for compositing with live-action footage.
Rendering to white and using a Multiply mode in After Effects isn't ideal, as the Pyrocluster smoke itself becomes semi-transparent. Same with rendering to Black and using other overlay modes.

By the way... simply rending to a 32-bit TGA w/ alpha channel doesn't work, as tS only recognizes solid objects... not the PC effect.

Rendering to pure green (RGB 0,255,0) works, as I can key the green out, but since I'm using the built-in keyers in AE - not the fancy greenscreen plugins - I lose some of the nice whispy edges of the smoke.

Have thought of maybe rendering the Pyrocluster on an arbitrary solid background color (likely neutral gray - RGB 128,128,128) and then re-rendering the effect with an all-white smoke, to generate an alpha map.

Just thinking there has to be an easier way.

Ideas?

Howdy Frank
If you want smoke-like effects with alpha channel then AE is better suited for this with the Particle Effects plug-in. Here you will get control over the alpha, colour, turbulence, animation of all of them and lots else. It provides much better control than tS pyroCluster.
pyroCluster for tS is better suited for rendering simple planes for later compositing.
pyroCluster is used for sky background throughout this winning animation from march 2004.
http://www.caligari.com/gallery/anim" ations/2004/mar/default.asp?Cate=GImages
This was much time consuming and if i had known of AE capabilities then i wouldn't have bothered messing with pyroCluster!
HTH

Maybe this tutorial from videocopilot will help:

http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/smoke_screen/"

Saul and Clinton: THANKS a bunch!