For a long time, practical effects have been thought to be the only way tp "simulate" realistic demolition and explosion effects in the movie industry. Many directors accepted the artificial model-like look that came along with an out-of-scale lighting, shadow, flame, fire and dust look caused by the unrealistic scale of any miniature effect.
The era of miniature demolition and practical effects is seeing the last of its days. thinkingParticles has evolved into a stable, fast and easy-to-use rigid body and fluid dynamics effects system, which offers unmatched flexibility and power for 3ds Max production pipelines.
Take a look at the example shown below. When you analyze this scene, you will discover that there is a type of shockwave running through the sphere object. This shockwave effect is fully controllable through thinkingParticles. Everything you see here is rule-based! No single keyframe was used to create the animation shown below.
thinkingParticles - Demolition done right !
thinkingParticles offers one of the industries' best Rigid Body Dynamics solvers capable of creating accurate and stable results even when working with very low Sub-Frame Sample rates, which is key to speed and high volume animation F/X output.
In combination with Fume F/X, thinkingParticles 5 outperforms any other possible combination of fluid solver and particle system. Tightly integrated with Fume F/X, dedicated thinkingParticles operators enable the creation of the most amazing mixture of effects with modern CG technology.
Lets Destroy the whole world !
Roland Emmerich's movie "2012" is a good example, if not the best, of the massive technological shift into modern CG technology. Effects, once thought to be impossible in CG, are finally possible and affordable with the release of thinkingParticles 5. The amount of work and progress in software technology achieved in the latest release of thinkingParticles is remarkable.
See for yourself; below is a compilation of "simple" tests done for the movie project "2012":
