Cascade and Anime Manga Style

[danath]

Hello guys ,

i have some questions about requirements to do some stuffs :

please see this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2cZx...eature=related

Question 1. At 13 seconds there is a circle around the foot of the guy , is that 3D ? is that 2D ? if it's 2D how many picture do i need to do something like that ? if it's 3D how do i do that ?
Question 2. At 18 seconds the guys has sort of transparent tentacules around him , is that 3D ? so is that a mesh ? if yes do i have to animate the mesh before importing into cascade ?
Question 3. at 1 min 14 or 15 ( depends on your computer ) the guys is disappearing leaving a cloud , is that 3D ? 2D ? i guess it's 2D then how many picture do i need to have the same thing ?

Thanks !

P.S : I'm sorry if you have an advert on the video but please see it

[danath]

No one knows cascade ?

[strangelet]

1 -

two ways you could try for this. both are TypeData choices in an emitter...
Ribbons / trails,
- this is where the emitter draws a geometry ribbon behind the particle, which can be textured. you would have to get the emitter attatched to the guy's foot bone, use SpawnPerUnit to have it spawn a new trail section when the emitter has moved by x amount etc. plenty of docs on trails in the UDN

or a custom mesh
this mesh would have to be a sweeping curve, with UVs that run across the width or height of a whole texture sheet.
this, you would have the emitter spawn once, in position, then you could use a material effect (like a panner or a gradient run through a sine node with Time added to it) to do the *sweeping* effect - which would follow the direction of the UVs. again, plenty of docs on this in the UDN.

note - mesh materials for particles have to use the MeshEmitterVertexColor node rather than the regular VertexColor node. this made me pull my hair out for hours. only THEN can you use the Color modules in cascade to affect its material. note also that meshes have their own rotation modules in cascade.

2 -
i dont think you can do animated mesh - emitters dont support skeletal meshes (with bones) and im not sure about the old multi-mesh animation method, but you could investigate.
what i'd do is make one tentacle mesh (or a couple of different types) , and spawn lots of those, animated within the emitter to rotate along its length, which should look quite like wiggling. that would create a lil cluster of tentacles.
if you really want an animated mesh to appear (perhaps like the cloud of bats) i think it has to be done in script as a projectile system rather than an emitter effect.


3 - that cloud looks like the regular use of billboarded particles (planes that always face the camera) with some nice transparent textures on them. spawn a lot of them, and it looks 3d because altho the particles themselves are billboards, they all have their own position and move correctly relative to eachother.

[wkladis]

There is actually some cool new modules in Cascade to emit from skeletal meshes! It's poorly documented, but I got to use it for the first time in a freelance project last month.

You can use Skel Vert/Suft Loc inside of the location modules section. You have to create an array of bones from the skeletal mesh that you want to emit from inside of Cascade. Then place the emitter in your map, open the particle system component, and create an instance parameter. You then must use the same "name" slot in your instance parameter and the "skel mesh actor param name" inside of your module in cascade. Then hook up your skeletal mesh to the 'actor' section back in the map.

It's not perfect, but it works. I'm hoping to do a tutorial covering this in the near future.