Watch The Flag

This post is going to be commenting on a new technique I have learnt, which is to make a flag blow in the wind and use the wind element in the space wraps section to give the flag a more realistic feel.

Firstly I had to create the basics of the flag which involved creating a plane and a cylinder. These were the only two objects that I needed for this model. Next I needed to add a modifier called cloth to the plane, once I had done this I needed to  group one side of the vertices to the cylinder. Which was done by clicking 'make group', then clicking on node and clicking the cylinder, this would make the plane stayed attached to the cylinder (and not blow off the screen).

Next job was to add a material to the plane, which was a simple American flag as I was creating an American flag for my ship. Then I decided to create a colour for my flag pole which was a simple black colour with some gloss added.

Next I needed to change the object properties which was done by going to the plane's cloth modifier and clicking 'object properties', then clicking on plane, selecting cloth and choosing silk from the drop-down menu under cloth properties.

This screenshot shows the option that need to be selected in order to create a realistic looking flag.

Next part is to create the wind so that the flag can blow about as if it was outside. This was done by choosing the space warps section in 3Ds Max and placed on the side that I want the flag to blow from. Then I changed the properties of the wind (strength, turbulence etc). Then I needed to choose the plane again and click cloth forces, then add the wind to the forces in simulation. Once I had completed all these steps it was the moment of truth and I needed to simulate the flag blowing, which basically created my short animation for me.

This is the flag that I have created in action.

Finally to add this was something completely new to me and felt this was part of my new learning technique, its something that I needed to create for my model, however I wanted to try something new and see if I could create something that I never thought I would be able to do, and found creating a flag quite easy.

References

CyberAsero, 2009. 3D Max Phlippine Flag Tutorial. [video online] Available at:<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3eeTgAPoNQ> [Accessed 14 November 2012].

[image online] Available at:<http://www.jfilmfestival.org/partners.html> [Accessed 21 November 2012].