Hello folks!
I had a great opportunity to work on a project for IKM Canada. The work scope involved creating an animation and a number of 3D assets to illustrate 3 different types of cuts which can be performed with this technology. To explain is simply, the machine which goes in circles (bug) shoots a water jet capable of cutting metal and concrete. There's a pump on a truck (inside the container) which supplies it with pressurised water and abrasive grit which gets mixed together inside the bug. The water pressure varies between 10,000-35,000 PSI. Cool fact - water jet cutting can be used underwater too :)
On a technical side, whole animation has been created in MODO 801. It's been a great learning curve for me, especially when it comes to animation in this package. One of the biggest challenges for me was to figure out how to animate hoses attached to bugs. I went through 3 different techniques but only one of them worked for me and gave me enough control over them. Hoses have been simulated using MODO dynamics solver and Dynamic Curves - new addition to 801. I used Target Camera to achieve smooth, fly-through motion. As for modelling part of the project I didn't have much time to spend on it. Existing models had to be tweaked to match needs of this project. The truck has been found online and retextured to make it look more Canadian. Some elements (i.e. truck load) have been modelled from scratch. Mountain terrain has been created in World Machine and exported as displacement map.
Rendering has been done on 4 computers with render times between 3 to 7 minutes per frame. Brute force, Monte Carlo algorithm has been utilised to simulate Global Illumination. Whole scene has been lit with one directional light. Atmospheric fog has been added to increase realism of the scene.
Rendered frames have been stitched together using After Effects. Not much has been done in post-processing. Simple gamma correction (from 1.0 to 2.2), levels and curves.
Whole project took me a 3.5 weeks to finish including project planning, modelling, animation, solving animation problems, rendering, re-rendering parts which client wanted to change and finally publishing.
And here are some test renders showing progression of the project. Some textures had to be repainted in higher resolution than originally created. Green placeholders represent where the cuts will take place. In the final aniamtion stationary crane had to be replaced with a boom crane for greater realism/engineering accurecy.
