I set up my new computer today. I’ve got a 4090 now baby! Gotta be careful with that—I might forget to optimize my VFX!
Setting up the computer took over 5 hours, but I pride myself in doing things right the first time. I even got rClone setup and successfully syncing my media files for this Obsidian vault. It works between both my Macbook and PC, and now I can move onto the next phase of actually hosting these dev logs online!
Before that, though, I need to get a good clip of me using this new project because FilmGate Miami is looking to do promo for the Frost Museum event I’ll be showing off this project in. I literally just realized while typing this that the event is less than two weeks away. Holy shit. The thing I’ll need in order to make my clip look awesome is to improve the particle initialization from the hands. I’m still brainstorming the exact process for this and will sleep on it.
After setting up the computer, I took my dog for a walk to get some fresh air and prepare for the work ahead. In the process of clearing my head, some really amazing ideas for the experience came to me, and they absolutely need to be listed here.
- A point cloud invisibility cloak. Sounds magical doesn’t it? I’d render the point cloud data as a mesh, then create a custom shader that projects the camera feed onto the mesh in a way that completely obfuscates it. I’m sure something like this is possible because people need invisibility cloaks in games (and hopefully don’t just reduce mesh transparency when they need one). Anyways, I’d use this to create realistic environment masks and colliders for the particles.
- Directional turbulent noise based on hand momentum. I already add noise to displace the energy sphere, but what if the if that noise could be adapted to follow the momentum of the sphere. I’ve wanted to introduce momentum based distortion for quite some time, but I figured that feature would have to be a necessary sacrifice once I got metaballs working. Now I wonder if I could create my desired distortion effects by simply using noise!
For either of these features, the way through is by creating test scenes. And for me, right now, as my friends wishfully beckon me out for July 4th firework adventures, I need to sleep.