Simple Ashing Effect 3d's max tu tutorial

You may have seen this effect many movies and I can remind Blade or IronMan. Actually this is different from “Ashing” effect, but I couldn’t find any other suitable name. If you have a name for this effect please suggest.

In this tutorial I’m using it on a Teapot.

Part One : Setting the Materials

1. First create a Teapot, a PF Source, a Wind spacewarp and a Camera.

2. Select the Teapot and assign a UVW Mapping modifier. Set the mapping type to cylindrical and alignment to Z axis. Then click Fit.

3. Now assign a Material modifier and leave ID to 1.

4. Go to the Material Editor and assign Multi/Sub-Object material to a slot.

5. Go to the first Material and rename it as “PF Birth”. Then assign a Gradient Ramp to the Diffuse map.

6. Set the gradient ramp’s colors as in Fig:2 . Set W-angle = 90 , Noise Amount = 0.08 and Noise Type = Fractal.

7. Turn on Show Map In Viewport and apply the material to the Teapot.

8. Now move the Time Slider to 60th frame and turn on Auto Key.

9. Move the sliders in the gradient ramp to right so the white area is now in right corner.

10. Auto Key is still on go to frame 0 and move the white area to the left corner. Turn of Auto Key.

Now we got the small white column moving left corner to right in 60 frames.
Play the animation and you will see a white ring moves from top to bottom of the teapot.

11. Back in PF Birth material Swap the Diffuse map with Opacity map. Now the Opacity map has the gradient ramp and Diffuse map is empty.
(We assigned the gradient ramp to the Diffuse map just to see it in viewport. Originaly we need it in the Opacity map.)

12. Go back to the Multi/Sub-Object material and copy the “PF Birth” material to the second slot and rename it as “Mat Teapot”.

13. Go to the “Mat Teapot” material’s opacity map which is the same gradient ramp.

14. Delete the two sliders that makes the white area’s right border. And set right corner color to white.

Move the time slider and be sure the animation is still remain.

15. “Mat Teapot” is the original material of the teapot.  So change the Diffuse color and other parameters(except opacity) as you want.
If you use a Specular level be sure to copy the Opacity map to Specular Color map.

16. To create the material for the particles select an empty slot and rename it to “Mat Dust”

17. Change Diffuse color to match the teapot’s color. Enable Face Map.

18. Assign a Gradient to the Opacity map. Change Gradient Type to Radial.

Part Two : Setting the Particle Flow

When working with  Particle View, it’s a good habit to save your scene very often.  Sometimes 3dmax crashes when using higher particle amounts. Switching to wire-frame mode in all viewports will help real time playback.

1. Select the teapot and go to the command panel. In Material modifier change Material ID to 2.

2. Select the Wind space warp and set Strength = 0.55, Turbulence = 10 and Frequency =12

3. Go the Particle View (press 6 key) and select Birth 01 operator. Set Emit Stop = 60 and Amount = 4000.

4. Replace the Position Icon 01 operator with a Position Object operator.

5. Add Teapot01 as the emitter object and turn on Density by Material (in Location group). Change type to Opacity.

6. Turn on Use Sub-Material and set Mtl ID = 1.

7. In Speed 01 operator set Speed = 8.4* and turn on Reverse.

*The value for the Speed depends on the scale of your object. At the 60th frame particles should be positioned as in Fig5-B. Note that particles are close to the object. Adjust the speed value get a similar look.

8. Add a Force operator and select Wind01. Set Influence = 10.

9. Replace the Shape 01 with a Shape Facing operator and select Camera01 as Look at Camera/Object.

10. Add a Material Static operator and select the “Mat Dust” as the material for particles.

• Now we are done with the effect, this is how it appears in perspective view.

Source : tutorialized.com