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Legacy FX Tutorials

Here you can find literally hours of content on Particle Flow, Fume FX, Afterburn, Dynamics, Compositing and other FX related material for 3D Studio Max.

Before you download – nearly all of these use the camtasia techsmith codec you can download here

These tutorials are labeled LEGACY as they are all pre 2009. As part of this websites redesign I’ve archived these here as they are still downloaded 150-200 times a day, and 99% of the information is still very valid and useful in day to day production and learning. However I plan on building loads of new content, some of which will re-cover some of the same material here.

If you have any cool ideas for tutorials or subjects you would like to see covered, shoot me a quick email!

If you find this information useful, please feel free to tweet/diggs/stumble or whatever it is you do to get this information out there for others to discover!

Thanks!
-Allan McKay

Case Study: Galaxy
Level Advanced
Duration 19 mins
date: 2008
Link Download Here

Also known as Galaxy Explosion Tutorial – This is based on a 1 day pitch I put together for the new Dolby DTS logo piece. This isn’t the actual pitch but a quick remake of it just explaining how it was built and a lot of the concepts behind it. This is interesting as its a more hands on tutorial rather than theory, going through creating the particles, shaders and rendering them and then later compositing all of the elements together.

Particle Flow: Particle Dispersion
Level Intermediate
Duration ~15 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Pretty much a coin phrased term now, this was one of the first tutorials for particle flow I ever put together, based on a simple fx test I put together in 2003 to demonstrate particle flows potential for 3dsmax 6’s launch event. This takes a simple concept of creating particles and having them blow away in a control motion through taking advantage of particle flows events driven system.

Particle Flow: Rain dripping System
Level Advanced
Duration 45 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Another very popular tutorial that still holds up very well by todays standards. This tutorial covers how to build a rain drop system and have it create automated splashes on the ground when rain drops come in contact. But takes the method one step further, with rain drops that land on the main object in the scene, will then run down the surface leaving a trail of water as they do, and then fall off and splash on the ground. Highly Recommended

Fume FX Tutorial 1: Intro
Level Beginner
Duration 18 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Tutorial

In this Fume FX Tutorial we go through the basic functions of Fume FX in 3dsmax, including the interface, primary controls and how to initially set up a example of fire burning in ffx.

Fume FX Tutorial 2: Explosions
Level intermediate
Duration 16 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

In this exercise we cover the basic principles of creating explosions through heat/fuel/expansion etc. This was recorded as a very quick demonstration of the principles of explosions, I’ve since then developed several methods for building explosions for production that are a lot more advanced, so this is a core tutorial to get the basic understandings down – but I will be releasing some more up to date exercises on this very soon.

Fume FX Tutorial 3: Fuel Maps
Level intermediate
Duration 5 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

A very quick tutorial on Fume FX to understand the principles of fuel, and also utilizing fuel maps to drive fume fx simulations. In this example we’re able to create fire burning from one end an object along to the other over time, and in specified areas we control.

Fume FX Tutorial 4: Particle Flow Events
Level beginner
Duration 5 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

A quick method I discovered fairly early into Fume FX’s initial release that it appears most other people overlooked, so I put together a quick example of how I use use Fume FX and pflow together on a per-event basis.

Afterburn 4.0 #1: Introduction to the basics
Level intermediate
Duration 18 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Very quick tutorial on afterburn 4.0 and how it differs to 3.2, this example is a quick walkthrough of its controls and how to build some basic raymacher clouds.

Pflow Scripting: Attaching objects to particles
Level Advanced
Duration 13 mins
date: ~2007
Link Download Here

Quick introduction to particle flow scripting and linking physical objects to particles.

Maxscript for beginners 1: Basic Introduction
Level intermediate
Duration 14 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Very basic concept of maxscript, in this exercise we walk through the absolute basics for people who have never scripted before. How to build variables, modify objects etc. Designed for artists who want to jump into maxscript but want their hand held through their first few steps of getting their head around what it is and how it works.

Maxscript for beginners 2: Loops, Strings etc.
Level intermediate
Duration 17 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Very basic concept of maxscript, in this exercise we walk through the absolute basics for people who have never scripted before. Here we cover some more examples on building strings, generating objects, modifying them and building loops.

Maxscript for beginners 3: Building a scripted GUI
Level intermediate
Duration 11 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Moving forward in the maxscript beginners series, here we cover how to build a basic script and wrap it in a interface to use as a tool. This is an essential step in scripting, as we begin to develop actual tools.

Maxscript for beginners 4: Superstrings + Automation
Level Advanced
Duration 31 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

This is a much more advanced tutorial and very practical for maxscripters. Here we begin looking at SuperStrings and automating tasks such as reading directories, creating information and automating a lot of manual required tasks. Highly recommended.

Particle Flow Scripting: Particles Transform OBJ A>B
Level Advanced
Duration 28 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

This is another particle flow tutorial designed to script particles to transform from one object to another via pflow script.

Particle Flow Scripting: Utilizing the Quick-Frag Script
Level Advanced
Duration ~20 mins
date: ~2008
links Download Here
QuickFrag Script

Demonstrates how to use this quick script to fracture objects, but then import them into Particle Flow to completrly control through scripted events.

Particle Flow: Creating Particle Based Flames
Level Intermediate
Duration 30 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

Tutorial on creating flames using just particle geometry

Customize Interface: Customizing your UI basics
Level Intermediate
Duration 45 mins
date: ~2008
Link Download Here

This tutorial is an introduction to customizing your UI and setting it up to work better for how you work.

Particle Flow Scripting: Automated FX Tools Demonstration
Level Expert
Duration 20 mins
date: ~2008
Temporarily Offline

This is a demonstration of taking the strengths of maxscript to automate FX tools to do all of the work for you.

Pflow Basics: Setting Manual Initial State / Pflow Loops
Level Intermediate
Duration 6 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

This video tutorial is a bit out of date, as initially when pflow came out it didn’t have any ability to create an initial state, so here was a workaround for this.Initial state being pre-rolling your particles. However right after this I bugged Oleg B to create the initial state feature for pflow tools, as well as dozens of other cool tools – so fast forward to max 2010 it has initial state built in, however the method shown here has a lot of cool information on creating a nice shockwave effect, but also on creating particle looping events.

Please Note: The recording quality is quite blury, it was the first video tutorial I believe I ever recorded (I was writing tutorials rather than recording them back then!)

Pflow Basics: Deleting Particle Selections
Level Intermediate
Duration 6 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Old tutorial on the basics of being able to select and delete particles.

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Pflow Basics: Pflow attracting particles via forces
Level Intermediate
Duration 4 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Old tutorial on controlling particles via various forces. This is more old school ways of manipulating particles, that most people overlook these days, so I think its a good crash course in the core of particle manipulation.

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Pflow Basics: Creating cigarette Smoke
Level Intermediate
Duration 9 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Old tutorial on creating cigarette smoke with particle flow and manipulating turbulence forces.

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Pflow Basics: Surface floating particles
Level Intermediate
Duration 4 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Old tutorial on exercising how to get particles to stick and move along a surface, in this case a large ocean with people in it moving over the wave..

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Pflow Basics: More particle Effects
Level Intermediate
Duration 8 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Tutorial recorded to demonstrate other interesting old school particle effects, such as generating orb like particles emitting off an object.

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Pflow Basics: Velocity Test
Level Intermediate
Duration 12 mins
date: ~2003
Link Download Here

Old tutorial on having particles attached to a surface and then based on objects velocity detach. In this case a character covered in liquid that then shakes the liquid off.

Please Note: The video quality of this recording is a bit old and blurry, but still viewable.

Particle Flow 101: Introduction to Advanced Particle Techniques
Level Intermediate
Duration ~50 mins
date: ~2008
Currently Offline

Freestyle tutorial on explaining particles, how they work and lots of cool tactics and methods for using them.

Posted on November 11th, 2009
Comment Rules: Feel free to leave comments, ideally I would like everyone to be mature and responsible for their actions, there will be a 0 tolerance to spam or rude comments by anyone posting. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation!
'Ideally' it would be great to have people who are vising to post relevant comments or links to things that might be interesting and related to the articles they are commenting about.
I'm sure there are dozens of people who visit this page that are far smarter or talented than I am, so I encourage everyone to share knowledge, add and contribute to these threads wherever they can!

Rock on guys!

-Allan McKay

14 Responses to "Legacy FX Tutorials"

  1. Mohammed Aji says:

    Hurray

    Thanks for putting up those tutorials again. I thought they are gone which made me so worried for missing such a wonderful tutorials created by such a VFX Guru. Truly Allan you are the best.

    Thanks once more.

  2. Ian Duffy says:

    Hi Allan
    Love your new site, great layout and nice to have access to such great tutorials. Thanks for sharing your knowledge in such a challenging field of 3D. Your techniques and tutorials have certainly helped me out more times than I can mention. You rock. All the best.

  3. Dev says:

    Hi Allan
    Today I Listen About you And ur site from my friend and shaw ur site this is the too good for all student of this line who want to learn VFX
    really I have no word to describe about you U R the great person of the World your site is help full for us
    Thanks Allan Mckay

  4. Barış Can Öztürk says:

    Allan you are just so awesome and great man to share your knowledge about these pf,afterburn,fumefx etc.Thank you very much..

  5. Allan McKay says:

    Thanks guys that’s great to hear! I really want to push as much content onto this new website as possible, so I’ve got a lot of plans. Finding time is always the hard part, but I’m really glad to hear such a positive response, thank you all!

  6. [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by shawnhendriks, Ashraf Ghori and Andy Tanguay, Peter Steiner. Peter Steiner said: w00t!! RT @shawnhendriks: Allan McKay has piles of old FX tutorials for 3dsMax available on his site http://bit.ly/8wvLPC [...]

  7. STEED says:

    呵呵终于找到你了

  8. Martin Heffner says:

    Awesome! Thats all i can say right now… Thanks a lot for spending so much time for us guys ;-)

  9. eric says:

    thank you for a bunch of really good tutorials! even the legacy ones are still useful. you explained pf really well!

  10. Jakob says:

    Wow, this has really taught me a lot! I’ve just started on a big project which involves some 3D work, so I need to get as much information I can quickly, and your videos has helped me a lot!

    Thanks! Please keep posting!!

  11. tu_ong2006 says:

    Thanks .
    But my english very bad . you can share little resource file

  12. Geoff says:

    Hi Allan.

    I’m trying to figure out how to spawn particles from a surface using the lightest values of an animated procedural map. I can get the very first frame to work, but I cant seem to make things follow as the map animates. If I remember correctly you cover that in only tutorial here that is “Temporarily Offline” =o(

    Thanks!

  13. Geoff says:

    Never mind. The problem was related to the free 3rd-party noise map I was using (Bercon Maps). =;oP

  14. amckay says:

    Cool glad to hear! Let me know if you have any other questions. Cheers -A

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