Special Effects in 3DS Max

My college course taught us how to create special effects using 3DS Max and with the Vray add on. For this particular subject we were given a modelled and textured scene and it was up to us what we added in terms of effects, as long as we had three different types of effects to make sure we followed the brief.

In the very first render I learned to create a fire effect, of course I put this effect in the little fireplace to give the scene a bit more life to it as if someone lived in the little tin can house. It was the first effect I had learned by myself using tutorials, not one that my lecturers taught me and so I wanted to show off my new effect.

For the second render it was more animating a Vray light to give the impression of a flickering lightbulb that cannot decide if it will burst. I will admit trying to get the light sitting at just the right place with a good value on the brightness of the light was a fair task. Admittedly it took me longer than initially anticipated however I did learn a lot from creating the animated flickers of light. I am happy with the render but I definitely feel it is an effect especially with animating that I could sit and work on to get better at it. I also added a Vray sun and recreated a sky that I had done in a previous project, though this time it was more to give the feel of pollution than fog.

Now in the third render I created smoke using a particle effect starting from the inside of the chimney, this was an effect taught to me by my lecturers previously. I spent a fair bit of time getting this one right and making sure it was a believable size and making the consistency of smoke coming out was fairly reasonable. It was a fair bit of trial and error with changing the numeral values to get the outcome I desired. I also made sure to add a drag so the smoke could flow much more naturally like actual smoke and make sure to create a wind effect so I could have the natural effect of it being swept by the wind. I am incredibly happy with this render and genuinely learned to enjoy creating small effects that give a scene more life.