Project 2a | Performative Effects

For this animation, I re-visited the development of the surface based on the image of the painting.  Realizing that what I really need to be able to do is to take advantage of a displacement map, I began exploring how best to achieve the result I was looking for.  I originally looked at being able to use 3ds Max's built in physics  build to "drop" a matrix of spheres onto a displacement map of the painting.  The nature of this tool, however, results in calculation of how the spheres would "bounce" on the surface once it hit.  Through this continued exploration of how this effect would be achieved, I came across a script that allows for dropping objects onto a surface based on its local Z coordinate.  This was exactly the tool I needed to achieve the effect.  I was able to drape a huge matrix of evenly spaced spheres onto the displacement map of the image. This allowed me to achieve making the whole image as apposed to the partial surface i managed last week.  Sadly, the sheer amount of polygons and geometry required to achieve this effect did not permit the animation to be as dynamic as i would of hoped.  Ideally, I would have liked to be able to animate the spheres boolean through the surface.  Trying to handle the 4000+ spheres boolean through one surface become un-workable, and I ended up having to convert the surface into an editable poly (severing it from the boolean operation, and the RAM associated with it).  For the animation, I wanted now to explore panning across this vast surface and then eventually resulting in the overall view of the final surface.  The animation...