Creating A Deadly Virus Animation in 3ds Max

Preview

Creating A Deadly Virus Animation in 3ds Max

1. Modeling Virus

Step 1

Open 3ds Max.

Step 2

Create a GeoSphere in the perspective viewport with the Radius as 50 and Segments as 20.

Step 3

Open the Modifier List and apply Displace modifier onto the geo sphere.

Step 4

Click on the None button of Map. It opens the Material/ Map Browser window. Select Cellular and click on OK.

Step 5

Press M to open the Material Editor.  

Step 6

Drag and drop the Cellular map from Map channel to any empty slot of the Material Editor.

Step 7

Change the value of Size to 30.

Step 8

Increase the Strength of displacement to 20. You will see the blobs appeared on the geo sphere mesh. Change the map option to Spherical.

2. Animating Virus

Step 1

With the virus mesh selected, turn on Auto Key button. On every 10^th frame, animate the Spread value from 0.6 to 1. On the 1^st frame, set the Spread value to 0.6 and on the 10^th frame set the value to 1. 

Following the same range, keep animating the Spread value till 100 frames as shown in the following image.

Step 2

To make the spikes of the virus, increase the Mid threshold value to 0.5. You can also animate this value following the previous steps.

Step 3

Apply TurboSmooth modifier on the virus mesh to make it look smooth. 

3. Applying Material

Step 1

Press M to open the Material Editor.  

Step 2

With an empty slot selected, click on Diffuse channel. It opens the Material/Map Browser window. Select Gradient Ramp and click on OK.

Step 3

Set the colors in Gradient Ramp Parameters as shown in the following image.

Step 4

Set the Specular color as shown in the following image. Change the values of Specular Level to 100 and Glossiness to 70.

Step 5

Click on Bump channel. It opens the Material/ Map Browser window. Select Cellular and click on OK.

Step 6

With Chips mode selected, change the value of Size to 10. 

Step 7

Click on Reflection channel. It opens the Material/Map Browser window. Select Falloff and click on OK.

Step 8

Change the Falloff Type to Fresnel.

Step 9

Click on Refraction channel. It opens the Material/ Map Browser window. Select Raytrace and click on OK.

Step 10

Limit the Refraction value to 10.

Step 11

Open Extended Parameters roll out. Turn on Out and Subtractive options.

4. Lighting and Rendering

Step 1

Apply three omni lights as shown in the following image.

Step 2

Press F10 key to open the Render Setup window. Go to Renderer tab and select Blend as the Filter. 

Step 3

Press Shift-Q on the keyboard to have a look on the final rendered image.

Conclusion

You can get the project file in the Download section. This will help you to understand the procedural flow in more depth.