Maya | Creating an Ice-Cracking Effect With Paint Effects

As I came across and watched this Maya Paint Effects tutorial, I definitely had one of those “well why didn’t I think of that” moments. Matt Paquin shows how to use Maya’s Paint Effects to create an “ice cracking” effect, walking though the steps as he builds it from scratch.

doesn’t go into the rendering, just using Maya Paint FX to get the formsMatt Paquin

Autodesk Maya’s Paint Effects lends itself really well to this effect, easily  created by manipulating the branches and other settings in the paint effects brush. Paint Effects also has the added bonus that it can be animated relatively easily as anything that has a value or a slider can be adjusted over time – and there are a lot of values and sliders in the Paint Effects Attributes window.

Matt Paquin refers himself to a “polymath” teaching a range of subjects at the Rhode Island School of Design, with a little 3d modeling, animation, design, video editing, and photography. Check out some of  Matt Paquin’s  work here: Matt Paquin’s Portfolio.