V S C Honours-Track

In this series the sticks are also of the same material as the spheres are.

In this series of images  I used another material that gives the edges of the spheres another color than the middle of the spheres because of their angle with respect to the camera. I have not (yet) made the sticks of the same material, I want them again to go from light (hydrogen atom) to dark (carbon atom) and also have the material of the following series. I am working on that (see next post).

In the following series the same materials are used for two different series, but now I have used the more realistic visualization of the molecules, with the overlapping spheres.

The past time I have been busy with getting to know Real-Flow by watching tutorials and I have also been busy resolving the issue of finding a way to visualize chemical structures in Maya scientifically correct.

To get an idea of what is possible in the visualization of and use of materials for the propane molecule and the Platina-cluster, I have made some different renders. I have used a modern form of the ball-and-stick visualization and also a more realistic form, where the atoms of the molecule are big spheres that intersect each other.

The first series is of the ball-and-stick molecule, where I used simple matte materials. The second series consists the ball-and-stick molecule with shiny materials.

I have added some more details to the previous PreViz and also colored it: PreViz

Some colors are not the final colors that I want to use,  I am not sure about the color of the gas and the liquid, I think that I will make them colorless or something in between colored and colorless. When zoomed at the zeolite crystal everything will be in grey-scale to stress the microscopic effect. When then again is zoomed at the structure of the zeolite and the atoms appear, the colors will return. Oxygen is usually visualized with a red sphere, and thus shall I also use red for oxygen. The same holds for hydrogen atoms (white) and carbon atoms (black), see the following visualization of an ethanol molecule (C2H6O):

The Pt-atoms are in the PreViz green, but I am thinking about making them silver-colored. I want to experiment with this further because the hydrogen atoms are white, which will be close to silver colored and then you maybe will not be able to see the difference between the two sorts of atoms (which I do not want to happen). The silica atoms are yellow/orange in the PreViz and I think that I want to keep them that way.

Here are some images of liquid distributors, for the shot when the reactor opens up and the gas and liquid enter the reactor. With these liquid distributors the liquid is equally distributed (in the ideal case) over the whole width of the column. This gallery also includes one image of so-called Taylor-flow, which will happen inside the monolith (see “Some clarifying pictures (3)” below).

Here are some images of monolith structures, with which the reactor column is packed. Monoliths increase the surface/volume ratio, and thus improve the contact time between gas and or liquid, so there is more time for the reactants to react with each other, to form products. The gallery also includes schematic views of how the liquid can flow through the monolith and a schematic view of all aspects concerning the monolith.

To make clear the outline of the animation, see this PreViz (Previsualization) made of the images of the second storyboard.

First, you see the reactor. Then there will be a zoom at the upper part of the reactor and the exterior of the reactor will fade, so it can be seen how the liquid and gas enter the reactor (the gas by a funnel and the liquid by a liquid distributor). Then you will see the dripping of the liquid in the gas on the upper part of the monolith. The foremost half of the monolith then will fade away so that Taylor flow can be shown. After that you will follow a bubble on it’s way through the monolith. After this short ‘chase’ you end up zooming in at the surface of the monolith. After the zoom at the surface you can see that the surface consists of zeolite crystals. Then after another zoom the structure is shown of the zeolite (lattice of atoms with clusters of Platina (Pt)). In a cage of a zeolite crystal finally the reaction will take place on the Pt-cluster, and in this case it is the dehydrogenation of propane (propane generates a hydrogen and a propene molecule). Eventually the animation end here or you will travel your way backwards to outside of the reactor.

For more explanation on several terms used in the above, see the “Some clarifying pictures” posts.

Here are some images of reactors @ Chemical plants for the first shot of the animation

The second moodboard is containing images of renders and snapshots of animations that I do like.

A few aspects visualized by the images that I want to highlight are:

- nice use of colors, grey-scale or neutral colors (browns, tans, pastels and darker colors)

- organic geometries – no perfect straight edges or unrealistic polished surfaces

- use of depth

- use of blurriness to indicate where the focus must be

- detail and randomness make it more realistic

- nice illuminating materials to stress a microscopic effect

- devices (e.g. the injection needle) have to look realistic, not as toys, in the image this is done by using materials with right features (reflecting or not, translucent or not)