let me start by saying i cant take full credit for that tutorial , the original tutorial was provided by AI implant documentation , the only difference is i added the corresponding images to the process , so people would have a better visualization of this great product ,I'm still in the process of learning it so hopefully I can add more tutorials of my owen later one but for now here is he first one


AI.Paint Tutorial: Beasts vs. Romans

An example of AI.paint workflow
The AI.paint tool allows you to use Maya’s paint system to organize, create, position and modify large crowds of autonomous characters and other AI items. It is assumed that you are already familiar with basic Maya Paint concepts.
Through AI.paint, groups or layers of characters may be painted on surfaces while aligning with the curvature of the surface. Paint groups or layers allow you to manage and modify regions of your crowd while leaving inactive layers untouched. Layers of characters may then be modified to achieve interesting results quickly. For example a layer of proxy characters may be painted with various settings for crowd density, position, orientation, scale, and group color assignment. AI.paint allows you to paint on autonomous characters, behaviors, and all other AI objects. All AI object attributes can be modified using paint with interactive visual feedback for thousands of characters. The color feedback enables you to see what your characters are doing during the simulation. Perhaps the health of a few hundred characters is in question and needs to be verified. Maybe the first wave of warriors running down a hillside does not look quite right so the velocity of the characters could be painted. With the ability to modify so many attributes easily and interactively many more iterations of tests can be performed for refinement. Additionally, AI.paint gives you the ability to create targeted behaviors for many characters at once. A first painted stroke becomes the source for the behavior and a second stroke the destination. Targeted behavioral motion can be more easily choreographed for many characters at once using this method. You can even use the duplicate AI tool beforehand to copy the logic from a complicated character to a hoard of simple proxy characters generated by paint, then paint-personalize the crowd to transform all of the cloned characters into individuals. The following example demonstrates how easy it is to create, distribute, organize, and personalize characters.
Create the terrain
Create a terrain for your AI environment.
To create the terrain:
• Open the Terrain Options window in AI.implant>World>Create Terrain.
• Apply the following settings:

BioGraphic Technologies 7
o Width 375 o Height 375 o Width Subdivisions 32 o Height Subdivisions 32
• Click “Create”.
• A 2d solver will be create automatically when the terrain is created
.

• Modify the Y value of the points for the created plane to make the terrain a more interesting battleground. Be careful so as not to modify the X and Z value of the plane points since these X and Z component values are ignored by the solvermove

now use the sculpt poly tools

open the option window for it

choose the "smooth" operation and check the "Y Axis"
mine looked something like this
you can change the cooler of terrain for better viewing and hit the save button before we go to the next step

Create the Roman Warriors

Now its time to make the Roman Warriors
Open AI.implant>Utilities>AI.paint.

With the surface selected and the
AI.paint options window open add a “group” and “individuals” name. The group could be something like “roman” and the individuals ”warriors”. Groups and individuals are used to differentiate paint groups. The paint groups can be then color coded parented to added or removed from at any time.

Select the Script Paint Tool Operation replace or add. You may wish to turn on group and align so proxy characters that are created are parented together and aligned to the curvature of the selected surface. To create proxy characters the option “proxy create/modify” must be selected.

To increase the density of characters adjust the U and V grid size.

If you wish to fill a surface with characters flood the surface. To remove some or all characters from a particular paint layer select “proxy: remove” and paint a region or flood the surface.

The size and orientation can be modified at any time by selecting “proxy: modify” some control options enabled. The control options allow you to perturb attributes of the proxy characters.

To color the group of roman warriors choose and “assign” vertex coloring.
after using the brush , you should have something looks like this, if you notice in the outliner window you will have the "Roman" group and under it is the warriors

Create the roman worker group

To create a second group of characters the roman workers repeat the steps from above Assign a different color to differentiate between the character

Note :
make sure you have the Group and Individuals names are filled according to the group you are working with either the warriors or the workers

save the files with a different name

Assign autonomous characters to each paint group
open the AI paint again , making sure you have the terrain selected first

Select “AI: Create”.

Note : Important make sure you have the group name and individual names are filled for the group you want to work with

Flood the current layer to create autonomous characters for
layer. *You may wish to turn on “Options: Dialog” so that an
box is displayed when new items are selected from the “modify”

you will notice that few objects have been added to the scene The objects are now Autonomous Characters, i.e. its translate and rotate attributes are driven by the AI solver.

Repeat this operation for the other group of characters.

you will end up with something like this , time to save again

Paint modify the character’s vehicle parameters

Select “AI: Modify ACPM_AutonomousCharacter” and the attribute you wish to paint. You may wish to add replace scale flood etc these attributes.*Select the vertex color display before painting to display the attribute values.

Note:
choose the group and the individual first then hit he flood button,do that for the workers too

Make the roman warriors chase the workers

Note one behavior per stroke will be created. 2. Targeted behaviors are created in two strokes. Paint the source characters first then the destination character second.


So start by selecting the terrain the go to AI Paint

Select “AI: Create SeekTo” then paint first the roman warrior
start painting over the warriors
keep the AI window open and then the choose the workers.

now start painting the workers

 

Make the workers flee the roman warriors
1. Select “AI: Create FleeFrom” then paint first the roman workers then the warriors.  
   

Rendering

This is the time to save with a different name cause we going to need that file for our next tutorial

if you try to render it as is you will get some weird result good for laugh though , gut to get the render to look as the preview you need to bake the simulation, in the option window of the bake simulation command ,

 
make sure that all the warriors and the workers are selected, then use Hierarchy below
Finally add some lights , some material to the Workers and the warriors and you should have something that might look like that
Ronco
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