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Non-Event-Driven Particle Systems 233
Non-Event-Dr iv en Pa rt icle
Systems
Create panel > Geometry > Particle Systems
Create menu > Particles
Fountain spray created as a particle system
Non-event-driven part icle systems provide
relatively simple, straightforward methods for
generating particle sub-objects over time for the
purpose of simulating snow, rain, dust, and so on.
You use particle systems primarily in animations.
3ds Max provides six built-in, non-event-driven
particle systems:
Spray Particle System (page 2–240)
Snow Particle System (page 2–242)
Super Spray Par ticle System (page 2–245)
Blizzard Particle System (page 2–247)
PArray Particle System (page 2–252)
PCloud Part icle System (page 2–249)
Note: You can take advant age of the AutoGrid
feature to orient and posit ion new particle systems
w ith respect to exist ing objects. For details, see
AutoGrid (page 2–7) .
Interfa ce
Snowstorm created as a particle system
This topic describes only the general properties of
particle systems. Other plu g-in part icle systems
might be available in your configuration.
Thebuilt-inparticlesystemssharethesecontrols:
Emitter—Specifies where in the scene the particles
are generated. The emitter is the part icle system’s
main sub-object. It doesn’t render. Particles
appear on the surface of the emitter and fall (or
drif t, drop, flurry, spray) f rom the emitter in a
part icular direction.
Timing—The timing parameters control the
dynamics of part icles in the system. They specify
how quickly particles appear, how quickly they
disappear, whether the emission rate is constant,
and so on.
Particle-specif ic parameters—These parameters are
specific to the kind of particle system. Examples
areparticlesizeandspeed.
Rendering properties—These parameters are also
specific to the kind of particle system. There
are options for displaying particles in viewports
and rendering them in scenes and animations.
Particles do not necessarily appear the same in
renderings as they do in view por ts.
You can modif y and animate particle system
parameters. You can also affect particle system
behav ior with
space warps (page 2–51) .In
addition, you can deform particle systems with the
Mesher compound object (page 1–369) .