8

Creating a Particle Emitter 235
using opacity-mapped facing particles, instanced
spheres, or metapar ticles.
Flowi ng Water
You generate flowing liquid effects by setting Super
Spray (page 2–245)
to generate closely packed
metaparticles. The metaparticles blob together
forming a stream. Add a
Path Follow (page 2–67)
space warp to send the stream dow n a trough.
Explosions
Particle Ar r ay (PAr ray) (page 2–252) uses another
object as its particle em itter. You can set the
par ticle type to use fragments of the emitter object
to simulate the object exploding.
Volume Ef fects
Part icle Cloud (PCloud) (page 2–249) constrains
its particles within a specified volume. You can use
Particle Cloud to generate bubbles in a glass of
soda, or b ees buzzing inside a jar.
Cr owd s
Super Spray (page 2–245) , Blizzard (page 2–247) ,
Part icle Ar r ay (page 2–252) ,and Particle Cloud
(page 2–249)
can use instanced geometry as their
particle type. You can create a stream of ants, a
flockofbirds,oracloudofdandelionseedsusing
instanced geometry particles.
Creating a Par ticle Emitter
After you choose a particle system type to add,
you create the particle system icon in the scene.
The icon serves different pur p oses depending on
thetypeofparticlesystem.
As an e mi tte r: The icon defines the starting
location and direction of the particles. Spray,
Snow, Super Spray, Blizzard, and Part icle Cloud
use the icon as the particle emitter.
As a placeholder: The icon serves only to hold
the parameters for the part icle system. The
particles are emitted from another selected object.
Particle Array and Particle Cloud use the icon as
aplaceholder.
You can choose w hether Part icle Cloud uses its
icon or another selected object as the emitter.
Procedures
To create emi tter icons:
• Drag in a viewport to set the size and
orientation of the particle emitter icon fo r
Spray, Snow , Super Spray, Blizzard, and Particle
Cloud.
Spray, Snow, Blizzard, and Particle Cloud use
theiconsizeastheareaofparticleemission.
Super Spray emits particles from its center
regardless of its icon size.
All particle systems align the particle direction
w ith the Z ax is of the creation grid.
To crea te pla ceholder i cons:
1.
Draginaviewporttosetthesizeofthe
placeholder icon for Particle Array and Particle
Cloud.
Thesizeandlocationoftheparticlesystemicon
has no effect on the particles.
2. After placing the particle system icon, click
Pick Object on the Basic Parameters rollout to
select the object to use as the particle emitter.
Using Materials with Par ticle Ar ray
The material that appears on the part icles comes
from one of three places:
• The particle system itself
• The material assigned to the distribution object
(PArray only)
• The material assigned to the instanced objects