8

Particle Type Rollout 259
Inter face
Particle Types group
These options specify one of four categories of
particle type. Depending on which option you
choose, different controls become available in the
lower portion of the Particle Type rollout.
Standard Par ticles—Uses one of several standard
particle types, such as triang le, cube, tetra, and
so on.
MetaParticles—Uses Metaball particles. These are
particle systems in which the individual particles
blend together in blobs or st reams.
Object Fra gments—Creates particles out of
fragments of an object.
Object Fragments is available only with Particle
Array. Choose it when you want to fracture
theparticleemitterobjectandusethepiecesas
particles. This option is useful for animating
explosions and shattering collisions.
ThefragmentsarecreatedattheEmitStartframe.
The Use Rate, Use Total, Emit Stop, and Particle
Size parameters are unavailable.
Instanced Geometry —Generates particles that are
instances of either an object, a linked hierarchy of
objects, or a group. The object is selected in the
Instancing Parameters group on the Particle Type
rollout.
Choose Instanced Geometry when you want
part icles to be identical instances of another object
in your scene. Instanced geometry particles are
extremely effective for creating crowds, flo cks,
or flows of very detailed objects. Here are a few
examples:
• Instance a red blood cell and use Super Spray to
animate blood flowing in an artery.
• Instance a bird and use Particle Cloud to
animate a flock of birds flying.
• Instance a rock and use Particle Cloud to
animate an asteroid field.
Note: Onlyonetypeofparticlecanbeused
for the particle system. However , you can
have more than one particle array bound to a