2009

Particles with various materials assigned to them
You make this choice in the Material Mapping and Source group near the
bottom of the Particle Type rollout. Choose Icon to use the material assigned
to the particle system, choose Picked Emitter to use the material assigned to
the distribution object, or choose Instanced Geometry to use the material
assigned to the instanced objects. Note that this third option is available only
when Instanced Geometry is the current particle type (selected in the Particle
Types group at the top of the Particle Type rollout).
NOTE SuperSpray and Blizzard don't have distribution objects. PCloud has a
distribution object but you can't get the material from it. In these cases, a radio
button lets you use the material from the instanced geometry. Only PArray lets
you get the material from the distribution object.
IMPORTANT A particle-system object, like any other object, can carry only a single
material at any time. Thus, if you choose either Picked Emitter or Instanced
Geometry, an instance of the chosen material is actually copied to the particle
system, overwriting the material assigned to the emitter. If you want to restore
the emitter material, choose Icon, and then reassign the material from the Material
Editor or the Browser.
No matter what choice you make, if the material used is not mapped, then
all particles take on the surface properties of the material, regardless of which
object is used as the source of the material.
Non-Event-Driven Particle Systems | 3009