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4 On the Particle Generation rollout of PArray, set Speed and Divergence
to 0.0. This prevents PArray from moving the particles, letting PBomb
do the work.
5 On the Particle Generation rollout, set Life to the length of the active
time segment, so that the fragments appear during the entire animation.
6 In the Particle Type rollout > Particle Types group, choose Object
Fragments. In the Object Fragment Controls group, choose Number of
Chunks, and set the Minimum to about 50, depending on your
distribution object and the effect you want.
Now create a particle bomb, and bind it to the particle array.
1 In the Space Warps panel > Particles & Dynamics category, click the
PBomb button and drag in a viewport to create the PBomb icon.
2 Use Bind to Space Warp to bind the PArray icon to the PBomb icon.
(Don't bind the distribution object by mistake.)
3 Select the PBomb icon and move to the Modify panel.
4 In the Explosion Parameters group, set Blast Symmetry to Spherical, Start
Time to 10, Duration to 1, and Strength to 1.0. Choose Linear, if it's not
already chosen.
5 Drag the time slider between frames 9 and 20 to see the effect.
6 Go to frame 12 and try out various settings. Notice that increasing
Strength expands the explosion effect at the current frame. If you decrease
Range enough, the bomb no longer affects all or part of the object
(depending on the placement of the PBomb icon). Test the three Blast
Symmetry settings by placing the bomb in the center of the object and
then seeing the different blast patterns.
Once you get an explosive effect you like, you can return to the PArray settings,
add spin or thickness to the fragments, and so on.
2714 | Chapter 14 Space Warps and Particle Systems