Particle Systems

Answers in this category:

1. How do I create a particle system
2. How can I copy the settings of a particle system?
3. How can I animate fire/smoke?
4. What are static particles?
5. Fading particles instead of disapearing instantly
6. How can I make fog with particles?
7. How can I simulate snow?
8. How can I apply varying forces to a particle system?
9. Explosion Tutorial by Robbie
10. How do i animate and control mesh movement with particle systems?
11. How can I make a vector particle system without the vectors having halos?
12. How do i apply a lattice to a particle system to change it's shape, direction, etc..? (ex. tornado...)

1 - How do I create a particle system

Contributed by Fenris.

To make particles, select a mesh, go to the animation button (squiggly arrow) click on 'new effect' on the right, and select particles from the menu. Define a force at the bottom left of the right side and hit Alt-A

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2 - How can I copy the settings of a particle system?

Contributed by B@rt.

Pick the mesh you want to copy the particle settings to, then pick the mesh you want to copy the settings from(make it the active one) press CTRL+C, pick 'particle settings' from the bottom of the 'copy' menu.

[from the discussion server]

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3 - How can I animate fire/smoke?

Contributed by Daniel Jircik.

Fire and smoke effects are a function of the particles system in blender .
In a nutshell the parameters to build particle systems are found in the animation
button, click on add new effect, and go to particles. The best tutorial I have found is
at the following location.
https://www.linuxgraphic.org/section3d/blender/pages/didacticiels/animation_effects/didac3-ang.html

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4 - What are static particles?

Contributed by Luis E. Collado.

Static particles depict the path that a particle has taken during its life cycle. The static particles are used to simulate strands of hair, blades of grass, etc.
They differ from standard particles in that the trajectory of the particle is what is seen, not just the end point.

You can see the an example of a static particle in the mane and tail of the horse in this AVI. Note that you have to have the Divx codec to see this animation.

https://www.chimeso.com/images/nhorse.avi

I hope this helps,

Luis

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5 - Fading particles instead of disapearing instantly

Contributed by @ce.

You can give your particles a changing alpha value or color value during their lifetime by creating a material IPO for them.

Try pushing the i key when you are in material buttons (cursor should be in Material window too) you can change the values of Alpha or the color in an animation.

The alpha IPO from frame 0 to frame 100 will be mapped onto the particle's lifetime (doesn't matter if that's more or less than 100 frames).Start with the frame zero...press I and so on. then which frame it should change press i again when you changed the values of Alpha or color. End with frame 100.

Blender will now calculate the fading or color changes.

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6 - How can I make fog with particles?

Contributed by @ce.

Make the halo size quite big...and give them a cloud texture.....one colour should be grey or white..the other color should be totally black....you have then a sorta smokey enviroment

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7 - How can I simulate snow?

Contributed by @ce.

Use the particle system and give the halo's a texture of a snowflake, or using a cloud texture

Editors note:
Also see the tutorial below.
https://www.blender.nl/showitem.php?id=154

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8 - How can I apply varying forces to a particle system?

Contributed by B@rt.

Unfortunately, the settings of a particle system cannot be modified with an IPO curve. However, there is an alternative technique to simulate varying forces for particle systems. Here's how to do it:

1) Create a particle system and add a material to its control mesh.

2) Add a texture to the 8th texture channel of the material. (This is the rightmost button of the row of 8 blank buttons in the Material Buttons Window). Choose a 3D procedural texture like clouds.

3) Switch to the particle systems settings and activate 'Grad' in the bottom right. Increase the 'Tex' value. Grad calculates a force based on the 3 dimensional changes in the 3D texture. The Tex value determines the strength of the effect.

This technique is great for creating realistic snow effects. Combined with the 'Static' button, it also creates great looking hair effects.

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9 - Explosion Tutorial by Robbie

Contributed by Robbie.

Go to https://www.geocities.com/robbie_e_stuart/RobbiesPage.html for a rough explosion tutorial

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10 - How do i animate and control mesh movement with particle systems?

Contributed by lec.

Sorry but your question is very ambiguous.
Taken literally the answer to your question is:
Particles systems are unable to contol mesh movement.

However if you mean how do I create a particle system that generates mesh objects and how can I control the movement of these objects, then this is how you do it.

1)
Create a particle emitter:
add->mesh->grid ( take the defaults )
goto particle animation panel and create particle system
, "New Effect", "Particles"
Set the "Tot:" to 200 and "Norm:" to .100


2)
Create the object that will be emitted
add->mesh->icosphere

3)
Add an approprite texture to the object ( the ico sphere in this case )
and parent the object to the emitter mesh by selecting the object and then
shift select the grid and hit

4)
Force the mesh to emit the object:
Select the grid mesh only ( make sure that the icosphere is not selected ), and press the "dupliverts" button in the animation buttons panel (F7)
Hit ALT-A to preview the animation, change the parameters if you would like the object to behave differently.


Now you can affect the way partilces are emitted by using a texture channel
see this answer from B@rt on how to do it.

https://helium.homeip.net/support/showitem.php?faq_id=1186

You an also affect the size, direction and rotation of the emitted objects by using lattices but that is the subject for another question.

I Hope this is helpful

Luis

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11 - How can I make a vector particle system without the vectors having halos?

Contributed by B@rt.

In the materials settings for the emitting mesh, select the Halo options and then enable 'Shaded'. The particles will now no longer emit light but instead be lighted by the environment you set up. Great stuff for dust clouds and such :)

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12 - How do i apply a lattice to a particle system to change it's shape, direction, etc..? (ex. tornado...)

Contributed by B@rt.

To make a lattice deform a particle system, make it the parent of the emittor mesh. Force a recalculation of the particle paths by pressing 'RecalcAll' in the particle system settings, or enter and leave editmode of the emittor mesh (TAB-TAB).

An example with a .blend file for download is available from https://helium.homeip.net/xoom/stills/tornado.html . Please note: many browsers automatically unzip .gz files - just rename the tornado.gz to tornado.blend and you're fine.

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