Thursday 4 November 2010

more stolen particle stuff

Create a polygonal sphere and turn it to softBody ( use the option "Make Soft" - in case you want to fallow the exact steps ot this tutorial ).
Create a particle emitter, offset it on Z axis, set it to "Directional", set "Direction Z" to -1, set "Speed" to 3, "Speed Random" to 0.5 and "Spread" to 0.1.
Apply radialField to the softBody particles ( i will call it radialField_softBody ) and another one to the particles emitted by the particle emitter ( let's call it radialField_particles ). For both radialFields set the "Max Distance" value to 0.75 and turn on "Apply Per Vertex".
Now here is the important part:
Select radialField_softBody and the particleShape emitted by the particle emitter. Then use the command "Use Selected As Source of Field" inside the "Fields" drop-down menu.
Do the same with radialField_particles and the softBody particles.
By default Maya parents the forceFields under the objects used used as source for them and links their translate attributes. Dissconnect their attributes and move them outside the "action" area.

 
At this point you are ready to go - click on the left image to see the result in motion.
Keep in mind that all the attributes of the forceFields are accessible on PP level ( read the Maya Help for more information ).
The "Volume Shape" attributes of the forceFields should be set to "None".
In addition you can try and this: turn the sphere to a non-dynamic object and use it as source of the radialField_blendShape, i.e. - delete the softBody particles, and reapply the radialField to sphere's shape.
This is a some kind of bridge between this and the next tutorial below.