Am i right in assuming that Particles can be emitted FROM a 3d Geometry, but an emitter cannot emit 3d Geometry?
You can set the particle type to External Node, and use geometry as particles.
Setup you particle system
Import your geometry you want to use as particle shape
Rename it to “ParticleDraw” P and D are upper-case, you can add numbers at the end if you have more than one particle system
Parent the particle system to the axis of the geometry
Hide the geometry
Set your particle type to External Node.
Hi Sinan,
ok - i tried it with FBX model and nothing happened - I can emit particles from the shape but not shapes.
I’m probably getting the hierarchical connections all wrong.
fantastic!!!
thank you
@Sinan - thanks for the advice - do you know if its possible to emit 3d geo so that it aligns perpendicularly to a 3d path?
I’m trying to emit a series of rings along a path to create a tunnel to fly through, but as you can see on the screengrab, the emitted geo is following the path but not aliging to it.
I’ve tried using axis nodes to adjust the angle of the model but it doesnt affect the particles orientation when emitted.
Did you try adjusting the banking along the 3D shape so that the light (your particle source) is perpendicular to the path?
i looked but there is no option to align the banking - only options on that tab are Relative or Absolute offset, and a Normals Offset. Tried those but made no difference
You should set the Alignment on Path to Align Z Axis on the 3D path.
And apparently if you set the speed of your particle system to 0 the particles are generated facing the camera. Adjsuting the initial speed to 0.1 generated them in the required orientation. Then we can use a speed = 0 function to stop them.
i even tried attaching an axis to the path to see if i could extract the paths offset location info for each frame along the path in the hope an expression might have been able to convert it to something usable!
thank you!!
i think its mainly the speed changes that make all the difference.
I would never have figured that one out.
I think my path might have some odd kinks but at least now i can see its working.
Many thanks!
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Not only can it emit geometry, it can emit animated geometry! I have a flying bat emitter that is two keyframes of animation cycling. The bat model is warped with a deform mesh into two poses, and that
geometry becomes the emitter of its own animated bats (hiding the emitter source geometry). Works like a charm.
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Is there a way to offset the animation among the particles? I have a flying moth that I’m doing a swarm and my animation is 24 frames so I’d like to offset. I could do 2 separate emitters but it would nice to have it all in one.
Nope. Sorry. Two or more emitters for different loops.
Shameless plug:
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Thank you Sinan.
What geometry format are you using to import animation? FBX? Alembic?