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Forum Index - Particles and Effects - 3ds Max and Maya particle systems

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-deadlydog
Junior Member
deadlydog

2 years ago
I'm wondering if the following features are supported in 3ds Max and/or Maya, WITHOUT the use of additional plugins like RealFlow:

1 - Allow interaction between particles and the environment, such as particles bouncing off of the floor or a wall/object instead of passing through them
2 - Allow interaction between particles and other particles, such as collisions between particles
3 - Allow users to create their own particle properties (say friction for example) and specify how they should affect other particle properties (i.e. friction should slow down a particle's velocity)
4 - Allow a particle's behavior to change dynamically at run-time after it has been added to the particle system. For example, emit 100 particles and then use these same 100 particles to create a few different effects, one after another, where the effect change corresponds to the user pressing a button.
5 - Allow individual particles to be updated, such as choosing one specific particle (or a subset of particles) and changing only their color

I have very limited experience with 3ds Max (and none with Maya), and am just wondering which of these features (if any) they support by default. I know that they support scripting, so maybe these features are available in the scripting language, but not in the visual interface (please specify if this is the case). And also, are any of these features supported with plugins? But I am mainly concerned if they are available without using additional plugins. Any input is appreciated. Thanks.


+VarnishedOtter
Admin
VarnishedOtter

2 years ago
Yeah man, use ParticleFlow, its a very programmable particle system built right into max.

And theres always maxscript to add more functionality.
Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

-Tyson
Senior Member
Tyson

2 years ago
There are some major differences between maya and max particle systems
Max has it's own old school particle emitters which you can keyframe and set up
Deflectors, spacewarps etc to control them. It also has particle flow as matt has mentioned
Which is a very powerfull tool. It's a bit like a visual programming language. You set up
Events that contain operators that effect the particles. You can then set up flows where
The particles can be sent to a new event with different operators via tests. For example
You could test for particle speed. If the particles reach the specified speed they will be sent to the next event etc. This gives you loads of control.

Maya now has nparticles which are part of a unified dynamics system. Nparticles work much more like true dynamic objects. Interacting with surfaces and affecting other dynamics such as cloth or rigid bodies. You can create some awesome effects with it. Some things that would be very hard to get right with particle flow. But then other effects are going to be far less difficult to achieve in particle flow. Maya also has a built in fluid dynamics system which let's you do all kinds of liquids, goop and gaseous effects without plugins. Quite easy to use too.

I guess the question becomes. What effect are you trying to create?





-deadlydog
Junior Member
deadlydog

2 years ago
Thanks for the responses guys. Actually though, I'm doing a report on particle systems for school and just need to know if these specific features are supported in 3ds Max and Maya or not. Would someone be able to just list something like:

Feature 1 - supported in Max, not supported in Maya
Feature 2 - ....

And again, I am referring to if these features are supported by default without using any additional plugins (MaxScript is fine since it is included by default in 3ds Max). I would greatly appreciate any input. Thanks.

-Tyson
Senior Member
Tyson

2 years ago
All of the features you mentioned are supported by both programs. Some are slightly different due to the very different systems but you can do it in either program. you would just need to think creatively within the different tools. So rather than write a list with yes in every tick box I'm going to have to say that the answer is less black and white than "supported" and "unsupported". If I were you I would find a detailed technical decription from autodesk describing both Maya's nparticles/ndynamics system and Max's Particle flow system. and write a comparison based on the difference between these two approaches to particle effects.

-render master
Member
render master

2 years ago
i been using particles quite a long time and here are my answer to your queeries

for no 1 - im using deflectors to bounce particles into the wall or into the floor or to other objects

for no 2 - use particle collision and the other is the blobmesh

for 3,4,5 - im using pfsource then edit it in particle view, there you can edit it a lot. from life of the particles till it iend. i wish i coulD post my tutorials THE LIFE OF A PARTICLES it followed by the tutorials with diffirent individual max particles... Lest wait it in the tutorial section. just waiting for some of its features.( EDITABLE FEATURES)
[Link to www.pixila.com]
[Link to www.sharecg.com]

-deadlydog
Junior Member
deadlydog

2 years ago
Alright, thanks for the responses guys!

So I just have one more question...I want to be sure about this point. As far as I know 3ds Max and Maya are offline renderers, meaning that they do not do all of the processing in real-time; they basically do a bunch of pre-processing then play an animation for the final result. Is this correct? If so, I'm assuming then that particle systems created in 3ds Max / Maya cannot handle run-time interactions, such as say moving the emitter around at run-time (with the mouse for example), or changing the color of the particles when the space bar (or some other key) is pressed by the user. Is this correct? Thanks.

+VarnishedOtter
Admin
VarnishedOtter

2 years ago
Thats correct you cannot interact with the animation once it is rendered as it is just an image stream.

You can however render out multiple versions with different colours and load them into flash but that still probably wouldnt be able to do you emitter moving stuff.
Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.

--Matt

+Steve Martin
Moderator
Steve Martin

2 years ago
Yeh, you can't interact with finished renders, but viewport shading is getting faster and the quality is getting better all the time so who knows what may happen down the track. Check out this example to see what I mean:
[Link to mentalraytips.blogspot.com]
[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

-Tyson
Senior Member
Tyson

2 years ago
In Maya the ndynamics and Nparticles have an interactive playback mode. so you can pick up an emitter and move it around in the viewports during interactive playback and see the particles update, they also have some simple cloud, smoke type shading with particle age colour effects too. Its not really for creating interactive content though. more just for getting a better idea whats going to happen when you render the particles. You can't do that with max's particle flow but its an entirely different system. Like matt says you would need to create interactivity in another piece of software. a game engine or something like flash. Max and maya are for creating the assets like models or animation data for export not building interactivity. it would be possible to export particle animation as code to be used by other software. just as its possible to export animation as vertex data etc..

-deadlydog
Junior Member
deadlydog

2 years ago
Ok, thanks a lot for the help guys. I really appreciate it smile.gif

-deadlydog
Junior Member
deadlydog

2 years ago
Ok, one more question. Do Maya and 3ds Max support animated particles? So for example, if I wanted to have a particle system of butterflies, do they support using a sequence of images (or one image file and just changing the texture coordinates) for a particle so that I could have each of the butterfly particles flap their wings? Again, I'm referring to if Maya and 3ds Max support this natively, not with 3rd party plugins. Thanks guys.

+Jamie
Admin
Jamie

2 years ago
I am pretty sure that particle flow will let you use an animated sprite. It will also let you use animated 3d models.
Please support us and post a [Link to www.digitalartsfront.com] on your website.


+Steve Martin
Moderator
Steve Martin

2 years ago
I'm pretty sure Maya would do it as well as that is a pretty basic function. I can't say for sure though.
[Link to www.3dprevis.com]

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