Particles
Particles menu
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Clicking the particles button in the tools menu will activate the
particles menu. Return to GIG by clicking the GIG button.
A model consisting of particles is called a particle system. A particle system
can be generated in two ways:
- In the solid construct menu:
- By selecting a particle system from the menu under the particles button and
grouping it to other solids. To do so,
select group, then select particles. A selection can be made from the following particle system shapes:
- In the particle interface:
- By converting any GIG model (NURBS, Sculptor model, etc.) into a collection of particle systems. When converting a group of solids to particles, each solid in the converted model will become an independent particle system. The conversion takes into account all the Boolean operations and bump maps.
When a particle system has been generated, it consists of emitters from which particles will be emitted during simulation. The two most important parameters that control the emission of particles are pulsetime and lifetime:
- pulsetime
- Controls the interval between the emission of particles.
- lifetime
- Controls the number of frames that particles will be alive.
Particle systems can be transformed and animated like any other GIG model.
When converting a model to particle systems, the original animations and
attributes will be kept. For example, when converting the girl from the
animation 'walk' (in the demo project, 'anidemo') to particle systems, all the
original animations of each joint will be kept. (When selecting play in the
animation or in the particles menu, the model will continue to walk).
During simulation, the particles inside a particle system will move according
to their animation, parameters, and assigned fields.
The parameters of each individual particle system can be changed. It is also
possible to change the parameters of a group of particle systems by activating the whole group first. For example, to change the dynamics for all particle systems in the girl, first select the top tag of the girl (tag name: 'girl') with get solid tag in the particles menu.
For more special effects, fieldscan be assigned to further influence the motion of particles in a particle system. For example, a wave field can be used to create a wave-like motion for the particles.
Also with fields, parameters can be changed. For more information on fields and field parameters, see the sections on fields.
Particles systems can be rendered like any other GIG model including the
calculation of reflections, refractions, and shadows.
Attributes can be assigned to particle systems in the attributes menu.
Several options are available:
- Transparency maps to create motion blur effects for particles.
- Maps for changing the attributes of particles during their lifetime.
- Maps to create a different color for the head and tail of the particle.
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