Hi there!
I have a little scene idea in mind and wanted to ask for a couple of tips on how to achieve it, since I haven't really played yet with particles/force fields.
I have made a procedural dirt ground following an old but great CGCookie tutorial (https://youtu.be/x_zNrolENjU?si=e7GxrDI_hw-JQAq3). I want to have a clip where the camera is closed in to the particles, and the "ground" starts slightly shaking, the particles bouncing up and settling back somewhat like simmering water.
A string of particles will float up on a spiral somewhat like the start of a tornado.
Here are my questions:
- How would you go about animating this ground shake? I can shake the camera, but not sure how to randomly shake some of the particles from my ground system instead of the whole geometry at once.
- For the spiral I'm thinking of either animating the collection of particles on a curve, or using a vortex field. If you can think of a smarter way of going about I'm all ears!
Thanks for any insight!!
Hi Nathalia,
I'd use two (or even three) Particle Systems. In the main ground Particle System, set the Physics Type to None.
Turn the Gravity Influence off for the other and play with Forcefields.
For the spiral I'd also try one of those ideas you have, see which one gives the best result (maybe use that third Particle System for this).
For the Ground shake I'd try some Noise Modifiers on the Location and Rotation.
Thanks Martin! I'll give that a try!
Do we by chance have a course that goes into detail on force fields here? I couldn't easily find one. It's such a world of settings that I'd love to dig a bit deeper into it even if after this project.
Also, what would you say is most effective for computing power/rendering: turning the stationary particles into real instances or keeping the modifier stack?
I want to extend the ground plane where I made them, and an array modifier is not necessarily working, so I wonder if multiple planes duplicated with or without the particles as instances would be the best solution?
Well, I see no reason to make the particles real..I think that would be a lot more taxing on your Computer.
You can use an Array Modifier, make sure it is above the Particles Modifier and in the Particle Settings, under Source, enable Use Modifier Stack.
The Particles themselves won't be Arrayed, so you'll have to increase the Amount.
That did the trick! Enabling modifier stack. Thanks, Martin!
There are SO MANY settings on the particle systems... hard to figure them all out.
I'll definitely check out this course. So far I'm yet to see an older course here that doesn't bring a ton of useful teachings regardless of the looks of the UI. Thanks for pointing it out.