How can i get particle flow to do this.

Hey guys I am not new to 3D studio max but I"m sorta new to particle flow. I am working on my personal project and i want a box to get covered with particles starting from the bottom and working its way up the box until the box is completely covered. I want the particles to have a creeping .. uneven motion to them.

Anyone have any idea's how I can get started in the right direction to acheive this effect using particle flow.

I attached an image .. to better illustrate what i'm asking.

Thank you

Hmm why do you want to use particles? you can control the whole effect with animated gradient ramp maps. And using gradient ramp maps as guide you can place particles over the box.

What exactly it is? are they any small creature covering box? or just material disintegrating?

Better , i will go with blend material with displacement mapping to accomplish this effect. and will use particles for secondary effect.

if box 3 is available go that way:

http://www.orbaz.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1200

if not go the non-plugin way:

create a box and put a gradient ramp on it which is animated. then use a position object in pflow and set the location to "density by grayscale". an animated volume select should work too. then u have to set the location to "selected vertecies".

cheers
anselm

hey anselm, i am curious that why you would use box 3 for this. Can you explain about it?

I really don't know much about scripting and this box3 stuff. It would be nice to know about idea to use box3 behind this one. Becoz i found gradient ramp to be very slow on high poly geometry. so using box3 does it make faster the pflow?


EDIT : Oops my bad, sorry i didn't check the link you posted to orbaz forums. I just have seen it.

Regards,
-J.

looks like there´s a bug with animated gradients in max9 :(
and i wasn´t able to reproduce what i did back in the days with max7 or 8 using volume selects :( dunno if i was stupid/invested only 10min. into that or if ti doesn´t work anymore :( position object on selected vertecies (animated volume select) didn´t work properly here having the latest updated for all boxes...

birht texture from box1 could do teh job too im pretty sure...

EDIT:
Definitely most fast and easy with birth texture from box#1...sorry for rapidshare link :(

http://rapidshare.com/files/77393035/_scene.avi.html
Viewport preview 50%

kind regards,
anselm

hmm that's the nice test, makes me think that is it possible to place the particles on the volume of sphere using textures as guide map?

i.e. if we have given 3d procedural map to any sphere or box , and used gradient, noise or any 3d procedural map as guidance map to place particles in the volume of sphere or box instead of object's surface.

that´s most easily done with box#3...looots of random example scenes ship with it

afaik birth texture works on emitter surfaces only and not on volumes...dunno in which far u can use combustion athmospheric gizmos with box#3 tho...

Hey guys thanks for the reply's. I actually want lil tiny crystals forming and covering an object. So i thought the best way would be to use particles.

That box 3 stuff looks great I will see if i can try out the demo but it looks awesome with what it does.

Thanks.

-Steve

birth texture can even grow/shrink by grayscale

download the demo if u don´t have it or buy it straight it´s a plugin worth every penny!!!

if u want i assembly you a demo scene and the others around here in the particle flow forum are great helpers too.

kind regards,
anselm

Hey PsychoSilence,

Hey that would be great to see what you can come up with I won't be able to get the plugin and do tests with it till sometime next week. So if you have time to show me some stuff that would be great, and i'm sure it will also help out others who may find this thread at some point.

Thanks.

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.