Particle flow basics query

#1

Hi guys
I’ve been using Max for years but have only just began to play around with particle flow. I’m trying to get an animation on the go where a bunch of particles flow through the scene moving forwards snaking from left to right to eventually a point where they merge to form a logo.

I am using a script that breaks the logo into polys and those polys are the particles going through the scene. At the minute im controlling the direction of the flow using ‘find targets’ is that the best way to do it? And i’m not sure on how best to get some divergence away from the main stream of particles so some are flowing through the scene, distanced from the main axis of particles.

Also the particles seem to be moving all at the same speed. What’s the best way to give a variation in speed so some might shoot off faster than others?

Sorry if this is at all vague or covering several points. Just PFlow looks like you can get great results but there seems a few simple elements i’ve just not got to grips with yet.

Thanks

#2

Search around here there are a ton of posts in regards to this. :wink:

The simple of it and some helpful keywords to search:

Use a Birth Script for your fragments, these will be born in place, store their current positions in a Script Operator using the Script Vector Channel (don’t fret it is basically 2 lines of code and there are abundant examples of it), now that you have stored the positions, move the particles to their start location, add your Find Target + By Speed and add some Speed Variation + Target = By Script Vector. :slight_smile:

#3

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