Many of the particle nodes share a number of controls, such as rendering and transform controls. The following covers the use of these.
The first controls on the properties panels of all the particle nodes have to do with how the particles are output to the Viewer and rendered out. To read more about the display, selectable and render controls, see Object Display Properties.
Several of the particle nodes have a set of transformation controls in their properties panels. You can use these controls for example to translate, rotate and skew the force that the node applies on your particles. For more information on how transform controls work, see Transforming Geometry, Cameras, and Lights.
Various particle nodes have controls on the Conditions and Region tabs in the properties panel.
On the Conditions tab, use the following controls to restrict the way in which the specific node affects your particles:
• probability - set the probability that this node affects your particles. If you set this to zero, the node won’t affect any particles, and if the value is 1, the node affects every particle.
• min age - set this to limit the effect of this node only to particles above this minimum age. The age of the particle is its lifetime normalized between 0 and 1.
• max age - set this to limit the effect of this node only to particles below this maximum age. The age of the particle is its lifetime normalized between 0 and 1.
• random seed - enter an integer to change the results of generated randomness in your particles. You can achieve slightly different effects by changing this number.
• channels - specify which particle channels the effect of this node should be applied to. Channels a and b are arbitrary names for channels which are useful if you want different ParticleEmitter nodes or other particle force nodes to have an effect on separate channels.
| 1. | Using the region control you can select the region which you want to use to confine the particle effect to. For example, if you select a sphere, only particles inside that sphere-shaped region is affected by the particle effect. Select none to apply no confining region, or the appropriate shape for a region between sphere, box, half-space and cylinder. |
| 2. | You can also check invert region to only affect the particles outside the region specified. |
| 3. | Then move on to adjusting your region with the transform controls. For more information, see Transforming Geometry, Cameras, and Lights. |