Fountain Emitter

The fountain emitter is the most basic type of controller. All particles are discharged through a fountain emitter.

Fountain Creation
Right Click on "Controllers" and select "Fountain" from the list.
Fountain Manipulation.
Right Clicking on the Fountain instance will bring up the following choices:
  • Clone: Makes a copy of this controller. All parameter values and envelopes are copied.
  • Delete: Delete a controller from the Controller list.
  • Activate/Deactivate: This activates or deactivates the controller from having any effect on the simulation.
Fountain Parameters.
Name: The name of the instance.

Affected Particle Groups: The groups of particles that are to be emitted from the fountain emitter.

Source: The source is the object or primitive which emits the particles. Particles are emitted from the vertices or faces of the source object.
  • Source Position: [x,y,z] The position of the fountain in World Coordinates.
  • Source Orientation: [h,p,b] The Heading, Pitch and Bank of the source object as a whole. Note that this DOES NOT determine the direction the particles are emitting toward, rather it is the general orientation of the physical emitter object. See info on Conic Basis for more information.

    NOTE: Moving the Orientation also moves the Conic Basis, but moving the Conic Basis does not move the Orientation of the source object.


  • Source Scale: [%size] The scale of the emitter in x, y and z directions.
  • Shape Type: [select] Defines the shape of the emitter. By default this is a sphere, although it can be any of the following:
    • Ellipse Surface: Particles emit from the surface of the ellipse.
    • Ellipse Volume: Particles emit from inside the volume of the ellipse.
    • Box Surface: Particles emit from the surface of the box.
    • Box Volume: Particles emit from inside the volume of the box.
    • LWObject Vertices: Particles emit from the vertices of a selected object
    • LWObject Faces: Particles emit form the faces of a selected object. (see diagram)
    • LW Bitmap: You can use a bitmap image to emit particles. The particles will use the color of the bitmap at each pixel location. To use a bitmap, you must first have the image already loaded in Layout.

    NOTE: When choosing LWObject Vertices or LWObject Faces, you must select an object to use. This can be done under the Source Shape field. Click on File and browse for the object. When an object is successfully loaded, the name of the object file should be listed in the Source Shape field.


  • Ordered: If ordering is toggled On, particles are emitted in the ordering of the vertices of the specified object.

    NOTE: ordering is only used when using LWObject Vertices.


  • Use Normals: When toggled On, particles will emit in the direction of the surface normals of the polygon.
    • When using LWObject Vertices, particles will be emitted from vertex normals.
    • When using LWObject Faces, particles will be emitting from the face normals.


    Quick Tip: Using Normals with Conic Basis.
    When using normals, the conic basis angle is always relative to the direction of the normal. If we animate the conic basis using an envelope, the behavior of the conic basis will be repeated for each vertex.


  • Inherit Velocity: This determines what percentage of the fountain emitter's velocity is inherited by particles. The following AVIs demonstrate this. AVI 1 does not uses 0% inherit velocity, where as AVI 2 uses 100% inherit velocity.
  • Birth Rate: This is the rate at which particles are emitted. It is measured in particles per second. Therefore, if the birth rate was set to 30, the fountain emitter would be discharging 30 particles every second (30 frames).

    Warning!     If you see that your particles are dying when you don't want them to, it is probably because you don't have enough particles in the particle group or you've set the birthrate too high. For example, if you have 60 particles in your particle group and birth rate is set to 30 particles per second, then after two seconds particles will stop emitting until they've all died and start up again.


  • Initial Color: The initial color of the particles when they are emitted. If you want a constant color for your particles this will suffice. To achieve more advanced shading, use the Particle Shader controller.
  • Color from Source: Sets the color of the particle to the color of the emitter object.


    Warning! Using a particle shader controller will override this parameter.


  • Minimum Speed: The minimum speed at which a particle travels. The speed of the particle will never fall below this limit.
  • Maximum Speed: The maximum speed at which a particle travels. The speed of the particle will never increase above this limit.
  • Minimum Angle: The minimum angle of the cone that determines the spread of the particles. Changing this setting will update the spread of the cone in the OpenGL preview window.
  • Maximum Angle: The maximum angle of the cone that determines the spread of the particles. Changing this setting will update the spread of the cone in the OpenGL preview window.
  • Conic Basis Direction: This determines the direction in which the particles are emitting. In the OpenGL preview window, the Conic Basis Direction can be seen as the yellow cone. You can interactively adjust the conic basis angle by dragging the mouse in the preview window, or you can type in the H/P/B values numerically.
  • Use Strands: When on, the fountain emitter will discharge strands.
  • Strand Count: The number of strands emitted by the fountain emitter.