| What Are Particle Objects? |
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Particles can be any object. Normally, particles are defined as single-point polygons. In Particle Storm 2.0, they can also be the individual polygons of an object, or even entire objects. There is even a new type of object that looks like strands or silly string. Here are some scenarios where you might need to decide what kind of particle objects you want to generate:
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| How do I choose what kind of particle objects I need to use? |
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You want Flying Sparks: Use the Single Point Polygons
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You want the polygons of an object disintegrating or shattering, or conversly the polygons of an object assembling into an object: Use the Polygons particle object type.
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You have some fairly simple objects and want to use them as particles, or you want the Particle Shader to affect the coloring of these objects: Use the new Particle Sub-Objects feature.
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You have an animated bird and want to animate a flock of birds: The best way to do this is to use the Item Motion plug-in. This special plug-in will control the motion of any object in Layout using Particle Storm data without altering its own animation or keyframes. Because you are using a LightWave object as a particle, Particle Storm does not need to generate its own object.
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You have a character with hair that moves and reacts to the character's movements: For the character's hair, use the new Strands object type. Strands look like thin fibers. Particle Storm controls the motion of these strands to behave like realistic hair and string.
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| Where can I choose what type of particle objects I want to use? |
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You can define the type of a particle object in the Particle Group attributes page under Particle Type. Right clicking on the particle group and selecting Create Effect Object saves the particle object to the hard disk. Once this object is generated, you load it in the Objects panel under Load Objects, and then apply the displacement map plug-in (PSPlay.p).
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