Explosion Tutorial: Using Spawner, Fountain and Drag

By: Anupam Das

Requirements:

Particle Storm 2.0 Pro, LightWave 5.5 or higher.
Sample Content location: Tutorials/PStorm2/Explosion/

Basic Overview:

In this tutorial, we will create a large explosion that happens in space. You may have seen this type of explosion in your favorite sci-fi TV shows like Babylon-5 or StarTrek Voyager.

Initial setup:

1. Enter Particle Storm [Options/Generic Plugins/Particle Storm] 2. Start with a default project by pressing Clear.

Required Particle Groups:

For our space explosion we'll need three particle groups:

ExplosionGroup: The core of the explosion

SecondaryGroup: The fragments coming from the explosion

SecondaryGroup_Trails: The particles used for the smoke trails left behind by the fragments.

1. Create an instance of a Particle Group.

2. Set the following parameters for the group:

Name:	ExplosionGroup
Effect File Base:	a directory/ExplosionGroup
Number of Particles:	1000
Leave everything else to defaults.

3. Create another instance of a Particle Group.
4. Set the following parameters for the group:

Name:	SecondaryGroup
Effect File Base:	a directory/SecondaryGroup
Number of Particles:	30
Particle Shape:	Ticks (NOTE: The ticks option is not available on PS2 MAC OS. )
Leave everything else to defaults.

5. Create a third instance of a Particle Group.
6. Set the following parameters for the group:

Name:	SecondaryGroup_Trails
Effect File Base:	a directory/SecondaryGroup_Trails
Number of Particles:	8000
Leave everything else to defaults.

Turning off Recycling for all of the particles:

1. Click on the Recycler instance
2. Deselect all affected particle groups. We will not need to recycle particles for this animation.

Turning off Gravity.

Since this is an explosion that occurs in space, we will not need any gravity in our environment. Right click on the default Gravity controller and delete it.

Quick Tip: Instead of deleting controllers so they don’t affect the simulation, you can right click on the controller instance and choose to de-activate it instead. This way you can re-activate and restore your settings any time you want.

Creating the ExplosionGroup fountain:

1. Click on fountain and use the following settings:

Affected Particle Groups:	ExplosionGroup (deselect all other groups)
Birth Rate:	3000 particles/sec
Minimum Speed:	7 m/s
Maximum Speed:	12 m/s
Minimum Angle:	0
Maximum Angle:	360

2. Hit play; notice the particles emitting in all directions.

Creating Drag:

1. Create an instance of Drag.
2. Set the following parameters:

Affected Particle Groups:	ExplosionGroup (deselect all other groups)
Drag Coefficient:	1.7

This will introduce a little drag to the particles, which will slow them down and make them loose kinetic energy. Press play and you will see the difference.

Adding a Death Wish:

1. Create an instance of Death Wish
2. Set the following parameters:

Affected Particle Groups:	ExplosionGroup (deselect all other groups)
Death By:	Too Slow
Death Value:	3
Probability:	40%
Fade Duration:	1s.

We kill the particles based on their speed; namely, if they are going too slow (3 m/s) they start dying.
Our particles will be completely opaque until they reach a speed of 3 meters per seconds.
It will take an additional one second for the particles to slowly fade away as they die. We randomize the death of each particle by setting the Probability to 40%.
3. Play the animation. At this point, you should see what looks like a fairly realistic explosion with particles fading out as they lose energy.

Adding the debris fountain:

1. Create an instance of a fountain.
2. Set the following parameters:

Affected Particle Groups: SecondaryGroup (deselect all other groups)
Scale:	X=0%, Y=0%, Z=0%
Minimum Speed:	20 m/s
Maximum Speed:	30 m/s
Minimum Angle:	0
Maximum Angle:	360
Leave everything else to default

3. Press play. You should see a few particles exploding from the center outward. If we think of these particles as debris chunks, our intent is clear. We'll want to have some kind of particle trail emitting from each of these particles. We'll use Spawner to do it.

Creating the debris trails:

1. Create an instance of Spawner
2. Set the following parameters:

Affected Particle Groups:	SecondaryGroup_Trails (deselect all other groups)
Orientation:	Heading=0, Pitch=0, Bank=90
Scale:	X=10%, Y=10%, Z=10%
Birth Rate:	400 Particles/Sec
Minimum Speed:	5 m/s
Maximum Speed:	10 m/s
Inherit Velocity:	14.3%
Minimum Angle:	10
Maximum Angle:	50
Test Particle Groups:	SecondaryGroup (we select these because we want to know about the age of the debree chunks)
Test Parameter:	Age
Test Value Min:	0
Test Value Max:	.5
Inherit Test Particle:	ON

What we've done is tell Particle Storm that we are to spawn particles from the debris chunks, and we'll use the particles in the group named SecondaryGroup_Trails. We'll spawn particles based on the debris age. Our settings from 0 to .5 seconds mean that the debris chunks will be emitting particles for 1/2 second and then will cease to spawn particles.
3. Pressing play, you should now observe a spectacular explosion with streams of particles shooting outward and a large inner explosion.
4. The project files for the explosion sequence can be found on the content directory for this tutorial.

The explosion sequence as viewed in the Preview window