PFlow Trajectory displayed with Splines by Anselm v. Seherr-Thoß aka PsychoSilence, Germany


Step 7: Now we have a wind (and/or other forces) in our scene but PFlow sitll doesn´t know this. We have to drag a “Force” operator into Event 01 and add the forces that should take influence on our particle system.

Basicly this is our particle system setup.

Now it´s gambling time! Play around with the Lock/Bond settings and scrub through your timeline until you get the desired effect.


Have a look at the playblast of what i got so far:


Final Step: Last step is the execution of a tiny MAX Script while your PFSource is selected. Download Script from here

Now let´s have a look at the MAX Script part of this tutorial. I´m not a scripting god but I will explain a few significant lines of this script to you to convey a better understanding of it.

pf = $     i2 = 1     pTest = false     endOfPFAnimation = 100     endFrame = 100     fIncrmnt = 2        sliderTime = endOfPFAnimation     while not pTest do     (         pf.particleIndex = i2         if pf.particlePosition == [0,0,0] then         (             pTest = true             global numParts = i2 - 1         )         i2 += 1     )         for i in 1 to numParts do     (         newShp = splineShape()         addNewSpline newShp         newShp.name = ("ParticleSpline_" + i as string)                 newShp.thickness=0.19         newShp.displayRenderSettings=true         newShp.renderable=true         newShp.displayRenderMesh=true         newShp.adaptive=true     )     for t in 0 to (endFrame/fIncrmnt) do     (         sliderTime = (t * fIncrmnt)         for i in 1 to numParts do         (             pf.particleIndex = i             pId = pf.particleID             if pId != 0 then             (                 ParticleSplineShp = execute ("$ParticleSpline_" + pId as string)                 addKnot ParticleSplineShp 1 #smooth #curve pf.particlePosition             )         )     )         select $'ParticleSpline_*'     updateShape $