question about my particle system physics setting

[SlutMagic]

Hi, can anyone point me in the direction to the settings which change the particles rotation as it falls, speeds as it falls, and any suggestions how i can do the math to make the lifetime of the particle falling = about the time the particle would be parallel to the bottom of the stafflower. Heres a youtube video that shows a better explanation. thanks for any help .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0Te0pJBpKg&feature=youtu.be

[FizzyElf]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2219709875

[FizzyElf]

If this is the affect you want then there are a couple of ways to achieve it, here's what I did:

1) go into your paritcales tab and look for the Emission tab/menu, you should see the number of particles in your simulation as well as your start and end timer for that simulation but just below this is lifetime: this number determins how far a particle can go before it despawns, the smaller this number is the shorter the distance it can travel and vice versa.

2) Grab out a plane and scale it until its wider than your flower and move it to just barely touch the base of the stem.

3) Now set your timeline start to the same as the particle start and your timeline end to the particle end: ie start at frame 1 end at frame 100 as in my screen shot.

4) press play and let it loop.

5) your particles should fall through the plane I had you grab out this is fine.

6) go to life time and click and hold, press your shift key while holding and drag to the left, you should see the particles despawn sooner than before. keep dragging until they no longer pass the plane.

7) check the simulation from a few angles and make adjustments to the life time accordingly to match your desired outcome.
8) now delete the plane.

9) Render.

[FizzyElf]

hope this helps

[SlutMagic]

Originally posted by FizzyElf:

hope this helps

Thanks, that was a great explanation. The particles now die out where I want. Do you happen to know the setting to change the speed of the particles? I have been guessing its physics but i cant figure out which settings or if its tied to velocity setting as well. basically, when i render the particles are moving super fast, im trying to make them float like snowflakes.

[FizzyElf]

Wonderful
go to the physics tab and click on the "Forces" drop down menu.

You should see Brownian, drag and damp.

turn up the dampness and it will slow down the fall of your leaves, however unlike real leaves
these simulated ones will not sway and flow down they drop like a rock.

Dampness is not really designed for this slow down process so you will have to increase the life time of you particles, this is due to the fact that each particle has a limited amount of time to move before its removed and replaced by a new particle so if it takes longer to fall then it will die before it reaches the base of your plant.

Increase the life time and use your plane (or new one) to see if they've fallen far enough.

as for swaying and flowing leaves you've got two options 1) look up a video tutorial on particle sims and pray they actually talk about swaying leaves.

2) look up an article/written tutorial regarding your desired effect and hope they don't use confusing language and concepts.

I hope this helps

[FizzyElf]

oh and before I forget, how did you get your emitions so bright? I can't seem to get mine anywhere near as bright as your flower unless I use a ton of bloom and that washes out everything.

[FizzyElf]

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2219752136 I really want the eye to be brighter without the other lights in the scene washing out the color.

[SlutMagic]

Thanks, that helps so much. I'll keep searching for tutorials. so many settings lol..

About my flower. I think the top is brighter because its thinner, its not nearly as dense as the base. mixing the shaders changes it drastically though. the base color is set really dark. and the color ramp makes the most difference. heres a screenshot of what its using.

https://i.imgur.com/oi8Nd1J.jpeg

edit-i dont think the bumb does anything.

[FizzyElf]

Thank you, glad I could be of service and your picture/setup looks like it could help, thanks!

[FizzyElf]

It works! your awesome thanks

[SlutMagic]

Glad I could help, thanks again to you to

[Space Fart]

Hey you could try using effectors like wind and stuff like that. Unfortunately I dunno much more so I can't really help much, just shoot an idea at you.

[FizzyElf]

Veshter is right you can use wind and force fields to create pushing effect that will change the way your leaves fall. In addition I did some testing last night (trying to get the ghost to flow down to the ground) and it appears that you may be able to use velocity for a fast and dirty leave fall affect.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2221736402
the picture doesn't show it all to well but my (very chunky) leaves moved back and forth as they fell. the controls for this are pretty limited but can get the point across.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2221736928
a small amount of rotation and or velocity based rotation could also help sell the look if you had a scene with a lot of wind.

[FizzyElf]

Z velocity and will slow down the desent, but too much will cause the object to rise and the other two above Z just affect the angle the breeze is coming from. dampness does affect the weight of the object so if its to damp, in other words heavy, the breeze will not affect its fall

[Space Fart]

Turbulence might give you the effect you want of it going left and right but you gotta be tweaking it a bit. Also give it a bit of up if it's random, I'm not sure how it worked exactly cause I was doing no gravity physics. That's also a possibility you could try but I suggest you get it right with gravity, it's probably gonna look better.

Another possibility is to use animated wind strength of 2 or more wind effectors, one on the left side of the particles and one of the right. Aim them like 100-110 degrees for the added Z strength and just animate the strength of the wind up, down, up, down. I'm assuming you wan't to make them fall like real leaves, I didn't actually read all the comments before this lol. Forgot to mention, I haven't actually tried making falling leaves but this is the best I could come up with.