follow surface

 

 

This node will force particles to strictly follow object surface.

 

 

[Inputs]

 

Particle Stream - This pin requires a particle stream to be connected. Connection is usually not required if any of the attributes is connected.

 

 

Enabled - Enable or disable node evaluation.

 

Objects - Select 3ds max splines you want particles to follow. When multiple splines are used the closes spline to the particle will take control. Double click on object name to remove it from the list or use Remove button. You can select multiple objects.

 

Animated Mesh - Enable this option if splines are animated in any way. Keeping this option disabled results in faster computations.

 

 

Properties

Affect Vels - This option will change particle velocity based on the surface normal vector. If this option is disabled, particles won`t be able to freely follow object surface and will probably end up stuck at one point.

 

Vertex Normals - Enable this option for a particle to smoothly follow a smooth surface. For a particle to correctly follow surface with flat areas and sharp edges (see example below), this option should be disabled.

 

 

 

 

 

Vertex Normals Disabled	Vertex Normals Enabled

 

Friction - This is a built in drag that will slow down particles as they travel along the surface.

 

Surf. Distance - This option allows user to let particles travel along the surface at user defined distance from it.

 

Surface Distance 0	Surface Distance 5

 

UVW Map Channel - This channel is related to the output UVW coordinates. It is not used unless output UVW and related pins are connected.

 

 

 

[Outputs]

 

As particle travels along the surface of the object it already computes abundant information about the object. All this information is available on the output at no additional computational cost.

 

Position - This is the position on the surface of the object that the particle gather information from.

 

FNormal - Face normal at the position.

 

VNormal - Interpolated vertex normal at the position.

 

UVW - The UVW coordinates at the position (used by texmap and texmap gradient node).

 

dPdU - The dPdU coordinates at the position (used by texmap gradient node).

 

dPdV - The dPdV coordinates at the position (used by texmap gradient node).