
This could be a giant series exploring particles, n-particles, dynamics, n-dynamics, n-cloth, n-hair and so forth in Maya.
I will start with basic particles and dynamics in Maya and then move towards the high end n-particles and dynamics systems. I will show you how to create production ready effects as fire, smoke, explosion, rain, cloth and hair simulation.
In the first part of this tutorial series, I'll explain how to set up the dynamic particles system using emitter, gravity field and collision and reaction with other objects.
1. Setting Up Particles Emission
Step 1
Open Maya.

Step 2
Jump
in the Dynamics mode so that you get
the dynamics menu items.

Step 3
Go
to Particles > Create Emitter and
click on the option box.

Step 4
In the Emitter Options box, give the emitter a name as Particles Emission. Presently, the Emitter type is set to Omni and Rate is set to 100 particles/ second which you can change anytime later in the Attribute Editor.
Speed is, by default, set to 1.
Click on Create button to create the emitter in
the viewport.

Step 5
The default timeline length is up to 24 frames only. You need to Increase the frames number on the timeline because in order to view the particles act, you need more numbers of frames.
Go to Window
> Settings/Preferences > Preferences.

Step 6
In the Preferences box, go to Categories > Settings > Time slider and set the Playback start/end and Animation start/end from 1 to 500.
Click the Save
button.

Step 7
If
you scrub the timeline, you will see the particles coming out of the emitter
icon from all directions. This is because the Emitter type is set to Omni.

Step 8
With
the emitter icon selected, press Ctrl-A
to open the Attribute Editor of the
emitter. In here, change the Emitter type
to Directional.

Step 9
Press the play button and you will see the particles coming out in X direction since
the value of Direction X is set to 1.

Step 10
Change
the Spread value a bit to scatter
the particles.

Step 11
You
can change the Speed and Speed Random values also to get random
speed of the particles.

Step 12
With
the emitter selected, go to particleShape1
and open Render Attributes drop down
menu. Right now, the Particle Render
Type is set to Points.

Step 13
Set
the Particle Render Type to Spheres. Click on Current Render Type and then you can control the Radius of the spheres also.
Step 14
To
make the particles fall on the ground, you need to apply the gravity field in
the scene. So, with the particles selected, go to Fields > Gravity and apply the gravity.
Step 15
Now
you can see the particles are falling down due to gravity.
2. Adding Deflector
Step 1
You
can also show the particles to react with the ground plane. To create the
ground plane, navigate to Create > Polygon
Primitives > Plane and drag and draw a plane in the perspective
viewport.
Step 2
To
collide the particles on the ground, first select the particles and then select
the plane and then go to Particles >
Make Collide.
Step 3
Press the play button to see the animation. You'll see the particles are bouncing
too much.

Step 4
To
control the bounciness of the particles, select the plane and go to Attribute Editor > geoConnector 1 and decrease the Resilience value. Now the particles
will bounce less.

Step 5
Right
now the particles are sliding and falling down from the ground plane because
there is no friction on the ground plane.

Step 6
To
increase the friction of the plane, select the plane and go to Attribute Editor > geoConnector 1 and increase the Friction value.

3. Controlling Particles Emission
Step 1
By default, the life of particles is set to Forever.
To control the life of particles, select the particles and go to particlesShape1 in the attribute editor.
Open Lifespan Attributes drop down menu and change the Lifespan Mode to Constant.
Set the Lifespan
value to 5. It means the particles
will live up to five seconds and after that they will die.

Step 2
You
can also set the Lifespan Mode to Random Range. In this case you can set the Lifespan
value to 3 and Lifespan Random to 5. It
means the particles will die randomly between three and five seconds.

Step 3
You can also control the emission of the particles. You need to animate the value of particles generation. With the emitter selected, go to Particles_Emission1 in the Attribute Editor.
Right now, the Rate of
particles emission is set to 100
Particles/Sec.

Step 4
For example, I wish to show the particles emission at the rate of 100 particles per second from 1st frame to 100th frame and then the emission to stop gradually from 100th frame to 150th frame.
In this
case, navigate to frame one on the timeline and set the value of Rate to 100 and with the primary-click on Rate and select Set Key.

Step 5
Now move to 100th frame on the timeline. Again set the value of Rate to 100 and with the primary-click on Rate, select Set Key.
It
means the value of particles emission from frame one to 100 is 100 particles per
second.

Step 6
Now move to 150th frame on the timeline. Set the value of Rate to 0 and with the primary-click on Rate, select Set Key.
It means the value
of particles emission from frame 100 to 150 is going to 100 to 0 particles per
second.
Press the play button and you can see now the particles tend to vanish by 150 frames.

Step 7
In
case you need to modify the frames and particles emission rate, just right
click on Rate (Particles/Sec) and select Particles_Emission1_rate.output.

Step 8
It
opens the Anim Curve Attributes box. Here you can play with Time
and Value options to change the frames and number of particles emission
rate.

Conclusion
In the next part of the tutorial, I will show you how to use Instancer to create instancing particles.
Subscribe below and we’ll send you a weekly email summary of all new 3D & Motion Graphics tutorials. Never miss out on learning about the next big thing.
Update me weeklyEnvato Tuts+ tutorials are translated into other languages by our community members—you can be involved too!
Translate this post