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Test
System:
Compaq AP550, Dual Pentium III 733MHz,
256MB RAM, Quantum Atlas V 18GB hard disk, Adaptec Ultra3 SCSI interface
Particle Studio is the most sophisticated
particle generation system available for 3D Studio MAX. It's a follow-up
to Sand Blaster, and it's used for the same thing: animating particle
systems. If you've worked with 3D Studio MAX particle systems (e.g.
Spray, Super Spray, Snow, Blizzard), most of the foundational concepts
and the terminology in Particle Studio will be familiar to you. However,
on that foundation, Particle Studio builds an entirely new structure that
allows you to make particle systems do all kinds of amazing things with
much less work than before. (See "New Features in Particle
Studio" below.)
The two main features of Particle
Studio lets that make your work easier are a new user interface called
the "Event Map", and a "Quick Setup" feature.
Event Map
The Event Map looks like this:
Of the three columns, the middle
one is the heart of the interface. The blocks in the middle column, with
the gray arrows pointing downward between them, are "events". An event
describes the behavior of the particle system at a particular time, or
over a given span of time. The little blocks within the events are "elements".
Elements define the characteristics of particles (e.g. material, mapping,
orientation) and everything particles do (e.g. birth, death, spawning,
speed, transforming into an object).
For example, at the bottom of the
middle column, "Go To Target Position" is the title of the event, while
"Time: 40-50" is the first element in that event.
When you work with Particle Studio,
you basically perform three types of operations:
-
Creating events
You create events using the Events
rollout (at the top of the left hand column). Either you're creating the
initial event, or you're appending events.
-
Adding or deactivating elements
You add an element to an event by
drag-and-dropping it from a rollout in the left hand column to an event
in the middle column.
For instance, to apply a material
to an event, you click on the "Material" element in the "Material &
Mapping" rollout (just above "Miscellaneous"), and drag-and-drop it into
the event. You can see, for example, that a "Material" element has been
added to Event #01 at the top of the middle column.
Rather than deleting elements, you
deactivate them with a couple of mouse clicks. That grays them out but
leaves them just waiting to be activated again with a couple of mouse clicks.
-
Changing parameters in elements
It wouldn't be 3D Studio MAX without
lots of parameters. To satisfy 3D MAX's thirst for parameters, when you
click on an element, it turns green and its parameters show up in the column
on the right, like the "Position:Postion02" element in Event #02.
I like the fact that the Event Map interface
lets me see the whole particle system animation from beginning to end,
and that I can edit parameters without having to give up that overview.
It's really very difficult to get lost while working in this interface.
Admittedly, I found that this interface could lead to unexpected results
in virgin hands. I crashed it a couple of times. On the other hand, considering
the complex animations it allows you to build in a short time, it's a neat
and clean interface. It took me a few hours to get comfortable with it,
but after that I was really happy with how quickly I could get useful results.
Quick Setup
"Quick Setup" gives you a bunch of pre-built,
ready-to-use particle systems that you can modify and build on.
Here's the "Quick Setup" dialog box:
When you click on "Pick Object(s)"
at the bottom of the dialog box, you are prompted to select the necessary
objects, such as the reference particle, the emitter and the target for
the particle system. That's all you need to do to get a working particle
system. Once you've got the particle system, you can play with it by changing
parameters, adding and deactivating elements, or adding and deleting events.
"Quick Setup" is a great feature,
especially when you're just starting out and haven't created a lot of your
own event maps yet to use as templates.
The Price of Power
There are many other nice features in
Particle Studio, including, for instance, the "Time Table" that lets you
view your events in a schematic view, so you can see how different events
relate in time. This is a nice feature to have, since getting the timing
right can be tricky.
One price of power is complexity.
Particle Studio doesn't come with four inches of manuals, like 3D Studio
MAX, but 158 pages isn't too bad for a plug-in! Of course, a lot of that
is screen shots. And you can also skip a lot if you're already familiar
with particle systems. The point remains: this is a complex plug-in, one
whose capabilities I will be exploring for some time to come.
By the way, the documentation is
good and complete, with several useful tutorials.
The other price of power is ... the
price: Suggested retail is $595.
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Footnotes
Particle systems: Large collections
of similar objects behaving in a similar fashion. Typical examples: rain,
snow, hail, or groups of creatures such as swarms of bees, flocks of birds,
herds of grazing animals, or schools of fish.
New Features
in Particle Studio (Compared to Sand Blaster):
(The following is from the Particle
Studio manual.)
1. Event Driven Paradigm.
Instead of having to define how your particle systems work using keyframes
and space warps, you can now define particle systems based on events over
specific time intervals. Each event is composed of a series of smaller
elements that define what the particle system does during that event.
An example of an element is the birth
element, which controls how particles are formed.
2. Event Map. This is a floating
dialog box that provides a new interface for working with PS particle systems.
Along with the new interface comes a new workflow. The event map contains
a schematic view of the events in the system, an element list for adding or removing
elements from events, and a set of controls to manipulate the events
themselves. Everything in Particle Studio can be edited in the Event Map or the
Modify command panel.
3. Improved Particle Workflow.
Workflow is improved through both the use of the Event Map and the newer methodology
of creating particles with an event driven paradigm. To further enhance workflow,
many preset particle systems are built in and ready to use through the
quick setup.
4. Time Table. Now you can
view your particle events on a timeline very similar to TrackView. This provides you with
a graphical way of defining start and end times for particle events.
5. True Object Fragmentation.
No more exploding planar faces. Particle Studio now creates true 3d object fragments
with user definable thickness. Objects that are now disassembled or exploded
look much more realistic.
6. Anti-Collide. Ever wanted
to create a flock of birds or a school of fish where all of the birds or fish remain a set
distance apart from each other? The anti-collide feature of Particle Studio enables
you to do this and more.
7. Space Warp Activation/Deactivation.
Have you ever wanted to use a space warp on a particle system, but only
for a few frames? Particle Studio now provides you with the ability to
enable and disable any linked space warps at any given time in the animation. This
brings you precise control over many types of special effects.
8. Improved Mapping Control.
With the addition of true object fragmentation and better control over custom objects,
you might think mapping might become a concern. Not so, Particle Studio
now provides you with 3 different ways of handling mapping between particles,
emitter objects, and target objects. You have complete control over how the
mapping coordinates are translated from one
object to another.
9. PS Helper Objects. Particle
Studio now makes use of helper objects to help control how particles are assembled
into object, disassembled from objects, or to hold mapping coordinates. This provides
you with a higher degree of control over the particles and their motion.
10. Improved Object Control.
You now have better control over the use of custom objects in a Particle Studio particle
system. In addition, you now have controls to determine how objects are
transformed from one shape to another. Together these provide you with better control
over the entire process.
11. Snapshot. A better snapshot
system has also been incorporated allowing you to convert particles over to 3d geometry.
This new version has been enhanced to provide you with better control
over how the geometry of custom particles are converted to geometry.
Resources and References
A
good in-depth description of Particle Studio, with AVI examples.
A
description of Particle Studio by the folks who created it.
Download
a demo of Particle Studio
More
Information on Particle Studio |
