Each lesson is designed to increase your productivity using proven time-saving
tips combined with fun, intuitive, and hands-on projects. Popular topics covered
in "Particles and Forces in XSI" include: setting up particle clouds, emitters
and particle types, creating various particle interactions with obstacles,
goals, and events, effectively using all the forces in XSI to influence particle
behavior, defining the appearance of particles using the Render Tree and various
nodes and shaders, efficiently coding an event script using VBScript, setting up
particle simulations in numerous projects such as, falling snowflakes, blazing
fire, oil slick, fireflies, sparks, and volcanic eruptions, and countless
additional lessons designed to give you a firm understanding of particle
simulations in XSI and enhance your technical skills.
 |
Introduction
This lesson will introduce you to the topics that will be covered over
the span of this training kit. |
 |
Using
Toolbars with Particles Simulations
This lesson will kick us off by exploring the Simulate toolbar and
showing us how to set up our own Custom Toolbar. |
 |
Particle Simulations and Operators
We will learn the barebones of a Particle Simulation and go over some of
the attributes of the Particles Operator. |
 |
Emitters and Emissions (part 1)
In this lesson we will learn about emitters: how to make them, how to
access them and how to tweak their emission properties. |
 |
Emitters and Emissions (part 2)
This lesson will pick up from the previous one and delve into other
emission properties that can really define the simulation outcome. |
 |
Ptypes
Overview (part 1)
This lesson will cover various aspects of the Particle Types such as its
shape and color and will go over applying forces on them. |
 |
Ptypes
Overview (part 2)
Continuing on, this lesson will go over setting up obstacles with
particles to create some particle interaction. |
 |
Instancing Particles
In this lesson we will learn how to substitute particles with objects in
a process called Instancing and create a blood cell simulation. |
 |
Deforming Particles
Concluding the project in the previous lesson, this one will focus on
the various ways by which we can use deformers on particles. |
 |
Interparticle Interaction
This lesson will talk about creating particle-to-particle interaction
with the help of Interparticle Avoidance and Collision. |
 |
Goals
(or How to Make Heat Seeking Missiles)
In this lesson we will discover goals and how we can use them to have
particles follow, flee or instantly teleport to a desired object. |
 |
Events
This lesson will focus on using Events to create a particle reaction to
specific circumstances, such as homing missiles striking UFOs. |
 |
Using
the Render Tree with Particles
We will learn how to use the Render Tree to change and define the way
our particles look when rendered. |
 |
Billboards
This lesson will dive into Billboards and talk about using Shapes,
Sprites and Gradients with them to change the appearance of our
particles. |
 |
Sprites as Imposters
In this lesson we will use an animated sequence as the images of a
sprite to fake multiple objects. |
 |
Particle Sparks
In this lesson we will make our particles look like sparks by altering
the particle cloud material. |
 |
Forces: Attractor
Attractor can not only attract but they can also repel as we’ll see in
this lesson that will set up a firefly behavior. |
 |
Forces: Drag
In this lesson we will simulate bullets shot in water by using the Drag
Force. |
 |
Forces: Eddy
An eddy force is great for whirling and propelling particles.
Think tornados! |
 |
Forces: Fan
This lesson will go over Fans, which are good for blowing particles
(inside of it) away. |
 |
Forces: Gravity
This lesson will show you the importance of gravity and how to use it to
apply and defy real world physics. |
 |
Forces: Turbulence
This lesson will talk about Turbulence forces, which are complex
forces that can be used to simulate smoke and gases. |
 |
Forces: Vortex
This lesson will talk about the Vortex, which is a simplified force
that’s great for swirling particles. |
 |
Forces: Wind
This lesson will talk about the Wind force and what differentiates it
from the Fan force. |
 |
More
on Sprites
This lesson will revisit sprites and use a variety of techniques
to make a falling snowflake simulation. |
 |
Driving Particles with Texture
In this lesson we will concentrate on using images to drive
various attributes of our emitter. |
 |
Painting Particle Emissions
In this lesson we will learn how to define areas of emission on
our objects by painting them. |
 |
Sketching Particles
We can draw particles and use them for simulations by using some
interesting procedures. This lesson will show you how. |
 |
The
Shaving Project
This lesson will use the sketching particles technique to create a
mini-project of shaving a man’s face. |
 |
Events
and Expressions
In this lesson we will learn how to use events and expression to
achieve complex, time-saving particle behaviors. |
 |
Fluids
In this lesson we will learn how to use fluids to rapidly create
an oil slick. |
 |
Explosion Emitters
This lesson will delve into Explosion emitters, and how we can tweak it
to create a flaming expulsion. |
 |
The
Volcano Project
This lesson will sum it all up and employ a variety of techniques
to create a volcano simulation. |
