3ds Max 2012 Bible - Kelly L. Murdock [443]
To use a basketball object as a particle, follow these steps:
1. Open the Basketballs at a hoop.max file from the Chap 41 directory on the CD.
This file includes basketball and basketball hoop models created by Zygote Media.
2. Select the Create⇒Particles⇒Super Spray menu command, and drag the icon in the viewport. Position the icon in the Front view so that its origin is above and slightly in front of the hoop and the directional vector is pointing down. (You need to rotate the emitter icon.)
3. Open the Modify panel, and in the Basic Parameters rollout, set the Off Axis Spread value to 90 and the Off Plane Spread value to 40; this randomly spreads the basketballs around the hoop. In the Viewport Display group of the Basic Parameters rollout, select the Mesh option. Set the Percentage of Particles to 100 percent to see the position of each basketball object in the viewport.
Caution
Because the basketball is a fairly complex model, using the Mesh option severely slows down the viewport update. You can speed the viewport display using the Bbox (Bounding Box) option, but you'll need to choose it after selecting the Instanced Geometry option. •
4. In the Particle Generation rollout, select the Use Total option, and enter 30 for the value. (This number is reasonable and not uncommon during warm-ups.) Set the Speed value to 0.2 and the Life value to 100 because you don't want basketballs to disappear. Because of the low number of particles, you can disable the Subframe Sampling options. Set the Grow For and Fade For values to 0.
5. In the Particle Type rollout, select the Instanced Geometry option and click the Pick Object button. Make sure that the Use Subtree Also option is selected to get the entire group, and then select the basketball group in the viewport. At the bottom of this rollout, select the Instanced Geometry option and click the Get Material From button to give all the particles the same material as the original object.
6. In the Rotation and Collision rollout, set the Spin Time to 100 to make the basketballs spin as they move about the scene. Set the Spin Axis Control to Random. Also enable the Interparticle Collisions option, and set the Calculation Interval to 1 and the Bounce value to 100.
With the Collisions option enabled, the basketballs are prevented from overlapping one another.
7. At the floor of the basketball hoop is a Deflector Space Warp. Click the Bind to Space Warp button on the main toolbar, and drag from this floor deflector to the Super Spray icon.
This makes the basketballs bounce off the floor.
Figure 41.11 shows a rendered image of the scene at frame 30 with several basketballs bouncing chaotically around a hoop.
FIGURE 41.11
Multiple basketball particles flying around a hoop
Object Motion Inheritance rollout
The settings on the Object Motion Inheritance rollout, shown in Figure 41.12, determine how the particles move when the emitter is moving. The Influence value defines how closely the particles follow the emitter's motion; a value of 100 has particles follow exactly, and a value of 0 means they don't follow at all.
FIGURE 41.12
The Object Motion Inheritance rollout sets how the particles inherit the motion of their emitter, and the Bubble Motion rollout defines how particles act like bubbles.
The Multiplier value can exaggerate or diminish the effect of the emitter's motion. Particles with a high multiplier can actually precede the emitter.
Bubble Motion rollout
The Bubble Motion rollout, also shown in Figure 41.12, simulates the wobbling motion of bubbles as they rise in a liquid. Three values define this motion, each with variation values. Amplitude is the distance that the particle moves from side to side. Period is the time that it takes to complete one side-to-side motion cycle. Phase defines where the particle starts along