

When playing back you should enable the Animate / Frame Rate / All Frames option, or click on the Animation toolbar’s Options icon and enable All Frames. Therefore you should always reset the time slider to the starting position when adding new modifiers to the particle system. These strange effects happen because the new position of a particle is calculated from the previous position. If you go backwards in time or move more than one frame forward then strange things may happen on the screen. Particle effects will only be displayed accurately when played at a constant rate in the Timeline. Why not animate the strength of wind for realistic gusts? Almost all the properties of an emitter and the modifiers can be animated. Thus a Turbulence modifier within a Wind modifier results in very realistic smoke effects. Modifiers can be embedded in other modifiers (i.e. These modifiers work, by default, in the Z direction of their coordinate system (e.g., the wind blows in this direction) if this is not the case, it will be explicitly pointed out in the text below. Then they are diverted, slowed down, rotated, etc.

The particles move in a straightforward fashion until they arrive within the range of a modifier. If the particles from an emitter are to be melded together into a metaball, the emitter must be a child of the metaball. You can create fire or smoke effects very easily using visible lights, and particles can even cast lights and shadows.Īll objects in the emitter can be fully animated to create, for example, birds that fly and fish that swim. In the Attribute Manager, ensure that the emitter’s Show Objects option is enabled.Ĭinema 4D enables you to use any object as particles - not only spheres, but also complex, grouped objects with hierarchies such as a jointed bird or a car.Įven light sources can be used as particles. Make an object a child of the emitter (a sphere is suitable for now).Click the Play icon in the animation toolbar and view the default particle system in the viewport.Create an emitter ( Simulate / Particle / Emitter).

These particles and their shapes can be modified by various parameters, Modifiers and Field Forces controls to produce, amongst other effects, rotating, deflecting and decelerating particles. Ever wanted to create shark-infested waters, an intergalactic fleet with hundreds of starships, or just some swirly cigarette smoke? Cinema 4D’s particle system will do all of this for you, and much more, in a very easy and intuitive way.Īt the heart of Cinema 4D’s particle system is the emitter, which ejects a stream of particles.
