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ICE Particles Flowing Around an Object

You can make particles flow around an object like an obstacle using the Flow Around Surface compound. This compound modifies the velocity vector so that the particles avoid the object.

This compound is useful for doing effects such as fluid flowing around something or doing crowds/flocking simulations where the characters need to move around an obstacle.

To make particles flow around an obstacle

1. Create a particle simulation—see Creating ICE Particle Emissions.

2. In the ICE view, click the Task tab on preset manager on the left and select Particles.

3. Drag the Flow Around Surface compound from the Motion Control or Surface Interaction group into the ICE view.

4. Plug this compound’s Execute output into a Port on the ICETree node.

5. Create an object with a surface (such as a polygon mesh or NURBS surface) and drag its name into the ICE view to create a node for it.

6. Plug the object’s Value output into the Geometry port of the Flow Around Surface compound.

You can animate the obstacle’s transformations or deformations as you like and the particles will continue to avoid it.

7. In the Flow Around Surface property editor, you can change the way the particles flow around the obstacle’s surface by setting the amount that the particles are repelled from the object, the maximum distance in which the particle will flow around the object, the particle speed, alignment of the particles to the object’s surface normals, and more.

For more information on the parameters, click the ? icon in the property editor or see Flow Around Surface.

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