The particle shape is what is what you see displayed in the viewport. This is not necessarily the final rendered shape, as it is often modified by the shader that you use. There are several predefined shapes to choose from, and you can also use instances of your own geometry to substitute for the basic particle shapes (see ICE Particle Instances (Objects as Particle Shapes)).
|
If you’re having display problems due to the particle shape, especially with the wireframe or constant view type, try turning off the Advanced Hardware Particle Display option in your Display preferences (choose File > Preferences and click Display). This option activates hardware optimizations for displaying particles, but may cause problems with certain graphics hardware. |
Setting the Initial Particle Shape
You can set the shape of the particles that is displayed in the viewport using the options in the Shape list in the Emit compound’s property editor.
To set other display options, including overriding this shape, see Setting the Particle Display.
To set the particle’s initial shape
1. Create a particle emission—see Creating ICE Particle Emissions.
2. Open an Emit compound’s property editor and select the shape from the Shape list: point, disc, rectangle, sphere, box, cylinder, capsule, cone, segment, or blob.
|
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
 |
- If you want to render the particles as blobs (fluid), select Blob. Blobs and capsules are displayed as spheres in the viewport, and as blobs or capsules only in the render region. See ICE Particle Blobs for information on blending them.
|
 |
 |
- If you want to see strands (trails) in the viewport, select the Segment shape. To see their actual shape, you must create a render region. See ICE Particle Strands for information on creating particle strands.
- If you want to render sprites, select the Rectangle shape to create standard billboards. You can render sprites with any shape (except for Point), but a rectangle gives the best flat billboard look.
The Shape attribute is used to define particle shape that is used for rendering and display. This attribute it set by the Emit compounds, but you can change its value using the Shape parameter in the Emit property editor (see Setting the Initial Particle Shape).
It is also used by the Simulate Rigid Bodies node for determining collisions (see Collision Geometry for Rigid Body Particles).
You can get and set the Shape attribute on its own with the Get Particle Shape and Set Particle Shape compounds, which are simply the Get Data and Set Data nodes with the Shape attribute already specified, as described in Using ICE Particle Attributes.
For more information on attributes in general and a list of all available ICE attributes, see ICE Attributes.
Autodesk Softimage v.7.5