in a viewport and toggle the Particles option in the view menu.
Viewing Particle-based Simulations
Creating particle simulations is a visual process that requires many ways of viewing. There are a number of display modes (and the render region) in which you can visualize particles.
You can also hide particles completely and display or hide the particles’ attributes (such as their ID numbers and trails). As well, you can display particles as points only, which makes displaying them very fast.
You can view particle-based simulations using any of these display types in a viewport. You can also use a render region when you’re previewing the effects of the shader you’ve applied to the particles (see Previewing Shaders in the Render Region).
The type of basic shader attached to the particle type determines the look:
• Billboard is the default shader for the Particle simulator.
• Blob is the default shader for the Fluid simulator.
• Sphere is another basic shader you can add to determine the particle shape.
For more information, see The Basic Particle Render Type Shaders.
Wireframe
In Wireframe display, the particles are shown as camera-oriented hexagonal outlines the size of the particle’s radius, and colored with the particle’s color at the appropriate frame. The particles are shaped this way to show you the orientation of the particle, which matters when you’re using rotation (see Rotating Particles).
By default, the particles are aligned with the camera’s X and Y axes, but if you have sprite or billboard tangency activated or you’re using rotation, they will use these settings so that they’re oriented correctly to the camera (see Billboard Shader (2D)).
Shaded
In Shaded display, they particles are shown as flat (constant) colored hexagons, the size of the particle’s radius, and colored with the particle’s color at the appropriate frame. The camera orientation for the particles is the same as for Wireframe display.
Textured
In Textured display, you can preview many particle options so that you don’t always need to draw a render region. The particles are displayed as alpha-blended bitmaps that use the color and alpha information defined for the particles. The particles are also properly integrated with scene objects in depth.
You can also use textured mode to see the defined particle shapes and other values, including:
• Sprites (not animated ones) and their angles.
• Tangency to particle velocity when using sprites or billboards
• Particle rotation
• Particle transparency settings
• RGB color from sprites, instead of particle color
• Alpha source modes (RGB intensity, alpha channel, particle alpha)
• An approximate form of Color Burn (in the Billboard, Sphere, and Blob shaders), which is turned on or off depending on whether the Burn value is greater than 0.5 or not. At a value of about 0.5, the textured particles should match the look of the rendered particles fairly closely.
• The Image node if connected to the shader’s render tree. If a sprite is also connected, it overrides the image.
• Texturing is not supported for the Sphere and Blob (3D) shaders.
Displaying and Hiding Particles and their Attributes
You can display or hide all particles in the viewports. As well, you can display or hide certain particle attributes, such as the particle ID or trail, on selected and/or unselected particles.
When you hide particles, the simulation is muted which makes it faster to play the scene. This is useful if you want to keep the particles in the scene, but you’re not working on them at the moment.
To view or hide particles in a viewport
• Click the eye icon in a viewport and toggle the Particles option in the view menu.
or
1. From the same view menu, choose Visibility Options.
2. In the Camera Visibility property editor, toggle the Particles option on the Objects page.
To view or hide particles in all viewports
• Choose Display > Visibility Options (All Cameras) from the main menu bar and toggle the Particles option on the Objects page in the Visibility Options for All Cameras property editor.
To view or hide particle attributes in a viewport
• In the Camera Visibility property editor, click the Attributes tab and toggle the Particle ID, Particle Points Only, and/or Particle Trail options for selected and/or unselected objects.
- Particle IDs are displayed under each particle, regardless of the display mode. See About Particle IDs for more information.
- Particle points allow you to override the default particle display modes. When Particle Points Only is selected, points are shown regardless of the display mode. You may want to use this for faster performance or for a less cluttered display when you’re not tweaking the particles.
- Particle trails are lines giving a visual cue to the particle’s velocity (with the appropriate color variation). The amount of trail left by a particle depends on its velocity (see Setting Up the Particle Emission for more information).
To view or hide particle attributes in all viewports
• Choose Display > Visibility Options (All Cameras) from the main menu bar and toggle the options on the Attributes page in the Visibility Options for All Cameras property editor.
Previewing Particles with Ghosting
Animation ghosting, also known as onion-skinning, lets you display a series of snapshots of animated objects at frames behind and/or ahead of the current frame. This lets you easily visualize the motion of an object, which can help you improve its timing and flow. Any type of animation can be ghosted, including objects that are simulated.
You can use ghosting to show the motion of particles (cached), but this may not be practical if there are many particles in the scene.
You can use different display modes for ghosting, such as the object’s geometry, motion trails, or simple points.
For more information, see Ghosting Animated Objects
[ Animation ].
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