Active Sword Page 2

Simple Collisions (Aug 2003)

Yeah, well, pay attention cause this is going to start going faster. Like "going, going, gone" going. Gong! Excuse me.

Step 4: Make Goals!
At this point, select the first set of particles and then the second. Make the second the goal of the first by going to Particles > Goal. If you play it, the first set of particles will move to the second. Fix the wobbling by going to the particleShape node of the first set of particles and under Goal Weights and Objects, set the Goal Smoothness to 0 and crank up particleShape2 to 1. If you play it now, the first set of particles snaps to the second. Why we do this, you shall find out shortly.

Step 5: Make Collide the Victims!
Now select the first set of particles (particle1 from now on) and one victim and go to Particles > Make Collide. Repeat for the rest and make sure that all your victims have GeoConnectors attached to them. Set the Resilience and Friction of all of these to 0. Now particle1 can now collide with the victims.

Step 6: Test it!
Now parent the second set of particles (particle2 from now on) to the sword. Animate the sword slicing through the victims. As particle2 attached to the sword moves through the victims, particle1 collides with them and then tries to return to its goal of particle2. What does this mean? Particle1 will cause the collision and trigger the bleeding process while particle2 which is a child of the sword always serves as the point of return for particle1. This lets particle1 return to the sword so that it can collide with the next victim. Otherwise, it would just fly off in space and sword would lose its reactive abilities.
Click here for the test playblast!
Note: If the particles get stuck to the victim, it means that the friction on the GeoConnector for that victim is too high. Set it to zero.

Step 7: Make 'em Bleed!
Now click on particle1 and go to Particles > Particle Collision Events and select particle1. Make sure All Collisions is checked under "on which collision, do you want event to happen?" Under event type, set Type to Emit and set Num Particles to 9. You can come back later and change these and other values for the desired effect. Make sure that Original Particle Dies is Unchecked. Click Create Event; take note that an extra set of particles were created. This particle3 is your blood effect. Go ahead and play it. You should see particle3 particles exploding out of the object when hit.

Step 8: Set up Blood!
Oh so violent! Well, it doesn't have to be blood. It could be green goo, oil, saw dust, sparks, sweets, etc. Select particle3, change the render type to streaks or whatever you want and assign it a shader of your choice. Apply a gravity field to it by selecting the particle3 and going to Fields > Gravity. You can go back to the Particle Collision Events and change values there as well. Go on. Tweak stuff!

Guess it's over...