Introductory Tutorial

Working with Particle Flow

Visualizing Flow Through Tubes

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Special Effects > Particle Animation Tutorials > Working with Particle Flow > 

Modeling Whipped Cream

BlobMesh is a compound object in 3ds Max that creates a set of spheres from geometry, shapes, or particles, and connects the resulting mesh together as if the spheres were made of a soft substance.

When the spheres are animated and come within a certain distance of one another, they connect together. When they move apart, they become spheres again.

BlobMesh is particularly powerful with particle systems such as Particle Flow, where you can use it to make the particles appear thick and viscous.

Here, you will use an existing particle flow animation, and add BlobMesh to the particles to make them look like a thick, liquid substance.

Set up for this tutorial:

1. Open the file tut_blobmesh_start.max from the tutorials\blobmesh folder.

   This file contains animation of a can of whipped cream spraying particles onto a bowl of strawberries.

2. Play the animation.

   

   The particles are tetrahedrons. There are deflectors on the strawberries, the bowl, and the tabletop, and the particles are set up to stop moving when they hit any deflector.

Create the blobmesh:

1. Choose Create panel > Geometry > Compound Objects.
2. Click BlobMesh, and click anywhere in the scene to create one blobmesh sphere.
3. Go to the Modify panel.
4. In the Parameters rollout > Blob Objects group, click Add. Select PF Source 01, then click Add Blobs.

   This adds the particles to the blobmesh object.

5. Play the animation.

   The particles are replaced by blobs. The blobs obtain their sizes from the particle sizes.

   In the viewport, some of the smaller particles will appear not to be surrounded by blobs. This is because BlobMesh uses a different level of detail for viewports and renderings.

6. Press M to open the Material Editor. Select the material named Whipped Cream, and drag it over BlobMesh01 in the scene.

   

   The whipped cream changes in the viewport when the material is assigned to it.

7. Render a frame to see how the blobs look in the final rendering.

   

   TipYou can add a Relax modifier to the BlobMesh01 object to make the blobs look softer.

   You can find a finished version of this scene in the file tut_blobmesh_finish.max. You can also see an animation created with this scene in the file tut_whippedcream.mov.