Cloning the Explosion Plane

Creating Explosions

Adding Materials to the Particles

 

Autodesk 3ds Max Tutorials > Animation Tutorials > Creating Explosions > 

Breaking the Asteroid into Flying Pieces with Particle Array

At this point, the asteroid, laserblast, and explosion are all animated. Next, you'll add particles to simulate the asteroid breaking up as it explodes.

Setup:

• Continue working with the previous file or open exploding_asteroid_with_2planes.max.

Create a particle system in the scene:

1. Go to Create panel > Geometry and choose Particle Systems from the drop-down list.
2. In the Object Type rollout, click PArray.
3. Click and drag to create a PArray particle gizmo in the Top viewport.

   

   Perspective viewport view of the PArray gizmo

4. In the Basic Parameters rollout, click Pick Object, and then click the asteroid in a viewport.

   The name of the asteroid, in this case Sphere01, is displayed below the Pick Object button to show that the particle system has been linked to the asteroid.

Expand the command panel and adjust the PArray settings:

Next, you'll expand the command panel so you can see more of the particle system rollouts.

1. Move the cursor to the left edge of the command panel.

   The cursor changes to a double arrow.

2. Click and drag the edge of the panel to the left.

   A second column of the command panel appears.

3. Click the Particle Type rollout to open it.

   The Particle Type rollout is now displayed in the second column.

   

4. In the Particle Type rollout > Particle Types group, choose Object Fragments.
5. Scroll down to the Object Fragment Controls group.
6. Set Thickness to 11.0.
7. Choose Number Of Chunks and set Minimum to 75.
8. In the Basic Parameters rollout > Viewport Display group, choose Mesh.

   Move the time slider to see asteroid chunks appear in the viewport.