when to set P or velocity or force explicitly?

[cupoftea]

hey guys,
as an ex-3dsMax user, i have a decent knowledge of maths/vectors/integrations. but being new to houdini, when doing POPVOPs, i often dont know when to explicitly set P or v or force.
i understand that force is integrated to v and that to P.
but then i see other forum hip files where people set P or set force (in VOPs). and i dont know why? so when do i set v, and when P or force? are there special rules?

thx

 

[TheDude]

It is artistic decision. I personally try and use force as much as possible to leave the sim to do its thing, I think this looks the best. There are situations though where directly editing the position is simply the quickest and cleanest result for what we need, though IMO, it always ends up feeling a bit dead

[cupoftea]

thanx for answer. but isnt force the same as acceleration, yes?  that means that when you set force explicitly, the particles keep increasing their speed constantly, right? so they get faster and faster (like gravtiation force for example), no? dont you think that therefore force is harder to control than v?
thx

[Hamp]

Add drag field, it helps in many situations. 

[Navneet Arora]

i think it depends on the scene requirement, Mostly you would likely to use P when you have to stick to a desired output, if you want to leave things to the solver then you could modify force or v.