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Particle Systems on Packed Primitives


MoltenCrazy

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Trying to figure out the best approached to creating particle systems that are unique and isolated to packed primitives.

Basically, I've got a rigid body shatter effect and for each packed prim I want to have an energy effect that travels along with the prim geo. I'm after a particle effect that basically 'clings' to the surface with maybe the occasional wisp or particle that escapes a tightly controlled field around the surface. I don't want a comet trail/firework sort of effect as it travels through space. Think of something like an ether fire engulfing an object: all flame and form around the source without any smoke emission.

For instance, the look could be similar to stationary geo with a VDB-driven velocity field manipulated by curl noise.

It feels like my base needs to be a per-piece particle system that starts as a scatter-on-surface system and...then everything I've tried just doesn't get me where I need to be.

So, I guess my questions are:

  1. Is a for-each loop pretty much a given here?
  2. Any way I can avoid making the first step in the for-each loop an unpack? Because, you know, that's painful... :)
  3. How do I keep the particle system contained to the volume of the packed primitive/fragment geo?
    • This isn't meant to sound as broad as it might; I've got (I think) a fairly good understanding of forces/velocity/etc in POPs/DOPs but I just can't seem to find the right combo here.
    • The particles need to inherit the overall velocity/acceleration/transformations of the fragments as they transform, but they need to do it in a contained, volumetric fashion. My prototype tests have been getting me imagery that at one extreme looks like the particles are getting 'stamped' in space and like the comet tail at the other.
    • I've tried a few ways to create a VDB per-fragment, and it, uh, wasn't a pretty for performance or visuals. (willing to take the perf hit for the right look, btw)
  4. I literally had not considered pyro for this until typing the ether flame description in the post. Does this sound like something suited for a pyro solver? Haven't done much pyro besides some advection hijacking.

I'd be grateful for any advice.

Thanks!

 

--

mC

 

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