the particle need to be
free in the scene, subject to forces etc under the advanced settings
you can also specify which forces affect them
Hmmm… So for a fountain the Base would have say forces pushing the particles up and away from it (the Force set to fall off at distance) then the Gravity FORCE would effect them to bring them down once the base force fell off enough. Is that close?
Particles can either use the “default” Particles gravity settings (see pic) , or they can use the gravity and any othr forcces in the scene, or just a single force.
to answer Jaderails question, (great example BTW)
the particles are emitted with an initial “Velocity” which can be adjusted, and there’s also a “dispersion angle” setting which can produce anything from a single stream of particles, or a Spray of particles in all directions, like an explosion,.. So, the initial velocity forces the particles into the air,
Then Gravity slows them down and pulls them back to the floor.
In the example of Fire and smoke particles, you would set the particles (own) gravity to something like 0:0:4, instead of the default 0:0:-10, and adjust the initial velocity to something like 4ft per sec.
This will make the particles rise in the scene, instead of falling to the floor.
When you add a particle system, it’s default setting, is to use it’s own gravity settings, and fall down until reaching the “0” level in the scene (floor level) even if there’s no floor object.
If the particles meet any objects, there’s no collision.
To enable particles to use other forces in the scene (including the default scene gravity) you need to enable those options in the Particle editor (Advanced section) See pic.
You can select specific forces (shift+select to add / remove multiple forces) which will effect the particles.
The difference between Point , and Directional forces.
The Direction force is Constant force in a single direction. (although the values and direction can be animated)
The Point force is an all directional force from a single point in space ,... whether that’s an Explosion (positive force) or a Black hole (negative force) everything is either forced away from a single point, or drawn towards it.
The Strength and falloff areas of the forces can be adjusted to create key-frames so you can animate a strong explosion which quickly fades. or a direction force which varies in strength, or direction.
The forces option is just below the (local gravity) settings, it’s an option if you want to use forces you’ve added to the scene, instead of the Local gravity.
For the fountain, you need the initial velocity, and the dispersion angle,. plus a gravity or directional force to slow the particles and pull them back to the floor, that force could either be the particles own (default ) local gravity,.. or other forces you’ve added to the scene.
I played wih it some more. I found that if you check the box to allow forces and add a D-Force, the particles just float there. But uncheck it and use 0-0-40, they blast into space.
For the issue with particles and forces,.
What you describe should be working,. If you have a force in the scene, and a particle emitter enabled to use the forces in the scene, then those particles should be effected by the forces,.. Remember that there’s the “default” Scene Gravity, which, in this case may be working against the direction force you’ve added,..
You can select a Specific force for the particles to use (in the particle editor),. or you can disable the Default scene gravity in the Physics tab.
For the Plane and torque force,..
The plane’s motion needs to be set to Physics, and you need to run the simulation. you’ll also need to add a constraint to the plane, to stop it simply falling through space.
Try adding a Cube primitive,. and a “Ball joint” constraint. along with the torque force, you’ll probably need to adjust the force strength to get the effect you want.
With Carrara I know I can set up soft-body physics, but to be honest I don’t know what limitations there are for this kind of system as I’ve never played with it.
Let’s say I want to make it look like someone is asleep on a bed… Could I set up the soft-body goodness to make it look like the body of the human is soft, and the mesh of the bed is soft, so that the human squishes appropriately and he/she sinks into the soft cuddly mattress properly? And how easy is it to set that kind of thing up?
Soft-body is still pretty limited, (but it can be a lot of fun) ..But,.. as far as applying soft-body to a figure like V4, it’s a no no,
Soft-body can be used to simulate anything that’s soft, like Jelly, or a ball hitting a wall but figures are more complex meshes with different parts, like the Eyes, eyelashes and the figure also has bones which influence the mesh (weight mapping) which is technically a deforming force, PLUS,.. you would still want to be able to animate the figure using key-frames, and right now,.. an object can’t be both key-framed and physics simulated…. it’s either one or the other.
The eyes for example, are made of different objects like the cornea, and in Gen 4 figures, there’s also an eye surface, and if you applied physics to that it would explode, since all the surfaces are touching. and the collision detection would force them apart
Another option would be to Pose the figure,. then export as an OBJect, in that pose, (which gets rid of all the bones) then load that Object back into the scene, and apply physics soft-body, ..but what you’d get is a floppy bag, since there’s nothing inside the figure, it would collapse, depending on the soft-body settings you use.
But,... don’t despair
Your example of a figure deforming a bed or sofa ... is possible in Carrara. and it’s possible without using physics
You can add “Magnets” to the figure, which can be set up to deform another object, so,. when the figure sits down, the magnet force will deform the other object. .EG:..bed / sofa / pillow,... etc.
Johnnybravo 2000 did a couple of Tutorial vids on using magnets in carrara a while ago, ... but I can’t find em now :(
