Creating new Particle System with API

[mattwright]

Hi

I am looking to create a super-simple particle node in Maya... What I want to do is import XYZ information from a text file, and create a particle system where each particle is based on a line from the text file.

I have managed of course to do this easily with MEL, however it is pretty darn slow... and the standard particle system in Maya is fine for displaying this - however it also has a lot of extra information associated with the node, that I don't need - for example:

this is just for display purposes, so no animation, dynamics, velocity information is required...

I was hoping that writing my own particle plugin would not only import this data in faster, but also make the resulting Maya file much smaller, and faster to work with...

I am new to API, and have David Gould's book (amazing)... but I still need some pointers on where to start

If anyone can help!

Thanks

[fizzmoll11]

If you just want to visualise the data associated with the particles (position, velocity, whatever) in a Maya viewport, you could create a custom node derived from MPxLocatorNode. This will act as a maya locator, i.e. show up in the openGL viewports but not in any renders. In the MPxLocatorNode you have access to the openGL rendering context for the viewports.

This would probably be the quickest way to solve your problem, but it might not be ideal from a design point of view; it will be difficult to extend the functionality of this solution later on when requirements change. The custom locator node is purely for viewport visualisation purposes.

hope this helps.