Deleting single particles

[thelvin-c]

hey there!

Lets say I have a cloud of particles created with the particle tool. Now comes the question. Is it possible to somehow delete a single particle that I have choosen??

Going to component mode lets me select individual particles but it doesn't let me delete them.

thanks all!

[joojaa]

Yes turn the lifespanPP to 0!And it will die when you next update!

[thelvin-c]

setting the lifespanPP to 0 will delete all my particles and I would have no control over it. I would like to select exactly which particles to delete (like in Realflow). If this is not possible then what is the easiest way to do it.

The only way I can think off is creating an expression and setting the lifespan to 0 on specific particles by using their ID number (index)

Is this what you mean?

[mantrid]

I think you had better just tweak your dynamics. If you really need to, you could add soime dynamics fields to push particles back in the right direction, or use invisible objects as collision and use a collision event to delete the particles. You can't edit dynamics or visibility of individual particles in maya. Sadly, this is one of the many limiting factors of Maya's particle system. If you did this particular particle effect in XSI on the other hand, you can go into cluster mode, and select individual particles, and interactively shiftem around, and the motion will continue to work, as will new particles being generated...kinda like sculpting an active particle system. You can also animate visibility of individual particles.

[thelvin-c]

thanks for the reply pootang.

I was afraid of that you just said (limitation on mayas particles).
I did try this method of objects with collisions and deleting particles to "sculpt" the particle system. But damn is this a horrible way to do it.
ohh well, maybe I can import from realflow, dunno

ok thanks again

[mads-tuxen]

If you want to "sculpt" your particles there are several ways (that i can think of) of dooing it:

1. Make a polygonal object, model it and emit particles from the vertices. delete the emitter and set initial mode for the particles.

2. Create particles using the particle tool and place them one by one. (if you dont have too many particles)before you hit enter to finish the creation you can move them around individually by pressing the insert button.

3. create geometry model it and make it a goal. afterwards you can set the goal u and v if its a nurbs object to place them where you want them. Then set initial and delete the emitter.

4. display the particle id and kill them by setting the specific lifespanPP to 0.

Mads

[mantrid]

All good ideas...but...his problem was not with emmitting particles, it was dealing with anomolies during dynamic animation. All good advice

[joojaa]

Yes offcourse if you put the lifespan pp to =0 In a expression then it would kill them all.. what you need to do is open the component editor and chenge the lifespan pp for thet particle to 0!

[jozvex]

Joojaa's right,

But you also need to set the 'Lifespan Mode' of the particles to 'lifespanPP only'.

[ovni]

I would also like to know how to do this... I have a dynamic particle simulation of a fogscape and when a particle strays out on its own it really ruins the effect... I guess you would have to write a little script that compared each particle's position to other particles and create a threshold value that if it went beyond it would fade out and die.

Any ideas?