3D Compositing with Action > Action: The Particle System > Exploding Objects and Surfaces >
Exploding Surfaces

To make the media applied to the surface appear during the explosion, you must also apply a texture to the particle generator.

To explode a surface:

1. Select or add a surface and adjust its shape, position, rotation, and other attributes. See Adding Surfaces.
2. Select the surface in Schematic view and add a particle generator. See Generators.

   A particle generator is automatically connected to the surface.

3. From the Particle Generator menu, select Explode as the Stream Type.
4. Select Polygon as the particle type from the Render Type box. To view the explosion as you make changes to your particle stream, change the Interactive Type box to Polygon as well. See Setting Particle Rendering Properties.
5. Set the other properties in the Particle Generator menu. See Customizing the Particle Stream.
6. In the Rendering section of the Action Setup menu, adjust the default resolution.

   Resolution is used to set the size of the polygons exploded from the surface. The higher the resolution, the larger the polygon.

7. Hide the surface.
8. Select the particle generator in Schematic view.
9. From the Node bin, double-click the Diffuse Map node.

   A diffuse object appears in the schematic and is parented by the particle generator. See Diffuse Mapping.

10. Double-click the diffuse object and, in the Diffuse menu, select Wrap from the Mapping box.
11. Apply the appropriate media to the Diffuse element and set any other Diffuse menu settings.

    The following figure shows the schematic and the result of exploding a surface with diffuse mapping set to Wrap.