# Preparing for the lessons

This tutorial assumes that you:

- Understand the basic concepts of polygon modeling, animation, fluids, and nParticles.
- Copied the nParticles Advanced Techniques folder from the following location: http://www.autodesk.com/maya-advancedtechniques. Then, set the nParticlesAdvancedTutorials directory as your Maya project.
- Selected the FX menu set. Unless otherwise noted, the instructions in this chapter assume you’ve already selected the FX menu set.