Duplicate emitters

You can duplicate an emitter to reproduce the emission elsewhere. For example, you can create an emitter that makes a cloud of particles, then create an identical cloud elsewhere in the scene. You can make the duplicate with or without the original’s connections to dynamic effects such as fields. Expressions applied to the emitted particles are not duplicated.

To duplicate an emitter with connections to dynamic effects

1. Select the emitting object (or positional emitter) and the emitted particle object.
2. Select Edit > Duplicate Special > .
3. In the Duplicate Special Options window, turn on Duplicate Input Connections.
4. Click Duplicate Special.
5. Drag the copied emitted particles and the copied emitting object away from the originals.

To duplicate an emitter without connections to dynamic effects

1. Select the emitting object (or positional emitter) and the emitted particle object.
2. Select Edit > Duplicate Special > .
3. In the Duplicate Special Options window, click Edit > Reset Settings to turn on default options.
4. Click Duplicate Special.
5. Select Particles > Connect To Time.

   Emitters have a hidden Current Time attribute. For an emitter to work when you play an animation, it needs an incoming connection to its Current Time attribute. By default, the input to Current Time is provided by the scene’s predefined time variable. (See Understand the Current Time attribute for details.)

   If you select Edit > Duplicate with default options, it doesn’t copy incoming connections to the new object, so its dynamics don’t work. This is why you select Particles > Connect To Time.

6. Drag the copied emitted particles and the copied emitting object away from the originals.
   Note

   The Seed number of the duplicate emitted particle object is the same as the original. The duplicate’s emission randomness is therefore identical to the original, by default. For details on changing the randomness of emission, see Work with emission randomness.