Particle objects

A particle object is a collection of particles that share the same attributes. You can create particle objects containing a single particle or millions of particles. Each particle in a scene belongs to some particle object. An overview of how you create particle effects follows:

Creating particles

You can create particles several ways:

Place particles in the workspace with the Particle Tool (see Create particles).
Create a particle emitter, which generates and animates the motion of particles automatically (see Emitters).
Cause particles that collide with geometry to create new particles upon contact (see Particle collisions).

Set display attributes

You change the way particles look with several techniques:

Set the render type of the particle object to select its form. For example, you can display particles as small spheres or streaking tails (see Choose how particles render).
Illuminate particles with lights you add to the scene (see Use lights, reflections, refractions, and shadows).
Color particles (see Set particle color).
Give particles transparency (see Set particle opacity).
Make particles disappear as they age (see Set particle lifespan).

Animate the particles

You can animate particle motion several ways:

Set the position, velocity, or acceleration attributes of particles. You can also set keys to animate an entire particle object’s translate, scale, and rotate attributes. See Animate particles
Apply fields, such as gravity, to particles (see Overview of fields).
Turn geometry into a collision object and bounce particles off it (see Particle collisions).
Make the particles follow a moving goal object (see Goals).

Render the particles

Rendering is the final step to creating particle effects. Depending on the render type you select, you render the particles with hardware rendering or software rendering. See Choose how particles render.