pymel.core.effects.emitter

emitter(*args, **kwargs)

Creates an emitter object. If object names are provided or if objects are selected, applies the emitter to the named/selected object(s)in the scene. Particles will then be emitted from each. If no objects are named or selected, or if the -pos option is specified, creates a positional emitter. If an emitter was created, the command returns the name of the object owning the emitter, and the name of emitter shape. If an emitter was queried, the command returns the results of the query. Keyframeable attributes of the emitter node: rate, directionX, directionY, directionZ, minDistance, maxDistance, spread.

Flags:

Long name (short name)		Argument Types	Properties
alongAxis (alx)		float
	Initial velocity multiplier in the direction along the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Applies only to volume emitters.
aroundAxis (arx)		float
	Initial velocity multiplier in the direction around the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Applies only to volume emitters.
awayFromAxis (afx)		float
	Initial velocity multiplier in the direction away from the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Used only with the cylinder, cone, and torus volume emitters.
awayFromCenter (afc)		float
	Initial velocity multiplier in the direction away from the center point of a cube or sphere volume emitter. Used only with the cube and sphere volume emitters.
cycleEmission (cye)		unicode
	Possible values are “none” and “frame.” Cycling emission restarts the random number stream after a specified interval. This can either be a number of frames or a number of emitted particles. In each case the number is specified by the cycleInterval attribute. Setting cycleEmission to “frame” and cycleInterval to 1 will then re-start the random stream every frame. Setting cycleInterval to values greater than 1 can be used to generate cycles for games work.
cycleInterval (cyi)		int
	Specifies the number of frames or particles between restarts of the random number stream. See cycleEmission. Has no effect if cycleEmission is set to None.
directionX (dx)		float
	x-component of emission direction. Used for directional emitters, and for volume emitters with directionalSpeed.
directionY (dy)		float
	y-component of emission direction. Used for directional emitters, and for volume emitters with directionalSpeed.
directionZ (dz)		float
	z-component of emission direction. Used for directional emitters, and for volume emitters with directionalSpeed.
directionalSpeed (drs)		float
	For volume emitters only, adds a component of speed in the direction specified by the directionX, Y, and Z attributes. Applies only to volume emitters. Does not apply to other types of emitters.
maxDistance (mxd)		float
	Maximum distance at which emission ends.
minDistance (mnd)		float
	Minimum distance at which emission starts.
name (n)		unicode
needParentUV (nuv)		bool
	If aNeedParentUV is true, compute parentUV value from each triangle or each line segment, then send out to the target particle object. You also need to add parentU and parentV attributes to the particle object to store these values.
normalSpeed (nsp)		float
	Normal speed multiple for point emission. For each emitted particle, multiplies the component of the velocity normal to the surface or curve by this amount. Surface and curve emitters only.
position (pos)		float, float, float
	Positional emitter at world space location (x,y,z).
randomDirection (rnd)		float
	Magnitude of a random component of the speed from volume emission.
rate (r)		float
	Rate at which particles emitted (can be non-integer). For point emission this is rate per point per unit time. For surface emission it is rate per square unit of area per unit time.
scaleRateByObjectSize (sro)		bool
	Applies to curve and surface emitters, only. If true, number of particles is determined by object size (area or length) times rate value. If false, object size is ignored and the rate value is used without modification. The former is the way Maya behaved prior to version 3.0.Flag can appear in Create mode of commandFlag can have multiple arguments, passed either as a tuple or a list.
scaleSpeedBySize (ssz)		bool
	Indicates whether the scale of a volume emitter affects its velocity.
speed (spd)		float
	Speed multiple. Multiplies the velocity of the emitted particles by this amount. Does not apply to volume emitters. For that emitter type, use directionalSpeed.
speedRandom (srn)		float
	Identifies a range of random variation for the speed of each generated particle. If set to a non-zero value, speed becomes the mean value of the generated particles, whose speeds vary by a random amount up to plus or minus speedRandom/2. For example, speed 5 and speedRandom 2 will make the speeds vary between 4 and 6.
spread (sp)		float
	Random spread (0-1), as a fraction of 90 degrees, along specified direction. Directional emitters only.
tangentSpeed (tsp)		float
	Tangent speed multiple for point emission. For each emitted particle, multiplies the component of the velocity tangent to the surface or curve by this amount. Surface and curve emitters only.
torusSectionRadius (tsr)		float
	Section radius for a torus volume. Applies only to torus. Similar to the section radius in the torus modelling primitive.
type (typ)		unicode
	Type of emitter. The choices are omni | dir | direction | surf | surface | curve | curv. The default is omni. The full definition of these types are: omnidirectional point emitter, directional point emitter, surface emitter, or curve emitter.
volumeOffset (vof)		float, float, float
	Volume offset of the emitter. Volume offset translates the emission volume by the specified amount from the actual emitter location. This is in the emitter’s local space.
volumeShape (vsh)		unicode
	Volume shape of the emitter. Sets/edits/queries the field’s volume shape attribute. If set to any value other than “none”, determines a 3-D volume within which particles are generated. Values are: “cube,” “sphere,” “cylinder,” “cone,” “torus.”
volumeSweep (vsw)		float
	Volume sweep of the emitter. Applies only to sphere, cone, cylinder, and torus. Similar effect to the sweep attribute in modelling.

Derived from mel command maya.cmds.emitter

Example:

import pymel.core as pm

pm.particle( p=((-1, 5, 2), (2, 2, 2), (3, 3, 3)), n='particles' )
# Result: [nt.Transform(u'particles'), nt.Particle(u'particlesShape')] #
pm.emitter( 'particles', r=300, mnd=1.5, mxd=2.5, n='emitter' )
# Result: nt.Transform(u'particles') #
pm.particle( n='emitted' )
# Result: [nt.Transform(u'emitted'), nt.Particle(u'emittedShape')] #
pm.connectDynamic( 'emitted', em='emitter' )
# Result: [u'emittedShape'] #

# Creates a particle emitter.

pm.emitter( dx=1, dy=0, dz=0, sp=0.33, pos=(1, 1, 1), n='myEmitter' )
# Result: nt.PointEmitter(u'myEmitter') #
pm.particle( n='emittedParticles' )
# Result: [nt.Transform(u'emittedParticles'), nt.Particle(u'emittedParticlesShape')] #
pm.connectDynamic( 'emittedParticles', em='myEmitter' )
# Result: [u'emittedParticlesShape'] #

# Creates a point emitter.