Particle Sampler Info node

For information about creating Particle Sampler Info nodes, see Create a Particle Sampler Info node. For information about using Particle Sampler Info nodes, see Examples of using the Particle Sampler Info node. For information about setting Particle Sampler Info node attributes, see Set Particle Sampler Info node attributes.

Editable Sampler Info Attributes

Out Uv Type

Specifies how Out Uv Coord is computed. By default, Out Uv Coord provides the normalized age of the particles. The Out Uv Coord attribute is comprised of Out U Coord and Out V Coord. They are provided in this form so that you can use this attribute to control texture placement nodes.

Normalized age: The particle’s age divided by its finalLifespanPP. The finalLifespanPP attribute is used for the particle’s age. This works in all Lifespan Modes of the particle shape. But if Lifespan Mode is set to Live forever, all lifespans are effectively infinite, so normalized age is always zero.

Out UV Type set to Normalized age is the default; you don’t need to set a use relative age attribute as you did in previous releases.

You can use this output of the Particle Sampler Info node regardless of whether the particle shape has an ageNormalized attribute.
Absolute age: Uses the Normalization Value attribute of the Particle Sampler Info node, in place of finalLifespanPP. This is useful if you want to have the particles live forever, or if you want to cycle through a texture a number of times during the lifespan.
Parent UV and Collision UV: Use these attributes of the particle shape as the u and v values. This gives you more power than you had before, because in addition to age, you can use these attributes to define your own texture coordinates for the particles.

Normalization Method

(Applies only if the Out UV Type is set to Absolute age.) Specifies how to apply Absolute Age and particle age to compute the Out UV Coord. The age ranges from 0 to the value specified by the Normalization Value.

Oscillate

As the particle’s actual age increases, Maya cycles through the normalization range repeatedly. For example, if the normalization value is 2, as the particle age, Maya uses the following values:

Actual particle age	Value Maya uses
0	0
0.1	0.1
1	1
2	2
2.1	0.1
3	1
4	2

Clamp

If the actual age exceeds the normalization value, Maya uses the normalization value. For example, if the normalization value is 2, as the particle age, Maya uses the following values:

actual age	value to use
0	0
0.1	0.1
1	1
2	2
2.1	2
3	2
4	2

Normalization value

(Applies only if the Out UV Type is set to Absolute age.) Specifies upper value of the age range. For example, if you use a value of 2, the particles’ ages range from 0 to 2.

Inverse Out Uv

Uses 1 - Out Uv Coord in the final computation (instead of Out Uv Coord). For example, if you have out Uv Type set so that the value is 1 when the particle is born and 0 when it dies. This applies to all Out UV types.

Common Read-Only Attributes

Displays read only attributes and values taken from the particleShape and particleCloud nodes. These values can be edited from the particleShape and particleCloud Attribute Editor. For information about these attributes, see particleShape node and Particle Cloud attributes.