Assembly/Disassembly with Particle Flow in 3ds Max

Assembly/Disassembly with Particle Flow in 3ds Max

on Nov 1st 2011 with 58 comments
Tutorial Details

Final Product What You'll Be Creating

This entry is part 4 of 12 in the Best of 3D Studio Max – Part 2 Session
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Being creative with the dynamic systems in our 3D applications can produce stunning, exciting and elegant results. In this tutorial, Sachin Joshi walks us through one such example using Particle Flow in 3Ds Max, showing us how to assemble and disassemble objects within your scene.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in July of 2010.

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Rollover to read this author's bio or click through to see a full list of posts by this author.

My name is Sachin Joshi and I am from Nepal. I am a Lead Artist specializing in compositing and FX for my company "IRAS"(Incessant Rain Animation Studio). My main tools are 3ds Max and After Effects, and I'm planning to learn NUKE within a few months. You can visit my blog here at sachinmanjoshi.blogspot.com.  

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  • Normal Privates

    Thanks. This is a worthwhile watch.

  • Mike Yull

    Can’t find the chunks script on scriptspot but the baker one was there.
    Very helpful tut

    • http://www.badgrenola.com Matt Brealey

      Glad you liked the tut! I’ve added a direct link to the script at the very top of this page :)

      Thanks,

      Matt

  • Tripp

    A proper link to the Maxscript would have been nice, but awesome video none-the-less.

    • http://www.badgrenola.com Matt Brealey

      You’re absolutely right, Tripp! I’ve gone in and added a link at the very top of the post :)

      Thanks,

      Matt

  • Naveen

    Sachin, thanks for the wonderful tutorial, it has amazing possibilities, and always wondered how these were done.

  • Archie

    Awesome Tut as always, Really helpful .
    Thank you.

  • Mike Yull

    Thanks a lot! Anyone else having trouble with the script?

  • Robin

    I love this technique. Great Tutorial and thankyou for sharing.

  • Steve

    I enjoyed watching this tut, very good and informative, Thankyou very much, Sachin.

  • VIKI

    Wow, actually going to do this kinda project and I find this. Very helpful and a good tut too.

  • ivy

    thanks for the tut.as before your tut has been very helpful.

  • rayez

    very helpful tut …. enjoyed it …

  • Lyn

    The tutorial content and it’s subject is very interesting, A good tutorial,
    Thanks and keep it up.

  • Om Shrestha

    pretty awesome tutorial. Thankx a lot for providing such a wonderful tutorial. KEEP IT UP..

  • Claudia Edson

    A neat tutorial and its awesome. Thanks for sharing.

  • nemo

    don’t work…

    [ Editor note - Hi Nemo, If you can let us know the problems you're having, I'm sure someone here would be glad to help you out :) Thanks, Matt. ]

  • http://poliman.pl Strony Internetowe Kraków

    it’s very nice to watch, thanks!

  • Raoul

    Nice tut.

  • Hawk

    The script does not show up even when i clicked on the direct link at the top of this page. when i viewed a cached copy and copied the script from there to the maxscript editor it saved properly but when i try to open it in the pflow part it says that the script contains errors. I’m not really sure what’s going on there. I hope this is descriptive enough for someone to help me. if not i’ll try to clarify more.

    • Rany Bishara

      on ChannelsUsed pCont do
      (
      pCont.useAge = true
      pCont.useTM = true
      pCont.useShape = true
      )

      on Init pCont do
      (
      global ChunksArray = $Box* as array
      )

      on Proceed pCont do
      (
      t = pCont.getTimeStart() as float

      if t < 0 do
      (
      NumChunks = ChunksArray.count

      for i = 1 to NumChunks do
      (
      pCont.AddParticle()
      pCont.particleIndex = pCont.NumParticles()
      pCont.particleAge = 0
      pCont.particleTM = ChunksArray[i].transform
      pCont.particleShape = ChunksArray[i].mesh
      )
      )
      )

      on Release pCont do
      (

      )

  • Rany Bishara

    I love the tutorial but i’m facing a problem.

    I have detached a guitar and followed the same steps as the tutorial but when I change the type of the particles to geometry the guitar becomes deformed, parts are scaled and out of place! please anyone help i need this project !

    • http://sachinmanjoshi.blogspot.com sachin joshi

      probably you forgot to reset xform on the geometry,

  • Manish Sharma

    Nice tutorial… but there is something wrong. i copied that script from the web in to .txt file then save it as .ms file. then i open my scene and open this script, change the name then save it, it saved properly but pflow does’nt took mesh as particle. i am using 3ds max 2010. i think in my case the maxscript is not working.

    i copied that script from this link
    http://www.scriptspot.com/bobo/mxs5/pflow/pflow__Chunks_Basics.htm
    and i only change the name of my object.

    please help me….
    i am dying to achieve that effect….plz

    • http://sachinmanjoshi.blogspot.com sachin joshi

      can you send me the scene file , I can have a look,

      • Manish Sharma

        i have sent u the scene file on your gmail. please have a look and tell me where was i wrong…

      • http://sachinmanjoshi@blogspot.com sachin joshi

        Hi Manish,

        going thourgh your scene file you probably have done some mistake. like all your models are not center to pivot, so align the pivot to the center of the object and reset xform and convert to poly.

        Still you will find your scene wont be working, because you have create the messy script.
        Under the birth script in your scene, if you scroll down, you forgot to delete extra default script that comes with birth script, you need to delete that too. now once again delete everything in the script and paste your birth script.

        Now , this will work for sure.
        All the best.

      • Arun

        Hi Sachin Thank Uuuuu very Much………..i was not aware of Xform option

      • Manish Sharma

        yeah it works….and now i get the effect. Thanks you very very much for helping me.

      • http://sachinmanjoshi.blogspot.cm sachin joshi

        glad to hear that.

  • Saroj Khan

    I love this tutorial, man. and yes, I got my effects done.
    Thankyou once again for such a sharing.

  • Rusty_Carr

    I am having the same problem as Manish. Any luck on finding the problem? Cheers.

    • Rusty_Carr

      Problem solved, I copied the script from the downloadable scene…

      Ta

  • anup shakya

    very good tutorial, nice to watch.
    Thanks for sharing.

  • Gyanon

    wow this looks cool………..
    thanks for the share .keep it up………..

  • Dawn

    Great technique to learn, however extremely hard to understand what was being said a lot of the time which is a bit of a downfall.

    Still nice effort. thanks

  • jose

    very good tutorial, nice to watch.
    Thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.robertguyser.com Robert

    Great tutorial. Amazing to see particles used in all these neat ways! This is a bit like the digital domain lexus commercials…

    Thanks!

  • http://viratahuja.webs.com/ virat

    nice tutorials sir i like all of steps i will create some real vfx .
    thanks

  • Marta

    Hi!! does anyone know where I can find a tutorial like this, but for Maya??? I tried to folow along translating into Maya step by step… but it’s looking a bit too complicated lol.. Thank you for the tutorial anyway :D The result is awsome!!

  • Albert

    I’m having problems with the render. Everything else is good except that when I render, it keeps on rendering the first frame… HELP PLEASE

  • Sebastian

    Good tutorial but I wanted to create this effect with my existing geometry that contains UVs. Anyway around this?

  • ROD S

    I am trying do use this effect with a .iam file from inventor 2011. The partical script wont pick up the objects for some reason..is there a way to convert the inventor file into a usable max file?

  • Nawaz

    hey sachin thanx for the tut…it was so informative,i got d effect in my first try,thanx for the bunch of information…

    *** i have a query though…at d start of tut,u show some renders in Ram Player,d effect you are gonna get at the end,i noticed three different views in one window,is dat a plugin or done manually…coz doing manually would be so painful…please clearify…

    and thanx for the tutorial again,its the easiest way i’ve seen for particle system object assembly/disassembly…

  • http://www.krembo99.com krembo99

    Very nice tutorial.
    One question though – How do one use the original Material settings for an object without assigning it manually to each particle ??

    • animate

      thanks alot for this great tutorial, i have the same question! anyone can help? thanks in advance!!

  • Steve

    Works great!- Is there a way to animate the the objects along a curved path- like for building a brick road?

  • http://felimedia.net Felice

    Not all my objects are picked up by the particle flow system. Everything is xformed and objects pivots oriented to their center. What step is missing?

  • Adi

    Very nice tutorials, but I also have problem with creating this. Can you please tell me where i can donwload the scene? I have registered as premium only for this :)

    Thanks in advance

    • Adi

      … also if you have a tip for hidding the old geometry. Here it appears the old geometry and the disintegrating geometry is on top, so both shows. I dont know what I am doing wrong

    • http://www.christateonline.com Chris Tate
      Staff

      Hi Adi,

      I’ve just checked and unfortunately it looks like the author never submitted any project files for this tutorial. Very sorry!

      All the best,
      Chris

  • john

    hello , thanks for that ,, realy helpful
    i have problem, actually every thing work fine , but if I add any change like adding operator or modifying values , it disappears ,, pretty sure i did every thing right , so whats the problem , need help guys

    • john

      problem solved , I did mistake with the script , thanks alot for the tutorial

      • http://www.shadesofadream.com/blog Heather Craik

        Hey John,

        What was the mistake in script? I’m having the same issue and can’t figure it out (very new to the whole scripting thing).

        Thanks,
        Heather

        (PS to Author – loved the tutorial, really useful!)

  • Ty

    Are there any scripts similar to this for maya?

  • zuman

    i am having problem, soon as i choose Reset XForm and click Reset Selected my 3Ds Max 2012 freezes. please let me know if anyone can what is wrong with my program or file.thanks in advance.

  • Ahmed

    Hello
    its a wonderful tutorial but i dont know if im the only one having this problem. I followed every step many times and i still get the same result. My mesh is not being converted when i apply the script and the pf source just sprays around. But im quite sure that im following every step precisely. can someone please help me in this matter?

  • allamrio

    How do you dissasemble a 3d objects