Creating Visual Effects in Maya

Chapter 3

Creating Water, Smoke, and Sparks with nParticles

Maya nParticle simulations can create believable bodies of liquid, such as pooled oil or water. In addition, nParticles can recreate airborne particulates, such as rain, snow, ash, sparks, or smoke. You can render nParticles with a wide variety of renderers. In fact, one particle type, Blobby Surface, supports standard Maya materials. It’s not necessary to animate nParticles—you need only generate particles with an emitter and influence their motion with physics-based fields and collision surfaces. Hence, nParticles presents a powerful simulation system appropriate for a wide variety ...