Particles to mesh

[devin]

I'm new to Phoenix so please forgive the question if it's obvious, I've been asked to create an animation where particles are being sucked into an HVAC system. These particles are actually small bacteria and the object is to show how the filter removes them from the air. Creating the particle sim seems to be relatively easy and when viewed from a distance there doesn't need to be any detail. However at some point the camera will zoom down to a microscopic level into the particle cloud where you will see the bacteria. My question is can a modeled bacteria be substituted for each simulated particle so the cloud is made up of these models instead of what normally makes up the particle cloud?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

Hey, sure, you can use VRayInstancer and plug the Phoenix particle system there to get meshes instanced over the particles.

Or alternatively you could use the Phoenix particle flow (https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...Flow+Operators) or Thinking particles operators (https://docs.chaosgroup.com/display/...cles+Operators) to create such particles and carry them around with the fluid, using the mesh instancing these tools provide.

[devin]

That's great!

Is it possible to destroy these instanced particles at a pre-determined location or point?

[Svetlin.Nikolov]

If you were rendering them just by using a Phoenix Particle Shader, I would have suggested using a Cutter for removing them at runtime.

However, you either have to find a way to filter out/select the particles near a volume if you go with pflow or tP, or if you go with a VRayInstancer, maybe you have to remove the unwanted particles at simulation time since it does not seem to me that the VRayInstancer can remove these at render time - maybe kostadin.terziev can say more if there is a way to do it.

Cheers!

[kostadin.terziev]

Hi,

As Svetlin pointed out, VRayInstancer does not control when instances/particles are removed.
Simply said it feeds from a particle system each frame and renders those particles with chosen geometry.
So, it will be the particle system (simulation) responsibility to control the particles lifetime.

You probably can do it with any particles generator/simulator including the 3dsmax own Particle Flow, where
you can add a scene deflector, add collision operator to pflow "event" and redirect the collided particles to delete operator.
Something like the setup in the attached screenshot

Best Regards,
Kostadin