3ds Max Particles and Dynamics

3ds Max has traditionally come with several basic particle emitters. As of version 8, there are 6 basic particle emitters (not including Particle Flow) exhibiting specific behaviors. The traditional particle emitters are Spray, Snow, Blizzard, PArray, PCloud, and Super Spray.

Particle Flow is a sophisticated non-linear, event-driven particle system developed by Oleg Bayborodin of Orbaz Technologies as one of 3ds Max' seven particle emitters. Unlike most particle systems available in today's 3D packages, Particle Flow allows the user to design the behavior of a particle based on a series of user-defined Events (Procedures) in a streamlined and intuitive GUI. Particle Flow displays all emitters and events in a single node-based editor called the Particle View. Particle Flow is very fast to use because it does not require too many wiring operations to connect the operators into a working system - instead, it uses drag&drop to add modular operators to different particle containers (defined by the Events) which can affect various channels of the particle system. Wiring is required only when sending particles out via a Test Operator from one event to another.

3ds Max includes a physics engine, called reactor, originally created by Havok. reactor can simulate rigid bodies, soft bodies, cloth, gravity, and other forces. Like many physics engines, reactor uses a simplified convex hull, but can be customized to use all vertices, at a cost in processing time.

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