and here's a tutorial on instancing geometry to particles:
https://caad.arch.ethz.ch/info/maya/m...opics.fm5.html

I havent gone through it all yet but if it works I'll write it up into the readme/help pages.

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

Didnt realise that last post was part of the Maya help section on particle instancers

Mirek,
I've just added some basic instructions on how to replace the particle geometry with your own into the readme file in the 0.2 zip file on my site. At a later date this will all be integrated so you wont need to mess about doing it. I'm guessing I'll add a button so that you can select the model and press it and it'll do the rest for you

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

your name will be in lights (I hope). I'll get the clip today.., its 4 seconds.

thats a generous thing you did mate and very much appreciated.

M

i didnt see the tut, until just now.., must have missed that post.., thats great to.., as you say, its part of the maya help section.., well, whatever.., (I just woke up, can hardly see the keyboard )

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take it easy and life will be easy

i better read the tut but im always running from here to there.., i just selected the particles, hit play on the flocker, and maya froze?? best i read the tut

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take it easy and life will be easy

works beautifully but still can not get a render past frame 1.., if your not too busy.., any thoughts.., if your n the middle of some work.., leave it and we'll catch up later

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take it easy and life will be easy

Hi mirek,

If you've overwritten the old bFlocking.py just make sure you restart Maya otherwise it may still be running the older version
The new one 0.2.1 (up last night) has a button to add the particle group and then another button to replace the geometry of the particles with your own model. Have a look in the readme for more info.
Set it up and try a playblast to make sure that is working ok. If so then it might be something to do with the render settings that you are using or something?

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

does it need hardware rendering??? if so i ill need to change over my graphics card. I have the vew version.., those buttons are on there. Illl look again now to be sure.

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take it easy and life will be easy

Yep I think particles need hardware rendering. I've just run it and as you say it doesnt render anything but the first frame.

To stop this happening simply do a disk cache of the particle animation:
Dynamics -> Solvers -> Create Particle Disk Cache
(making sure the current particle group is selected)

It will then run through the simulation frame by frame and set it. Then you can do a hardware render and it will create each frame of the particle animation.

Dont forget to get rid of caches if you need to change some settings and regenerate the animation again

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

sorry dude, you have been most patient.., but I just changed over my graphics card from a high quality nvieda (but very old) to a not so high quality ATI Radeon 9600 9but newer and more up to date) though up to date it seems it is not up to date enough and I can not hardware render (high quality view) ??? Im a little non-plussed about this??? two graphics cards that will not render on maya 8.5 but will on maya 7???

anyway, hopefully after instancing it wont matter.., and it will render the geometry powered by the particles.., unless the geometry becomes particles??

anyway, back to the drawing board..??

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take it easy and life will be easy

dont know if it will help with the hardware render thing but there's a little tutorial video on digital tutors that goes over some of the settings etc. Its for an older version but I'm sure it'll be more or less the same:

https://digitaltutors.com/digital_tutors/video.php?v=75

(just wait for the human advert before to finish and then click the view video link at the bottom right)

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

I've got similar problems with the hardware rendering giving me really bitty looking particles.
When you've switched to Hardware renderer in the render settings try unticking 'High quality lighting'. This did the trick for me. If I remember rightly I used a radeon 9700 for a bit and disabling high quality lighting on that let me look through the viewport with the high quality renderer. I'm guessing this will be generic across many of the radeon cards.

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net

thanks mate, its been annoying me for a while, thats why i still haver maya 7. hopefully unchecking high quality lighting will do the trick.

muck appreciated.

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take it easy and life will be easy

Fingers crossed it works for you
Remeber that if you change the quality settings in the hardware render options then for some reason it will default the high quality lighting option back on.

Another thing for the future is that in Maya 2008 quote:
'Additionally, particle types previously supported
only in the Maya Hardware renderer can now be
rendered in mental ray, eliminating the need to
combine outputs from multiple renderers.'

So there wont be as much reliance on the hardware installed
That can only be a good thing though I dont know how it will affect rendering times

Si

---

Examples of bTraffic - a traffic animation tool for Maya
bFlocking - a tool for Maya 8.5+ to generate flocking and swarming behaviours
Jan/Feb Challenge 2007 Entry and W.I.P
May/Jun Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Mar/Apr Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Jan/Feb Challenge 2006 Entry and W.I.P
Nov/Dec Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Sep/Oct Challenge 2005 Entry and W.I.P
Jul/Aug Challenge 2005 Entry
www.flash-fx.net