Pflow How to make particles stick to moving objects!?

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I have an example here of moving particles on a surface of an object which is skinned and animated moving forward by a bone, however the particles simply wont follow the surface.

Here's the setup, its simple water drippings and I would like them all to just stick to the surface and do exactly what they are doing when the object is stationary while its being animated/morphed/moved.

Think of it as if you are taking the particles motion when the sphere is stationary and then "Skin wrapping" that motion to the deforming/moving sphere version, hope thats clear enough : ).

I tried numerous things including Lock/bond however those seem to either have a certain behavior of their own or entirely freeze the particles onto the surface.

In the example below the orange particles are lock bond, while they do stick to the surface, they do not A)follow the roiginal intended motion when they were stationary (its as if theres a secondary motion over them whle the sphere moves, and B) if the affect is set at 100% in Lock bond they would freeze onto the sphere.

Not to mention the spawned trail is not following at all, and lock/bond on them simply would kill the trail.

Is there a solution out there?

Any help would be much appreciated! 

Many thanks,

[Anonymous]

Hello all,

I have an example here of moving particles on a surface of an object which is skinned and animated moving forward by a bone, however the particles simply wont follow the surface.

Here's the setup, its simple water drippings and I would like them all to just stick to the surface and do exactly what they are doing when the object is stationary while its being animated/morphed/moved.

Think of it as if you are taking the particles motion when the sphere is stationary and then "Skin wrapping" that motion to the deforming/moving sphere version, hope thats clear enough : ).

I tried numerous things including Lock/bond however those seem to either have a certain behavior of their own or entirely freeze the particles onto the surface.

In the example below the orange particles are lock bond, while they do stick to the surface, they do not A)follow the roiginal intended motion when they were stationary (its as if theres a secondary motion over them whle the sphere moves, and B) if the affect is set at 100% in Lock bond they would freeze onto the sphere.

Not to mention the spawned trail is not following at all, and lock/bond on them simply would kill the trail.

Is there a solution out there?

Any help would be much appreciated! 

Many thanks,

[Anonymous]

Hi, so it works fine on the still sphere, but as soon as you try it ona moving sphere it goes wrong?

You said you're driving the sphere motion with a bone, and it's skinned. Does it work on a sphere with simple position keyframes?

[Anonymous]

Hi, so it works fine on the still sphere, but as soon as you try it ona moving sphere it goes wrong?

You said you're driving the sphere motion with a bone, and it's skinned. Does it work on a sphere with simple position keyframes?

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Ollyv, I thought this thread was dead after the long silence :).

This is happening with or without bones.

I've uploaded 2 files for you in a compressed format, if you have the time have a look at them, one file contains the attempted workflow on an animated object, the other is a non animated scene to serve as an example of how it should look like when animated, deforming animated objects is what i need to have this effect simulated on.

https://db.tt/xiUIuaXu

Thanks any help is much appreciated!

Best regards,

[Anonymous]

Thanks for the reply Ollyv, I thought this thread was dead after the long silence :).

This is happening with or without bones.

I've uploaded 2 files for you in a compressed format, if you have the time have a look at them, one file contains the attempted workflow on an animated object, the other is a non animated scene to serve as an example of how it should look like when animated, deforming animated objects is what i need to have this effect simulated on.

https://db.tt/xiUIuaXu

Thanks any help is much appreciated!

Best regards,

[Anonymous]

Hi, I took a look and messed around with it for a while - it's got me stumped I'm afraid!

At first I thought that maybe it was because there was no speed by suface in the other events, but adding one causes all kinds of badness.

It seems like the nly way to get the 'leading' particle to move with the object is to use the 'Lock on Emiiter' but then the trials don't work properly.

I think this Locking needs to happen, and then somehow send the events out to something that does what you originally wnated to do, with the speed by surface and forces.

Sorry man! I'll probably come back and tinker some more, but wasn;t getting anywhere 😞

Let me know how you get on. As a work around, I don't suppose you could bake the Pflow onto the deforming object, then move it afterwards?

[Anonymous]

Hi, I took a look and messed around with it for a while - it's got me stumped I'm afraid!

At first I thought that maybe it was because there was no speed by suface in the other events, but adding one causes all kinds of badness.

It seems like the nly way to get the 'leading' particle to move with the object is to use the 'Lock on Emiiter' but then the trials don't work properly.

I think this Locking needs to happen, and then somehow send the events out to something that does what you originally wnated to do, with the speed by surface and forces.

Sorry man! I'll probably come back and tinker some more, but wasn;t getting anywhere 😞

Let me know how you get on. As a work around, I don't suppose you could bake the Pflow onto the deforming object, then move it afterwards?

[Anonymous]

Thanks bro for your time, I will try to find a way to have it work on shot basis.

Baking was indeed my last resort, however this will require plugin cache exporters such as "supermesher" or "xmesh" which support changing topology, we would be investing in one of those soon hopefully. 

In case anything comes up i will try to post it here, meanwhile hope autodesk has a look at this and gives us something to work with in the future without crazy workarounds.

[Anonymous]

Thanks bro for your time, I will try to find a way to have it work on shot basis.

Baking was indeed my last resort, however this will require plugin cache exporters such as "supermesher" or "xmesh" which support changing topology, we would be investing in one of those soon hopefully. 

In case anything comes up i will try to post it here, meanwhile hope autodesk has a look at this and gives us something to work with in the future without crazy workarounds.

[Anonymous]

Yeah, PFlow really does my head in sometimes.. it doesn't work logically.
XMesh is really good, I've used it a lot before, and you should be able to
get a months trial from Thinkbox if you ask nicely!

[Anonymous]

Yeah, PFlow really does my head in sometimes.. it doesn't work logically.
XMesh is really good, I've used it a lot before, and you should be able to
get a months trial from Thinkbox if you ask nicely!

[Anonymous]

You might get a better result if you add a lock and bond to the spawned particles (event 003),  right now they are spawned and they go to the next event but there is no operator to tell them to stick on the surface.

[Anonymous]

You might get a better result if you add a lock and bond to the spawned particles (event 003),  right now they are spawned and they go to the next event but there is no operator to tell them to stick on the surface.

[Anonymous]

I have tried it, but will try again, however even if lock/bond worked it is still not behaving correctly, lock/bond itself has an issue in this case, you may try it on the normal particles themselves, it either sticks them to the surface 100% with no movement or you adjust the parameter to enable lock/bond influence in percentage but when you do that lock/bond applies its own "dynamics" on top of the moving particles and the movement of the particles would now seem to have a sort of secondary motion an undesirable one at that when the surface is animated which we don't want, so i can't see how to solve this issue in the first place before even considering it for anything else.

[Anonymous]

I have tried it, but will try again, however even if lock/bond worked it is still not behaving correctly, lock/bond itself has an issue in this case, you may try it on the normal particles themselves, it either sticks them to the surface 100% with no movement or you adjust the parameter to enable lock/bond influence in percentage but when you do that lock/bond applies its own "dynamics" on top of the moving particles and the movement of the particles would now seem to have a sort of secondary motion an undesirable one at that when the surface is animated which we don't want, so i can't see how to solve this issue in the first place before even considering it for anything else.

[Anonymous]

I see what you mean the leading particles are being affected by movement of the sphere . Do you have krakatoa/frost? The other thing to do would be to save the particle as PRT sequence and link that to the sphere. you should be able to save with the evaluation version of krakatoa.

[Anonymous]

I see what you mean the leading particles are being affected by movement of the sphere . Do you have krakatoa/frost? The other thing to do would be to save the particle as PRT sequence and link that to the sphere. you should be able to save with the evaluation version of krakatoa.