Hi, I want to use an image to control where my particles are placed.
I painted a white path on a transparent background and then saved it as a .png for the path.
Can I apply a transparent image to a plane before turning that plane into an emitter, and then when I enable a particle system the particles will not go where the transparent image is located. This is how Vue works and it works well. Can I do this in Blender?
When an object has a particle system you will then have the option to add a particle texture. This texture can be set to influence a number of particle properties such as particle density
Yes you can.
After you have added a particle setting to an object, if you look at the Texture tab of the Properties panel you will see an icon with four stars in the header; it leads to the Particle Textures slots where you can add textures and specify their influence over density, length and so on.
paolo
grr… too late!
Thanks to both of you. I am using Cycles and I tried this but it didn’t work so I want to see where I went wrong. I included the .blend file with packed texture.
My emitter already is populated with particles. In the particle settings I scrolled down to where it says “Textures”. I then created a new texture named “Path_Tex” (Image 1)
From the “Texture Panel” I then selected “Image or Movie”. (Image 2). I then loaded the path image below. I tried a number of settings but I couldn’t get the particles to generate only around the path while leaving the path clear…
I am confused as to what color to make the map if and what settings to use. Should the map be black or white or a combination of both so the particles only show up everywhere “except” on the path.
http://www.pasteall.org/blend/21794
In the Texture tab you have set the influence of the map to Time, if you set it to Density = 1 you get what you want; where the texture is white you get the maximum density, where it’s black you get no density, gray values you get modulated density accordingly.
EDIT: You can easily see those properties in the picture posted above by Richard Marklew and in your second image.
paolo
sourvinosIn the Texture tab you have set the influence of the map to Time, if you set it to Density = 1 you get what you want; where the texture is white you get the maximum density, where it’s black you get no density, gray values you get modulated density accordingly.
EDIT: You can easily see those properties in the picture posted above by Richard Marklew and in your second image.
Thanks. I think I got it. So how would I color the inside (flat part) of the circle with a different color?
The node setup in your posted file seems to work fine. I tried Sourvinos’ solution on your path.blend and I it worked. I also added another texture to the particle system, a Clouds texture. I routed this to the Hair Length to randomize the length of the hair.
Using the same map on the material to mix two colors or textures, or making a colored version of the map.
paolo
Thanks Atom, great idea to use multiple textures. I used a transparent .png for the path and a .jpg to distribute the particles so it seems to work. I will try to post an image.
