Birth Voxels operator

The Birth Voxels operator allows you to birth particles inside the volume or surface of scene objects, at uniform spatial intervals.


Voxel source objects

  • Object list: the list of input objects whose volumes will be used to birth particles.

Particle birth

  • Start/End: controls the time range in which to birth new particles.

  • Enable every nth: when enabled, particles will be birthed at regular frame intervals, instead of at every frame.

  • Nth value: the interval value at which to birth particles.

Coordinates

  • Relative to object transform: when enabled, voxels will be spawned relative to the transform of the specified node, rather than the world origin.

  • Object: the object from which to derive the relative voxel transform.

Voxel settings

  • Mode: controls where particles will be birthed, relative to the surface or volume of a particular input object.

  • Sample type: controls the quality of samples used to determine surface proximity, when birthing particles in “Surface” mode.

  • Voxel size X/Y/Z: the size of individual voxels, in which particles will be birthed.

  • Accuracy: controls the accuracy of the raycaster used to compute information about whether a particle is inside or outside of an object’s volume. Increase this value for meshes that are self-intersecting or have holes in them.

If an input object’s surface is not closed, or is self-intersecting, increasing the accuracy value can improve results and reduce artifacts.

  • Cull duplicate voxels: when voxelizing multiple input objects, enabling this setting will delete any overlapping particles generated between the objects.
Source mesh
  • Inflate: pushes source mesh vertices along their normals by the specified amount, prior to particle birth. Increasing this value will expand the volume of birthed particles around the source mesh.

  • Split elements: when enabled, the elements of the source mesh will be split into sub-meshes and processed independently. This can improve results when sub-elements are overlapping, however, if the source mesh is a thin shell (composed of two non-contiguous surfaces representing the inside and outside of the mesh), this should be disabled (otherwise the inside/outside will be processed as two independent meshes, rather than the sides of a single mesh).

Progressive offsets
  • X/Y/Z %: the percent of progressive position offset applied to each particle, relative to the overall size of the voxels.
Overall offsets
  • X/Y/Z %: the percent of overall position offset applied to each particle, relative to the overall size of the voxels.
Jitter
  • X/Y/Z %: the percent of overall position jitter applied to each particle, relative to the overall size of the voxels.
Particle Scale
  • Scale type: controls which size value particle will derive their scale from.

  • Mult: a global scale multiplier applied to all particles.

Minimum distance from surface
  • Distance: particles within this distance from the surface will be culled.
Presets
  • Grains: choosing this preset will apply a progressive offset to particles, such that their positions in space will form a tightly-knit overlapping grid.

  • Grid: choosing this preset will remove all offsets from particles, such that their positions in space will form a uniform, aligned grid.

Uniqueness

  • Seed: the seed value for all varied parameters.