nParticle Slide on Surface

[Gary Jaeger]

I was thinking that a Slide on Surface would be a good way to constrain nParticles to a mesh while adding Turbulence to let the particles slide around randomly along the surface. But I can’t get it to work. Actually, I can’t get Slide on Surface to do anything. 

1. create plane, emit particles from plane

2. make a sphere beneath the plane. nCloth make passive collider

3. select particles, select sphere, nConstraint Slide on Surface

even without the turbulence the particles just bounce right off the sphere. I’ve tried lots of things like making the sphere the emitter with 0 speed, etc but nothing I do makes the particles slide along the surface. I must be doing something basically wrong.

Gary Jaeger // Core Studio
249 Princeton Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

650.728.7957 (direct)

650.728.7060 (main)
http://corestudio.com

[Duncan Brinsmead]

If you select the shape instead of the particle components it confuses the component creation.  You can recreate, selecting ALL the particles, or go to nComponent2 created for the constraint and set componentType to Point.

 

Duncan

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[Gary Jaeger]

Thanks Duncan. Unfortunately setting that componentType to Point crashes me when I try to playback. Have you seen this? 

Gary Jaeger // Core Studio
249 Princeton Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

650.728.7957 (direct)

650.728.7060 (main)
http://corestudio.com

[Gary Jaeger]

OK,  turning Collisions off seems to have fixed the crash

Gary Jaeger // Core Studio
249 Princeton Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

650.728.7957 (direct)

650.728.7060 (main)
http://corestudio.com

[Gary Jaeger]

Duncan-

So this works, but I’m struggling with the settings a bit. How would you set it up if you wanted the particles to not have any spring, but simply slide along as if on ice? Everything I do I get a constraint that springs the particles around. Thanks so much!

Gary Jaeger // Core Studio
249 Princeton Avenue
Half Moon Bay, CA 94019

650.728.7957 (direct)

650.728.7060 (main)
http://corestudio.com

[Duncan Brinsmead]

Increase the strength on the constraint. The distance between the particle and the surface will tend to be preserved if you do this.  Also the tangent strength controls the degree to which the link is forced to be along the surface normal. You need at least a little tangent strength for the slide on surface constraint to work I think. For even higher locking of the length you might need to increase substeps on the solver. As long as the particles are emitted at the desired distance from the surface it should work. Something you might also find useful is the restlength control on the constraint. You can set it to a fixed distance, or you can scale the initial rest length created from the particle birth position. Setting the restLengthScale to 0.1 will pull the particles closer to the surface( this can be animated over time as well). Adding some damp on the constraint will also help to avoid vibrating.