Quick Particle Clouds

This is a fast way of using Dynamics in Maya to create clouds, broken down in a quick step-by-step tutorial. The main advantage of this method is that it will render quickly (unless you place the camera inside the particle system) and it can be used withinin a 3D scene or as a 2D background image.

This tutorial requires familiarity with Maya Interface.

  • Select ‘Dynamics‘ from the drop down menu in the module bar to display the menu
  • In the top menu select ‘Particles‘, click ‘Particle Tool‘ and click & drag to draw out some particles on the grid, click Enter.
  • Open the Hypershade. In the ‘Create‘ Tab open Volumetric and click on ‘Particle Cloud‘.
  • Assign the new ‘Particle Cloud‘ to the particles.
  • Select the newly created Particle Cloud, Lambert1 and in the perspective view Particles.
  • In the Hypershade create a Lambert Material and MMB click and drag over to ‘ParticleCloud2SG‘ Node; In the drop down menu choose ‘Default‘. Disconnect ‘Lambert1‘ from its connected Node(s).
  • Select the ‘ParticleShape1‘ Node you just created and open the Attribute Editor
  • Scroll down to ‘Render Attributes‘. In ‘Particle Render Type‘ select ‘Cloud [s/w]‘.
  • Click on ‘Current Render Type‘, then increase the newly generated Radius slider to a value of ’2′(approx.)
  • In the Hypershade select ‘ParticleCloud2‘, in ‘Common Material Attributes‘ load into the Transparency channel ‘Cloud’(3D Textures)‘. Then select ‘place3dTexture1‘ Node, click ‘Fit to group box‘ button and change the colour to white.
  • Back in ‘ParticleCloud2‘ Tab under ‘Transparency‘ reduce Density to 0.255.Hit Render to view.
  • In the Render viewport marquee select a region of the cloud.
  • In the ‘Cloud1‘ Attributes under ‘Cloud Attributes‘ reduce Edge Thresh to 0.4 and increase Amplitude to 1.5(approx.).
  • Right click over marquee region in the Render View,under Render choose ‘Render Region‘

This method would be best used to render out a static cloud scene,then composited as a background,therefore the black background would be transparent if saved with an alpha channel i.e. as a Tiff file.

From here on by adjusting the parametres you’ve just edited and scaling the place3dTexture1 Node, then checking the changes in the Render View using Render Region you can change the characteristic of your cloud from thick/heavy to light and wispy. This quick tutorial requires you to act intuitively as possible with the proceedure and as there are multiple parameters for the connected nodes I’ve only touched on a very few; therefore it’s left to you to experiment further and if it all goes wrong just start again.

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