by Didik Wijaya

After you created particle and modify its behavior in Part 1 and Part 2 tutorial, in this section you will change the particle appearance using BlobMesh. This feature will create blobby looks to the particle. If the particle has enough amount, they will looks more like liquid.

1. In Command Panel, go to Create>Geometry. Choose Compound Objects from drop down list. Click BlobMesh button. Click in viewport to create BlobMesh. You will see a small sphere in viewport. This is BlobMesh.

Use Tension=0.8, Render=10, and Viewport=20. Make Off In Viewport active if necessary. Tension controls the shape of BlobMesh. Fewer values will make BlobMesh more like liquid, but also making it hard to control the shape. Thus, I use 0.8. Meanwhile Render and Viewport value control the details in BlobMesh. Lower value will make more detailed. BlobMesh. If you are using slow computer I suggest to set this value high. You can also check Off In Viewport. BlobMesh will be invisible in viewport. This option will reserve more memory to work.

To relate BlobMesh to Particle, in BlobObjects, click Pick button and click PFSource icon in viewport.

2. Scrub slider, you may find your computer a little bit slow, that's okay. Try to render one frame. You'll see BlobMesh. But, you also see particle. We need to make particle disappear. Open Particle View, select PF Source 01 (highlight until it turns white). Right click at this PF Source 01 name, and choose Properties. In opened window, uncheck Renderable. Click OK. Now, you'll see only BlobMesh in rendering.

3. Next, open Material Editor (press M in keyboard). We will make water material. I will create a simple material. Select one of unused material slot.

Change Diffuse color to brown (R=185, G=130, B=94 ). Make this material a little bit shiny by setting Specular Level=20 and Glossiness=8. Next, in Maps rollout set Reflection=50%, and click None button right next to Reflection. In opened window, make sure BrowseFrom: New is chosen. Double click Bitmap. Choose Lakerem2.jpg available in folder Program Files/Autodesk/3dsmax/maps .

4. Next, open Particle View window. Select Birth 01 operator. Change Amount =1000 or 2000. This tutorial is finished. Render your own pouring water effect animation.

Video below shows rendered animation. Watch tea poured onto the cup. The stupid thing about BlobMesh is that it's hard to achieve realistic result. Sometimes the water still looks blobby or looks like oil. If you want realistic result, you may consider using plugin, for example RealFlow or Glu3D

Pouring Water Using Particle Flow Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

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