by Didik Wijaya
This tutorial needs you to understand basic use of 3dsmax.

This tutorial will show you how to create a waterfall scene using particle system in 3dsmax. This time, we will not use Particle Flow, instead we use traditional Particle System called Blizzard. Based on complexity of waterfall we will create, it is enough to use simple Particle System like Blizzard.

1. Before you begin, download 3dsmax exercise file needed to follow this tutorial (40kb, zipped, 3dsmax 8 format). There are several objects in this file. All created using simple object like box and plane. You will use plane in the middle of other objects as water source for waterfall. Consider it like a river that ends as waterfall. Those 2 boxes already got material applied. They all use standard material available in 3dsmax. Later, you can change these 2 boxes with other objects to create river banks for example.

2. Let's start. In Command Panel, make sure Create tab is active. Change drop-down list to Particle System. Click Blizzard Button. Then, click and drag in Top viewport to create Blizzard icon. Don't worry about its size and location. We will change that. Make sure Blizzard icon is still selected. In Command Panel, click Modify tab. Now, you can modify Blizzard's parameters. In Basic Parameters rollout, fill in Width=480, Length=35. Then, set particle appeareance in viewport.as Mesh. Also set Percentage of Particles=100. By changing percentage to 100%, you can see all particles in viewport.

3. Leave Modify tab for a while. Using Select And Tranform Tool, move Blizzard to the edge of waterfall. Look at image below for reference. Make sure this icon a little bit overlap with the edge.

4. Now, go back to Modify panel. We will change another particle's attributes. Click Particle Generation rollout to open. Change several values like image below. In this step, we change particle quantity, speed, timing, and size. In Particle Timing, we set Emit Start using negative value (-100) because we want waterfall already 'appear' since frame 0. And we set Life=100 to fit with total frame available.

5. Open Particle Type rollout. We use Facing as Standard Particle type. Because you have already set particle display as Mesh, now you can see particles appear as small square face(facing). Facing is a special, because its normal always parallel with viewport view. Try to make perspective viewport active and scrub slider. Then, activate another viewport and watch how facing behave. Last particle parameter you will need to change is Rotation. Open Rotation and Collision rollout. Set Spin Time=0 to make particle face won't rotate. We don't want particle to rotate.

6. Image below shows our waterfall scene this far. Scrub slider to watch a lot of small square face falling from the edge.

7. Waterfall Part1 finished file available here (39kb, zipped, 3dsmax 8 format).Next, in Part2, we will create material for waterfall.

Waterfall Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Any question or comments regarding this tutorial should be sent to:
Didik Wijaya, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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