Particle Objects

The Particle object is the base primitive of all particle system. All other parametric particle systems like the particle emitter or the particle mesh share its functionality.

The creation of a particle system in Cheetah3D couldn't be easier. Just add a particle system from the tool bar or the objects menu to your scene. Then add some particles to your particle system. This is done by dragging some polygon objects as child objects to the particle system. See the image below:

It is also possible to convert the parametric particle object to a base particle object by double clicking onto the object icon in the object browser.

Particle Properties
Every particle has various properties. These properties are normally set either by the particle system or by the particle tag. But they also can be manipulated by effectors.

Position: The position of the particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Rotation: The XYZ rotation of the particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Scale: The scale of the particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Position Speed: The velocity of the particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Rotation Speed: The XYZ rotation speed of a particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Scale Speed: The X,Y,Z scale speed of a particle in the local coordinate system of the particle.
Weight: Sets the weight of the particle.
Color: Sets the color of the particle. You can access this color for rendering purposes in the "instance" shading node.
Instantiate: If the property is turned on Cheetah3D uses instances to render the particles. If you turn this property one the particles will be baked to one polygon object for rendering. That uses much more memory but is also faster to render. So only turn this property off when you use particles which just have a few polygons. For more complex particles instancing is recommended.