particle flow for hedges

tutorial for making hedges

This tutorial was written by Mr. Nir Sullam from Orvatsel , Israel. I thank him since he has given permission to reproduce his tutorial in this blog

http://www.orvatsel.com/max/hedges/
For our tutorial we need to have (or prepare) a leaf to use for our foliage. (you can use these 2 images)



You can create your leaf plane by either creating a plane and then create a material to apply to it OR you can use my free Billboard Generator to do this automatically.



You will get this: (you can change the size of the leaf with the Height spinner)




Create a BOX with a L: 200 units W: 50 & H: 80



Under the Create Panel > Geometry > Particle Systems Create a PARRAY object.


This is what you should see:




Select the PARRAY object.
- Under the Basic Parameters Rollout:

1. In Object Based Emitter - Press the Pick Object button and click on the BOX object
2. In Particle Formation - Select Over Entire Surface.
3. In Viewport Display - Set the Percentage of Particles to 10% or less - setting a higher value may halt your system.

- Under the Particle Generation Rollout:

1. In Particle Quantity - set to Use Rate and set the number to 1000 or more - this actually sets the number of cloned leaves over the entire object - the more the better but do not use too much if your system is not too powerfull.
2. In Particle Timing - set Emot start to -300 and Emit Stop to 30 and Life to arount 50-100.
3. In Particle Size - set the size to your needs. it may depend on various parameters.

- Under the Particle type Rollout:

1. In Particle Types - Set to Instanced Geometry.
2. In Instancing Parameters - Press the Pick Object button and click on the LEAF object
3. In Material Mapping and Source - set to Instanced Geometry and press the Get Material from: button.

- Under the Rotation and Collision Rollout:

1. In Speed Spin Controls - Set Phase to 90 degrees.

Basically - That is All !

This is how it looks:



Select the BOX object and make it unrederable (object properties)



Now render.

Here are two examples: one with a lower rate (around 300) and another with 1000 - obviously denser but more time consuming.





An awesome thing you can use this process for is to create irregular shapes and apply it to any object you create: