PFlow guided Missle

Align a pflow source to your deployment system.

Turn off the logo. Link the emitter to the missile deployer.

Name your source and open particle view ...

Right click to rename event 1:

Birth settings, to emit 4 missile particles:

Display set to geometry:

Replace by dragging position icon over position object. Let go when a red line appears.

Set yourself up and link to the fuselage 4 little missile racks. Select the face at the front of each one before you exit the poly subobject level. this will be used to emit particles.

Name them.

Add the objects.

Make sure inherit Emitter Movement in ON.

Set to selected faces.

Each missile rack needs a unique seed so they don’t all look the same:

What will be the SPEED of these 4 missiles? 1200, with a variation of 24 ... along the direction of the emitter, along icon arrow.

Next we need to create and instance the missiles.

Replace Shape01 with Shape Instance.

As you can see there are options for scaling, randomize size, etc. Here we want the object to stay one size.

Acquire mapping and material should stay on.

Make and pick your missile. You can then hide it if you want.

Cool tip. We aren’t doing it here, but you can cycle multiple instanced geometry here, for example, shooting our all kinds of things, not just one object.

Top viewport ... scrub forward to frame 32 ... you can see a missile is already being emitted [backwards] ... you can also see the source missile we are going to hide.

Fix that here ... Y 90 degrees, speed space follow. to orient to direction of travel.

Find Target

Add a find target and make these settings. Acceleration limit is how fast the missile can go when it has to change direction to follow a moving target.

A find target icon will appear:

Add mesh targets:

Turn on:

Follow Target Animation and

Lock on Target Object

Point and object should be random.

Docking direction None, seed 10739. This seed might be adjust later.

As of this point, if you scrub animation, the missiles are finding [then by-passing] their targets.

Tip – if you lose your operator list, select depot:

Spawn test

OK.Add a Spawn test [not speed test.]

Travel by Distance

Step size 3.0

This spaces out the rate at which missiles are launched.

Offspring 1

[one particle spawned per spawn in this case]

More on spawn speed settings ... you system might start slowing down now ... avoid entering high numbers.

Uniqueness 9227:

Turn off the particle system for now to avoid a performance slow-down:

Force operator

Now the spawned particles are the same as the missles. We need to change that. Add Force and add Display directly to the depot background:

Right click/rename it missile smoke trails:

Create, then add, the forces Drag and Wind! Remember this is to influence the smoke trails, not the missiles themselves.

Your display settings, Dots and a color of your choosing:

Add a delete, so the particles disappear ... if you do not set this, not particles will not appear -- by default they are all deleted!

Set up your perspective view to see everything and Ctrl C to make a camera.

We need to set up the smoke with facing particles that always turn towards a camera viewport.

Hit the none button and then you must hit H and select the camera.

In world space = 5.0

Shape Facing Uniqueness ...

Currently all particles for the smoke trails are set to the same size. We can improve this by animating the scale factor. Add a scale operator.

Relative first, constrain proportions.

Scale Uniqueness: .

The smoke particles will last 120 frames.

Display set to Geometry:

Time configuration, set animation to 200 frames.

Auto key on, go to frame 120.

Type in 200.

Auto Key OFF!

Scale Variation 10, sync by particle age.
This establishes scaling based on how old the particle is.

Connect the smoke trails to the 4 missiles:

Let’s take a look. Turn the little light back on to re-activate the particle system.

Here we are at frame 32. the smoke trails rise up as you exit the launch bays.

The scaling keys are too linear. Time for the Curve Editor.

Rights click scale factor spinner settings:

Change frame 120 key to FAST In interpolation:

Change keyframe 1 to Fast In and Fast Out:

Repeat for all 3 axes.

Material for the smoke

First let’s make the material for smoke.

The gradient and particle age materials are set to defaults:

Back to Particle Flow:

Add a material dynamic operator.
We are using dynamic as the material will be animated.
Confirm Assign Mat ID is ON.

Let’s browse for a material. Hit none.

Find our smoke mat:

Here’s a quick render.

Tip—set up your camera to 200mm to get a close view:

Next we need to set up the impact of the missiles with their targets and the spawning of the explosions.