Parameter

Control the direction in which particles point using these settings. Among other things, you can align particles parallel to a specific world axis or to the direction of travel.

Laziness [0..+∞]

Controls how long, in seconds, it takes for the particles to fully adopt the new direction. The higher this value, the slower the transition. This setting can help you to achieve a smooth, gradual change rather than an abrupt, unnatural one.

Source

The Source value defines which axis of the particle object will be used as a reference. This is usually the Z axis but depends on the orientation of object used as particles.

Invert

If the Invert option is enabled, the chosen axis is inverted to give its negative direction. For example, if the option is enabled and Source is set to Z, the negative Z axis will be used as the reference axis.

X Rotation [-∞..+∞°]
Y Rotation [-∞..+∞°]
Z Rotation [-∞..+∞°]

These values define an offset for the direction in which the particles point.

Type

Controls how the particles are aligned.

None

The particles will not be aligned.

Random

The particles are aligned to targets chosen at random. The random alignment may be assigned once only to the particles, either at the moment they are born or the first time they are assigned to the random target by the node. The random targets will then be used throughout the life span of the particles — the alignment of the particles remains the same.

Direction Of Travel

The particles will be aligned parallel to the direction in which they move. This would be the correct setting for a flock of birds to ensure that the birds always point in the direction of their flight.

World X
World Y
World Z

The particles will be aligned parallel to the X axis, Y axis or Z axis of the world coordinate system depending on which one of these three settings you choose.

User Direction

The particles will be aligned according to the vector set in the Axis box.

User Position

The particles will be aligned so that the given source axis (set above) will point to the coordinates set in the Axis box.

Axis [XYZ ]

This vector gives the Axis information for User Direction or the position information needed for User Position. Set it as desired.

Variation [0..180°]

This parameter can be used to define an offset angle for User Direction that will be used over the life span of the particle.

Here we take one group of particles and work out the normalized velocity vector (i.e. a vector with the same direction as the velocity but with a length of 1) using PGetData and Universal:Normal. Then we use this direction to affect the direction of another group of particles, so that particles of both groups travel in the same direction.

Additional input ports:

• On

A Boole value of True switches the node on; a value of False switches it off.

• Animation Time

Since the node’s parameters can be keyframe animated, by default the Cinema 4D time is used internally to ensure that the values are interpolated correctly. However, you can pass your own time value to this port. This should be of the data type Time, which is a Real number in the simplest case. If no value is passed, Cinema 4D’s time is used.

• Particle

Connect this port to the particle stream that should be aligned, such as to a PPass node’s Particle output port.