GuruBlog

I recorded a live jam with my 4 volcas last weekend. Everything recorded in one take, no effects, no post processing, just raw analog synth stuff

my recent blender experiments with particles that emit particles sparked a lot more interest than I thought they would. I received a lot of requests for a tutorial - so here it is.

What can you learn from this tutorial?

In this tutorial I show how to use an object as a particle instance and make that object a particle system itself.

Why do I need that?

U can use this for all sorts of cool stuff like organic structures made of particles, flowers, fireworks, ... Here is a screenshot of the final animation we will create in this tutorial

How is it done?

first we need an object to emit a basic particle system, so lets add a simple ico-sphere and add a particle system. Set the start and end frame to 1 and make sure the particles live through your whole animation. Also set the number of particles very low, because these will be the emitters for the second particle system.

for this animation I used a particle system with 200000 particles

you can download the blend file here

This is another particle system that emits particles. This time the particle instance are quads that get an initial rotation speed.

you can download the blend file here

I've been in Paris a few days ago and this is one of the sketches I made. I sketched using a pencil and ink and later completed it with watercolor.

flowers made from particle systems on particles in blender

you can download the blend file here

for this animation I used a particle instance modifier on an icosphere that is working as an emmitter for another particle system.

you can download the blend file here

I made another animation using a 3D structure built by dead particles in blender. This time the emitter is a icosaeder (aka isosphere) instead of a hexagon

you can download the blend file here

I used dead particles to build a helical structure

you can download the blend file here

I made a particle system using larger tiles that move along a curve

you can download the blend file here