Maya surface emitter to curve flow
 

Hi,

I am trying to get some cubes to emit from a plane and then slowly move upwards for about 4 seconds before being affected by a curve flow that I have created above the plane.

The problem is that at the moment if a create a surface emitter and attach it to the curve-flow then the particles instantly jump to the beginning of the curve flow with no smooth progression.

I have tried using a ramp on the goal weights and this doesn't seem to work (maybe I am not doing it right?)

I have no tried using volume axis with nParticles but that doesn't seem to work either because the effect is totally different. With this I get a sim that looks more like water flowing down a pipe then all of the particles progressing along the same average path.

Really stuck, has anyone got any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!

See link, change the boxes to instances that should work.................dave

http://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38134

@daverave thanks for the link

I have tried using goal weights this way but I'm not having much. My problem is that I want to have the particles emit from the surface and then slowly move towards the start of the curve flow. Then move along the curve as they normally would until they reach the end and die off.

The problems that I am having are:

Getting the particles to move slowly from the surface to the curve and then follow the curve accurately.

If I do play with goal weights and the goal smoothness I can get this transition between the surface and the curve to slow down BUT the particles die earlier in the curve and they do not follow the curve. It seems that they just find some sort of average path through the curve rather then follow it predictably.

Really getting frustrated with this! Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

Chris

Sorry was in hospital for a while, try having a box or some thing use the motion path then set your goals to that......................dave

Ok thanks I will give that a go.