Scale
Set the size of particles as they enter an event, with a random mix of sizes if you like.
Set the size of particles entering the event.
- Add it
- EventAdd OperatorLooksScale
- Sends on
- Nothing: it has no wire.
- Influence
- Yes: it does as much as a value says, particle by particle (0 none, 1 all of it).
When to use it
To size particles: a mix of big and small for debris, grains, snow and confetti, or a new size as they move on, such as sparks shrinking as they turn to embers in a later event.
A particle is shown at its scale times the Display panel's Sphere Radius, or times its shape's own size with Shapes. Particles no Scale has touched have a scale of 1.
Set it up
Settings
As the flow editor’s sidebar shows them. Changing any of them marks the bake old; those marked Keyframable can also change through a bake.
One of the flow’s number values, to weigh it by, particle by particle. Empty for all of it, on all of them. See Influence.
Variation
Give or take, in the same units as Scale: Scale 1 with Variation 0.4 gives sizes from 0.6 to 1.4, spread evenly between. A size never goes below 0. Each particle gets its own, and the same one each time this Scale sets it.
When it acts
Scale sets the size of particles as they enter its event, born there or sent there. Particles already in it keep theirs. So a keyframed Scale sizes the particles born at each moment, and those born earlier stay as they were.
To change size as particles age, use Set Value on scale with Keep Doing It: from the particle's Age, with Remap from 0 and 2 to 1 and 0, they shrink to nothing over two seconds.
Works with
- Particle Physics: each bumps as a ball of its Radius times its scale.
- Rigid Body: each body is its shape at its particle's scale, and heavier for being bigger.
- Influence: weighed by a value, a particle goes that share of the way from the size it had to the new one. At 0.5, halfway.
Problems you may see
The editor raises no problems of its own for Scale.