Particle -> Polygon tool and keep materials

Shift Studio

Shift Studio

0
Particle -> Polygon tool and keep materials

Hi Everyone,

I have a particle mesh (1600 particles in surface mode) that has 6 different particle objects, each with their own material.

I used dynamics to have my particles conform to a specific shape.

Now, I need to manually massage the positioning and delete a few particles that escaped etc.

So I've used the Tool 'Particle -> Polygon' to make a single mesh of the whole thing (yikes!)

Problem now is that none of the particles keep their material, and no polygon selections have been kept!

Anybody able to help?
I couldn't/wouldn't manually assign 1600 times!

Thanks in advance!
--shift studio.
 
There is a workaround for this - it just takes some setup. When you do "Particle -> Polygon" All the UV information AND "Polygon selection" data gets combined. So for each of 6 objects you must create a unique Polygon Selection assignment for the polygons of that object.

Basically you take your first object - go into Polygon selection mode - select all polygons - assign that to polygon selction "1"

Go to your second object - go into Polygon selection mode - select all polygons - assign that to polygon selction "2"

and so on until you have completed all six objects

Now you can do "Particle -> Polygon" - you will have a single mesh for all the particles - drop each material onto the new mesh and assign that material to the appropriate Polygon selection you did above (Material that went on Object 1 will be assigned to Polygon selection 1, etc.,etc.)

If you have multiple materials per object, it can still work as long as you don't have more than 16 materials -AND- you must make sure that each selection is UNIQUE for the entire group - don't repeat any selection numbers across the entire group. "Particle -> Polygon" will combine ALL selection data - so if you used selection 1 on all objects - it will combine those together as selection 1 of the new mesh.

That should get you where you want to go -- Cheers.
 
Last edited:
BTW, the same trick (use unique selections for the individual objects + material assignments) also works when merging / importing children into a parent node. Again, the 2^4 limit applies. If you use the identical material for >1 objects, you need to apply the identical selection enumerator for the relevant subselections.
If you invest time in a bit of preparation you can still save lots of fiddly donkey work.
Seasonal correction: fiddly reindeer work:tongue:
 
Hi Rene and Helmut.

I can confirm (not that there was any doubt :smile: ) that the method described works.

Thanks for the quick and concise help!

--Shift Studio.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top