UPDATE: To make the textures follow the particles, when they're emitted all at once, you can literally just use a texture coordinate node in the shading (enable "From Instancer") and use the Generated coordinates for a proper 3D texture. No need to go through this confusing process of creating gradients! If the particles are being emitted in a stream, and you want 3D texture coordinates there, then it might still be useful to use the particle "Index" for the Z-axis, but outside of that, the "Texture Coordinates" node has everything you need!
Project files are available for free here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/52586182
Hello, everyone! In this video, I'll be quickly going through my general workflow when creating complex particle setups in Blender. It's a much more advanced video than I usually make; and will skip over a lot of information. However, a few interesting tips and techniques will be explained in a bit more detail: attaching 3d texture coordinates to moving particles, emitting particles from other particles, and turning particles into force fields (this last one, however, doesn't appear in the final simulation).
Awesome sources of inspiration for effects:
MatthiasM (primarily, advanced particle effects): https://www.youtube.com/user/MatthiasmVideos
Roman De Giuli (in-camera paint and water effects): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjcjr8OhwzA1cvG_1BYnUlw
Simon Holdmedal (advanced 3D motion graphics): https://www.youtube.com/c/simonholmedal/videos
Music used:
DELOS - Trace Decay
BETTOGH - Another World
Aries Beats - Stranger Things
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00:00 Introduction
00:24 (faking) Particle texture coordinates (UPDATE in description!)
03:30 Particles from particles
04:50 Turning particles into force fields
05:40 Reference analysis
07:06 (hyper-summarized) Creating a dumb emitter :p
04:42 First particle system
09:34 Prepping the texture coordinates (1st sim)
10:37 Adding some turbulence
11:09 Particle trails! (primary + secondary systems)
16:14 Prepping texture coordinates (3rd sim)
18:03 Previewing the progress
18:36 (hyper-summarized) Liquid simulation
20:19 Fluid-Flow force fields!
22:01 (hyper-summarized) Shading
28:51 Rendering talk
29:57 Conclusion
30:21 Thank you! (+ Ending)
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My current PC specs (I recommend better than these):
16 Gb of RAM
Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3770 @ 3.40 GHz
Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti
Keep in mind that parts of this video are sped up, so this is not a good reference for the performance of my computer.