particleCloud

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Particle Cloud shaders are used by particles which have their render type set to "Cloud". These can only be rendered using Software Rendering. When you open a new file, a default Particle Cloud shader is created. You can create new Particle Cloud shaders, and assign them to different particle objects.

If you are connecting this node manually to a shading group, then you should connect the outColor attribute of the Particle Cloud to the Volume Shader (also called Volume Material) input of the the shading group. (Most other shaders connect to the Surface Shader input.)

In the table below, important attributes have their names shown in bold.

This node is MP safe

Related nodes

particleTranspMapper, particleColorMapper, particleIncandMapper, particleAgeMapper, particleSamplerInfo

Attributes (80)

The following quick index only shows top-level attributes (too many attributes to show them all): blobMap (3), color (3), density, diffuseCoeff, filterRadius, glowIntensity, incandescence (3), lightDataArray (14), noise, noiseAnimRate, noiseAspect, noiseFreq, normalCamera (3), outColor (3), outGlowColor (3), outParticleEmission (3), outTransparency (3), particleEmission (3), particleOrder, particleWeight, pointObj (3), rayDepth, renderState, roundness, solidCoreSize, surfaceColor (3), surfaceShadingShadow, translucence, translucenceCoeff, transparency (3)

Long name (short name)	Type	Default	Flags
blobMap (m)	float3
Blob Map is a scaling factor applied to the transparency of the particle cloud. You can connect a 3d texture to it in order to give some internal texture or shape to the cloud beyond what it gets from the particles.
blobMapR (mr) float 1.0 blob map red value
blobMapG (mg) float 1.0 blob map green value
blobMapB (mb) float 1.0 blob map blue value
color (c)	float3
Color is the basic color of the particle cloud. The default color is a green-blue.
colorR (cr) float 0.0 color red value
colorG (cg) float 0.58824 color green value
colorB (cb) float 0.644 color blue value
density (d)	float	1.0
Density is very similar to transparency; it controls how dense the cloud of particles appears to be, and therefore how much of the background can be seen through it. Increase this value to make the cloud more dense.
diffuseCoeff (dc)	float	0.0
Diffuse controls how much of the light in the scene is reflected from the object. Most materials absorb some of the light falling on them, and scatter the rest. The default value is 0.0; a value of 1.0 would mean that all the light falling on the material is reflected; a value of 0.0 (the minimum) would mean that no light is reflected. The surface color will be modulated by the transparency. This value is allowed to be greater than one so that the surface property can still show up even when the material is transparent.
filterRadius (flrs)	float	0.0
filter radius for emission
glowIntensity (gi)	float	0.0
Glow Intensity controls how much of a halo-like glow effect will be added to the particle cloud. This glow effect is added as a post-process, after the rendering is completed. Glow Intensity is zero by default, meaning that no glow is added.
incandescence (i)	float3
Use Incandescence to make the particle cloud brighter, as though it were a light source. By default, Incandescence is black, meaning no glow will be added. Note that when Incandescence is turned on, although the particle cloud will glow, it will not cast light on other objects in the scene.
incandescenceR (ir) float 0.0 incandescence red value
incandescenceG (ig) float 0.0 incandescence green value
incandescenceB (ib) float 0.0 incandescence blue value
lightDataArray (ltd)	lightData	NULL
The array of lighting infos.
lightDirection (ld) float3 The light direction. lightDirectionX (ldx) float 0.0 The x component of the direction. lightDirectionY (ldy) float 0.0 The y component of the direction. lightDirectionZ (ldz) float 0.0 The z component of the direction.
lightIntensity (li) float3 The light intensity. lightIntensityR (lir) float 1.0 The red component of the intensity. lightIntensityG (lig) float 1.0 The green component of the intensity. lightIntensityB (lib) float 1.0 The blue component of the intensity.
lightAmbient (la) bool true The boolean that indicates if the light has an ambient component.
lightDiffuse (ldf) bool true The boolean that indicates if the light has a diffuse component.
lightSpecular (ls) bool false The boolean that indicates if the light has a specular component.
lightShadowFraction (lsf) float 0.0 The visibility fraction to the light. value is in [0,1]
preShadowIntensity (psi) float 1.0 The light intensity without taking shadow into account.
lightBlindData (lbd) addr 0 The light's blind data.
noise (n)	float	0.75
Noise controls the jitteryness within the particle cloud. If it is set to zero, the cloud will look very smooth and uniform throughout. As the amount of noise increases, the cloud will appear 'noisier', like static on a television screen.
noiseAnimRate (nanr)	float	0.0
Noise Anim Rate is the scaling factor to control the rate of built-in noise changes during an animation.
noiseAspect (na)	float	0.0
Noise Aspect controls the distribution of the noise (when Noise is turned on). It is zero by default, meaning that the noise is equally distributed in X and Y. Positive values make the noise run perpendicular to the particle's path. Negative values make the noise run more parallel to the path.
noiseFreq (nf)	float	0.15
Noise Frequency determines the size of the noise artifacts when Noise is turned on. Higher values of Noise Frequency produce smaller, finer artifacts, and lower values produce larger, coarser artifacts. If Noise Frequency is set to zero, that is the same as turning Noise off.
normalCamera (nc)	float3
Normal Camera represents the surface normals in the camera's space. (These are used to calculate shading.) To do Bump Mapping, connect the output of a bump node to this attribute.
normalCameraX (ncx) float 1.0 normal camera x value
normalCameraY (ncy) float 1.0 normal camera Y value
normalCameraZ (ncz) float 1.0 normal camera Z value
outColor (oi)	float3
the final output color
outColorR (oir) float 0.0 output red component of the source intensity
outColorG (oig) float 0.0 output green component of the source intensity
outColorB (oib) float 0.0 output blue component of the source intensity
outGlowColor (ogi)	float3
the final output glow color
outGlowColorR (ogr) float 0.0 output glow red component
outGlowColorG (ogg) float 0.0 output glow green component
outGlowColorB (ogb) float 0.0 output glow blue component
outParticleEmission (oe)	float3
output; the light intensity received at each particle. Done before rendering started.
outParticleEmissionR (oer) float 0.0 output; red component of the emission
outParticleEmissionG (oeg) float 0.0 output green component of the emission
outParticleEmissionB (oeb) float 0.0 output blue component of the emission
outTransparency (ot)	float3
output transparency
outTransparencyR (otr) float 0.0 outTransparency red value
outTransparencyG (otg) float 0.0 outTransparency green value
outTransparencyB (otb) float 0.0 outTransparency blue value
particleEmission (e)	float3
particle emission
particleEmissionR (er) float 0.0 emission red value
particleEmissionG (eg) float 0.0 emission green value
particleEmissionB (eb) float 0.0 emission blue value
particleOrder (podr)	integer	0
particle order (it was called particleId before maya v3)
particleWeight (w)	float	0.0
the weight in the intensity calculation
pointObj (p)	float3	0.0, 0.0, 0.0
The current sample point relative to the particle
pointObjX (px) float 0.0 The x comp of the current sample position relative to the particle
pointObjY (py) float 0.0 The y comp of the current sample position relative to the particle
pointObjZ (pz) float 0.0 The z comp of the current sample position relative to the particle
rayDepth (rd)	short	0
current ray depth
renderState (rdst)	integer	0
the flag to tell if the shading is for shadow computation.
roundness (rdns)	float	1.0
Roundness gives the control of the noise's irregularity. The smaller the value, the less rounded the shape is.
solidCoreSize (scs)	float	0.0
Solid Core Size determines the size of the core, where it should be opaque.
surfaceColor (sc)	float3
SurfaceColor is the basic color of the particle cloud for surface propoty, which is useful in a very dense volume.
surfaceColorR (scr) float 0.4 color red value
surfaceColorG (scg) float 0.4 color green value
surfaceColorB (scb) float 0.4 color blue value
surfaceShadingShadow (sss)	bool	false
Surface Shading Shadow determines if we want to combine the surface shading with the pre-illumination, which contains shadow if enabled.
translucence (trsl)	float	0.5
Translucence is a scaling factor for density used only for shadow computation. The way it's used is density * (1 - translucence). The larger translucence is, the more light will penetrate.
translucenceCoeff (tc)	float	0.0
Translucence simulates the way light diffusely penetrates through translucent objects. This means that when light shines on one side of the object, the other side is partially illuminated. This can be used for effects such as clouds, fur, hair, marble, jade, wax, paper, leaves, etc. If this is set to 0 (the default) then no light shows through the object. If this is set to 1, all the light shows through.
transparency (t)	float3
Transparency controls how much you can see through the particle cloud. It is a color, so that you can control the the transparency of the red, green, and blue channels separately. To make the cloud more opaque, set transparency to be darker. To make the cloud more transparent, set transparency to be brighter.
transparencyR (tr) float 0.5 transparency red value
transparencyG (tg) float 0.5 transparency green value
transparencyB (tb) float 0.5 transparency blue value