pointEmitter

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The emitter node is a dependency graph node used to generate particles which then live in a a particle shape node. The emitter type determines the general characteristic of the emission. Some attributes do not apply to all types emitters.

Related nodes

rigidConstraint, dynBase, field, airField, turbulenceField, radialField, vortexField, newtonField, volumeAxisField, dragField, uniformField, gravityField, particle, rigidBody, geoConnectable, spring

Attributes (65)

The following quick index only shows top-level attributes (too many attributes to show them all): alongAxis, aroundAxis, awayFromAxis, awayFromCenter, currentTime, cycleEmission, cycleInterval, deltaTime, deltaTimeCycle, direction (3), directionalSpeed, displaySpeed, emitCountRemainder, emitFromDark, emitterType, enableTextureRate, inheritColor, inheritFactor, inheritOpacity, invertOpacity, isFull, maxDistance, minDistance, needParentUV, normalSpeed, output, parentId, particleColor (3), randState (3), randomDirection, rate, ratePP, scaleRateByObjectSize, scaleRateBySpeed, scaleSpeedBySize, sectionRadius, seed, speed, speedRandom, spread, startTime, sweptGeometry, tangentSpeed, textureRate (3), useLuminance, useRatePP, volumeEfficiency, volumeOffset (3), volumeShape, volumeSweep

Long name (short name)	Type	Default	Flags
alongAxis (alx)	double	0.0
Initial velocity multiplier in the direction along the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Applies only to volume emitters.
aroundAxis (arx)	double	0.0
Initial velocity multiplier in the direction around the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Applies only to volume emitters.
awayFromAxis (afa)	double	1.0
Initial velocity multiplier in the direction away from the central axis of the volume. See the diagrams in the documentation. Used only with the cylinder, cone, and sphere volume emitters.
awayFromCenter (afc)	double	1.0
Initial velocity in the direction away from the center point of a cube or sphere volume emitter. Used only with the cube and sphere volume emitters.
currentTime (ct)	time	::zero
The current scene time. It is connected with time1.
cycleEmission (cye)	enum	0
Cycling emission restarts the random number stream after an interval in frames, specified by the cycleInterval attribute. Setting cycleEmission to "Frame" and cycleInterval to 1 is will cause the random stream to re-start every frame. cycleInterval values greater than 1 can be used to generate cycles for games work. Note that this resets ONLY the random stream used by the emitter. It does not reset the random number stream used by Mel, shaders, etc. Note also that the "frame" option resets at most once per frame. Use caution when animating the particle's currentTime. However, oversampling does not affect the results.
cycleInterval (cyi)	integer	1
Specifies the number of frames between restarts of the random number stream. See cycleEmission. Has no effect if cycleEmission is set to None.
deltaTime (dt)	time	0film
An elapsed time since particles were emitted. It is connected with particle object.
deltaTimeCycle (dtc)	time	0film
Stores the time since last reset of the random number generator for each stream of emission. Used to implement the cycleEmission feature. This value is maintained by the emitter and should not be set by the user. The cycleEmission and cycleInterval attributes are the ones the user controls.
direction (d)	double3
Direction of emitter. Not used for omni emitters.
directionX (dx) double 1.0 X-component of direction of emission (if directional).
directionY (dy) double 0.0 Y-component of direction of emission (if directional).
directionZ (dz) double 0.0 Z-component of direction of emission (if directional).
directionalSpeed (drs)	double	0.0
For volume emitters only, adds a component of speed in the direction specified by the directionX, Y, and Z attributes. Applies only to volume emitters. Does not apply to other types of emitters.
displaySpeed (dss)	bool	true
This boolean tells the emitter whether or not to draw the volume speed arrows.
emitCountRemainder (ecr)	doubleArray	empty
This is a storage to save emit count remainder. It is for positional emitter only(curve/surface emitter handles remainder differently).
emitFromDark (efd)	bool	false
If it is on, particles will be emitted from dark area.
emitterType (emt)	enum	1
Specifies the emitter type: omni, directional, surface, curve, or some type of volume.
enableTextureRate (etr)	bool	false
If it is on, the surface emitter generates particles based on texture information of the geometric owner. Note that a texture can have a continous range of values while a particle either exists or does not exist. As a consequence of this the texture is used to filter the particles. The emission of particles more closely matches the texture as the rate of particle emission increases. Since low emission rates do not clearly match the texture a high emission rate is recommended when textured emission is being used.
inheritColor (inhc)	bool	false
If it is true, emitter passes the color to new particles. The color may be from a texture or color selector.
inheritFactor (inh)	double	0.0
It is connected with the particle object(target particle). The final velocities of new particles has a portion of emitter's velocity multiplying inheritFactor.
inheritOpacity (inho)	bool	false
If it is true, emitter passes the opacity to new particles if there is a texture node is connected to the particle color attribute.
invertOpacity (invo)	bool	false
If it is true, use invert-alpha as opacity for new particles.
isFull (full)	bool	false
It determines if the target particle object has enough particles. If it is true, no more emission.
maxDistance (max)	distance (double)	0.0cm
Maximum distance at which new particles or density is created from emitter. Not used for volume emitters.
minDistance (min)	distance (double)	0.0cm
Minimum distance at which new particles are created from emitter. Not used for volume emitters.
needParentUV (npuv)	bool	false
If aNeedParentUV is true, send (u,v) coordinates for point of emission to the particle object. Particle object must have parentU/parentV attributes. Applies only to nurbs surfaces.
normalSpeed (nspd)	double	1.0
Speed multipler normal to emitting plane or emitting curve.
output (ot)	genericArray	empty
It outputs new particles to the particle object.
parentId (paid)	doubleArray	empty
If the emitter's owner is a particle object, it will be connected with the owner. The new particles know where they from.
particleColor (pc)	float3	0.5, 0.5, 0.5
The color for new particles.
particleColorR (pcr) float 0.5 The color for new particles.
particleColorG (pcg) float 0.5 The color for new particles.
particleColorB (pcb) float 0.5 The color for new particles.
randState (rst)	long3
Random state attribute to hold emitter's own random number stream.
randStateX (rstx) integer 0 Random state attribute to hold emitter's own random number stream.
randStateY (rsty) integer 0 Random state attribute to hold emitter's own random number stream.
randStateZ (rstz) integer 0 Random state attribute to hold emitter's own random number stream.
randomDirection (rnd)	double	0.0
Magnitude of a random component of the speed from volume emission.
rate (rat)	double	100
Rate of emission per second.
ratePP (rpp)	doubleArray	empty
Rate per-particle array. It is connected with its owner object. If aUseRatePP is true, this node will use ratePP.
scaleRateByObjectSize (sro)	bool	true
Applies to curve and surface emitters, only. If true, number of particles is determined by object size (area or length) times rate value. If false, object size is ignored and the rate value is used without modification. The former is the way Maya behaved prior to version 3.0.
scaleRateBySpeed (srs)	bool	false
If true, number of particles is determined by the speed of emission. In this way the overall density of particles can be preserved as one changes the emission speed.
scaleSpeedBySize (ssz)	bool	false
Indicates whether the scale of a volume emitter affects the velocity of the emitted particles.
sectionRadius (vsr)	distance (double)	0.5cm
Applies to torus volumes only. The radius of a section of the torus.
seed (sd)	integer	0
Random number stream seed for emitter's own random number stream. Separate seed for each particle object into which we are emitting.
speed (spd)	double	1.0
Initial velocity multiplier.
speedRandom (srnd)	double	0.0
Identifies a range of random variation for the speed of each generated particle. If set to a non-zero value, speed becomes the mean value of the generated particles, whose speeds vary by a random amount up to plus or minus speedRandom/2. For example, speed 5 and speedRandom 2 will make the speeds vary between 4 and 6.
spread (spr)	double	0.0
Degree of spread off direction axis as fraction of 90 degrees.
startTime (stt)	time	0film
It is used to determine if emitting particles. If currentTime <= startTime, reset emitter states, such as remainder, fLastWorldPoint. It is connected with target particle.
sweptGeometry (swge)	sweptGeometry	NULL
This is for surface/curve emitter. The owner is a geoConnector. The geoConnector creates triangle/line list from a surface/curve.
tangentSpeed (tspd)	double	0.0
Surface emission only. Speed multipler tangent to emitting plane.
textureRate (txr)	float3	0.0, 0.0, 0.0
It is connected with the texture node which control the rate.
textureRateR (txrr) float 0.0 See comments for aTextureRate.
textureRateG (txrg) float 0.0 See comments for aTextureRate.
textureRateB (txrb) float 0.0 See comments for aTextureRate.
useLuminance (usel)	bool	false
If it is true, use luminance as opacity for new particles.
useRatePP (urpp)	bool	false
It determines if the node uses RatePP or Rate. By default, this node uses Rate.
volumeEfficiency (vef)	double	0.0
This attribute computes how efficient the volume will be at generating uniformly-distributed random point within the volume.
volumeOffset (vof)	double3
This is the parent attribute for the translational offset of the emission volume's center from the emitter's origin.
volumeOffsetX (vfx) distance (double) 0.0cm This is the X component of the translational offset of the emission volume's center from the emitter's origin.
volumeOffsetY (vfy) distance (double) 0.0cm This is the Y component of the translational offset of the emission volume's center from the emitter's origin.
volumeOffsetZ (vfz) distance (double) 0.0cm This is the Z component of the translational offset of the emission volume's center from the emitter's origin.
volumeShape (vol)	enum	0
Indicates the shape of volume the emitter will use, if the emitter is of volume type. Has an effect only if emitter type is Volume. Otherwise volume controls are disabled.
volumeSweep (vsw)	angle (double)	360.0deg
The arc of the volume emission. Used for sphere, cone, cynlinder and torus.