The following is a sequence out of a 100 frame animation which you can do after following the guidelines presented here in this small how-to tutorial on explosions. Each frame presented here is taken in intervals of 5 frames.

So how do we start blowing things up?

Well, first let's start up 3D Studio MAX. That will be the first step to take, and a very good one. We will be using all the default settings that MAX starts up with, so we will create a small 100 frame explosion effect. In the tutorial we are assuming basic knowledge about MAX and how MAX works.

1. Creating the first particle emitter

The first thing we need to do is contruct 6 particle emitters (of the spray type). Since there are only plannar emitters available we need six emitters to create the illusion of sphercical explosion.

From the CREATE panel select Particle Systems and click on SPRAY. Build the particle emitter in any given plannar viewport and be sure to make the emitter rectangular in form (for this tutorial we will stick with an emitter that is 20 x 20 units in size). It helps to switch on the grid snap and angle snap. When you are done placing the rectangular emitter in the scene, switch to the MODIFY panel and select the emitter you have just created. This will give you the list of parameters associated with this emitter.

2. Setting the color of the emitter

On top of the panel you will see the name of the emitter along with a colored rectangular box indicating the color of the particles. Since we won't be using any shaders or materials for this tutorial you should set the color of the particles by changing the color of the object. Select the colored rectangle and select a color. Hot and bright colors will work best. For now, though, set the color to bright red.

3. The emitter parameters

While in the MODIFY panel you will see the associated paramters which we are about to change. I will list the values of the parameters as they were used in the images you have seen here.

Viewport Count : 500

The number of particles that will be displayed in the viewport. This number worked fine for me but if you are running on less powerful systems you can set it to a lower value, like 250 or less.

Render Count : 2500

The number of particles that will be generated during the rendering phase. The higher you set this parameter, the more dense the explosion will be. For the emitter size and example shown here 2500 worked out fine.

Drop Size : 5

The size of the particles. Make sure you have the particles also set to <U>drop</U>, ofcourse. The rendering method to use should be set to tetrahedron.

Speed : 10

A speed of 10 will give you a nice explosion. Set the parameter higher for faster explosions or lower for slower explosions.

Variation : 15

The variation parameter is a very important parameter in this tutorial. The plannar emitters will emit particles perpendicular to the plane of the emitter and yet we want a more dispersed explosion effect. Changing the variation adds randomness to the particles and will also disperse them from the emitter. A value of 15 worked well for this sample. If you move ahead a few frames with the frame slider and increase and decreate this paramter you can get a good feel of what it does and how you want the particles move in relation to the emitter.

Start: 0 and Life : 100

Since we want the animation of the explosion to be 100 frames, the starting frame is set at 0 and ending frame at 100.

Birth Rate : 1250

The birth rate is very important. Since we want the particle to explode from a center point in one big blast we need to spend all of our particles at once or in rapid succession and launch them into infinity fast. The number of particles was set to 2500, so the birth rate will be set to 1250 particles. (This gives a more natural explosion effect and it is used to create the majority of particles for the explosion body.)

4. Setting the G-Buffer Object Channel

With the particle emitter selected, call up the object properties and set the G-Buffer Object Channel to 1. Why this is done will be explained later in this tutorial, for now, just do it.

5. Creating the form of the explosion

You have now constructed you first red particle emitter with the right parameters set to it. Time to construct the actual explosion shape by using this first emitter as the 'template'. Depending on the position and orientation of your first emitter, make sure that it's now pointing upward into the Y direction. To help you position and orient the particle spray, set the frame slider between 10 and 20 frames.

We are now ready to start rotating and copying the template emitter. Set the angle snap to ON to make your life a little easier and switch to select and rotate mode. Rotate the emitter 180 degrees around either the X or Z axis to create a mirror copy that has it's particle spray emitting into the downward Y direction. Hold down the SHIFT key to clone the particle emitter.

Select any of the two particle emitters and repeat the rotation again, this time creating a spray that is oriented into the negative Y direction. This is your third emitter. Enter the MODIFY panel in case it wasn't active and change the parameters of the third emitter you just created. Change the render count and birth rate to 1200. Both, that is. As you will see, we are changing the explosion slightly for the particle surrounding the first two red emitters. Now, change the color of the third emitter into something other than red. Yellow will do fine.

Rotate and copy the third emitter 180 degrees around the Z axis to create a mirrored copy again. You now have created your fourth emitter. At this stage you should have two red particle sprays and two yellow ones.

Select the third or fourth emitter and rotate and copy it once more, this time creating a spray oriented into the positive X direction. Change the color of this emitter to green. Et Voila, the fifth emitter is created. Select this fifth one and create another copy which is rotated 180 degrees to create a mirror copy. Change the color of this sixth emitter to blue.

6. Ready, Set, Glow!

You are now free to go off and render the effect, add a camera, lighting, whatever you want. But if you want the explotion effect to look really nice, you'll hang on for the final steps to take in creating the explosion. For now you will be safe if you position the explosion effect into a perspective viewport for previewing purposes. Rotate, zoom and move around in the perspective viewport until you are satisfied with the view.

Call up the Video Post dialog and select ADD SCENE EVENT. In the associated dialog set the view to perspective and the start and end frames to 0 and 100 respectively. In the list you will now see the scene event being represented by the blue teapot. Select and highlight the event and select ADD IMAGE FILTER EVENT.

The plug-in filter to select is GLOW. Make sure the start and end frame are once again set to 0 and 100 respectively. Now you are ready to set up the glow filter parameters. Set the glow control source to Object Channel and make sure that the Object Channel is set to 1. You will recall that we previously have set the Object Channel for our particles, and this is why. We want the particles to be glowed using the object channel of the particles. The color control should be set to material (which right now is the plain color we assigned to the particle emitters). The size is very important since it defines the density of the explosion glow. For the sample we created here us a glow size of 15.

7. Ready to Render.

You have completed your tutorial here and are now ready to render the animation to whatever file or device of your preference, but do remember to render it from the video post. Have fun blowing stuff up.

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