Create a starscape using a particle system
Where: 3DS Max
Author: RedMagickMage
Created: 6/11/2003
Last Revision: 6/11/2003
Skill Level: Beginner
Viewed 149 times.
This tutorial will show you how to use a particle system to model stars.
Step one.
Hello. Thanks for looking at my Very Simple Star/Sun-scene. This is my first tutorial and I hope that it's informative, but not too challenging. Lets get started: First, start up 3ds max. Next, click "Create," at the top, then click "Blizzard" in the Particles drop-down. Create the particle system so that the emitter is on the ground plane and so the particles would be shooting up. (See picture)Step Two
Next, make sure that the particle system is selected and then click on the "Modify" tab on the menu on the right (unless you have a different UI anyway...). In the Basic Parameters section, set the Icon width and length to 1000. Next...scroll down a bit till you see "Particle Generation" and, if it's not expanded, expand it. This next part really depends on how many stars you want in your picture. In the Particle Quantity section, click "Use Rate" and set the rate to 100 for tutorial purposes. (See picture to clarify)Step Three
Once you've gotten all that done, scroll down to "Particle Generation." In the "Particle Timing" section, set the Emit Start to -20. (You'll see the particles rise up a bit in the view ports.) If you want close starts or far spaced stars, mess around with the speed (in the Particle Motion section) until you're happy. I'll put my speed at 25 for this tutorial. Also in the Particle Motion section, set the variation to 50% so that it looks more random...you can increase or decrease this if you'd like. (Again, see picture)Step 4
Here's what we have so far in wire frame.Step Five
This is pretty simple...when you look into the night sky, all the stars seem tiny, so in the Particle Size section, we'll want a pretty small number. Again, for this tutorial, I'll use 1.500 or something close to that.
When you render, you'll see three things that seem off.
One: The stars aren't stars...they're triangles.
Two: they're a funky colour probably.
Three: There are more triangles on the top than on the bottom of the render.
To fix problem one, go back to the modify menu and find Particle Type. Under "Standard Particles", check Sphere, and in Particle Types, make sure that "Standard Particles" is checked.
To fix problem two, look at the top of the modify menu and you'll see a square that has the same colour as the triangles in your render. Change that to a very light blue for this tutorial. And
To fix problem three is a bit more difficult because it's really up to you how to fix it. However, this is the way I fixed it - I moved my camera up so there were more particles in the wire frame around the camera. You may have a better way of doing this, but that's what I did. (Hope the picture helps)
Step Six
Now this part is pretty easy. Create an Omni Light (found in Create> Lights> Omni Light.) Place it in your scene so that it's in the middle of the perspective window. (See picture)Step Seven
Again, with the light selected, click on the Modify tab. In the Modify menu, scroll all the way down to "Atmosphere & Effects." If it's not expanded, expand it. Click Add. Select Lens Effects and click ok. Select Lens Effects in the little box and then click Setup at the bottom. A window will pop up. Under "Lens Effects Parameters," select Glow and the click the > button. Scroll down to Glow Elements. Set the Intensity to 200 and Size to 90. The Radial Colour is what colour the glow will be. For this tutorial, I used a light peach colour and a pinkish colour. (See picture)Step Eight - The Final Render
Render. Here's my final image. Yours probably won't look the same, but hopefully close to it. I really hope you found this tutorial easy and informative. I also hope that I left enough open ends so that you can experiment to your heart's desire. If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me at lostmindbrbin10min@yahoo.com or IM me here on 'Rosity. Happy rendering!!