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Introduction
X-Particles version 2.5 is a full featured Particles System Plugin for CINEMA 4D Release 13 and above. It is developed by well known members of the C4D community, Steve Pedler, Mike Batchelor and David O'Reilly going by the Company name of INSYDIUM LTD. At the time of writing this review, Version 2.5 had just been released with many enhancements over previous versions.
X-Particles is an independent Particles system and does not require the emitter from C4D's standard particle system or an emitter from the Thinking Particles system. It is a multi-threaded system, something the 2 native systems aren't. The result being you can have a lot more particles and speed is much higher. Dependent on the number of CPU cores of course.
X-Particles comes in 2 versions, a standard version costing 189 Euros and a Pro version costing 289 Euros. Upgrades from version 1 are available as well. The differences between the versions is the Pro version has a skinner shader, skinner object, Fragmenter object, Wetmaps , Wetmap shader, 3 extra modifiers, 1 extra question, 3 extra actions, Particle editing, Particle Painting tool, XPresso nodes, Fluid simulation and Particle dynamics. A demo version with limited functionality is also available. More information on the demo version available here. This review will cover the full Pro version that has the major addition of Fluid simulation. Version 2.5 is a free upgrade for version 2.0 owners.
X Particles 3.5 Download Search Tips To create more accurate search results for X Particles 3.5 try to exclude using commonly used keywords such as: crack, download, serial, keygen, torrent, warez, etc. Simplifying your search should return more download results.
If you haven't seen the X-Particles Demo Reel I suggest watching it now before carrying on with the review.
Plus their Fluids Reel is also worth watching (Pro version of X-Particles 2.5 required. As they say on the X-Particles web site, it's not Realflow but X-Particles costs a lot less than Realflow and is much easier to use. Note that Fluids have been enhanced since this video was produced.
What do you get?
After purchasing X-Particles 2.5 online you'll get an email with your serial number. You then download X-Particles 2.5 from the Developer's web site. Examples scenes are available to download. A detailed manual in html format is available as well although you do get this as part of the plugin download, some folder icons can be downloaded and if you're up for some programming the X-Particles SDK is available to download.
Installation of the plugin is done copying the X-Particles plugin files into the plugins folder available via the preferences. Installing the plugin there then allows the plugin to check for available updates and automatically apply the update (very slick for a 3rd party plugin to do this). You then restart C4D and you'll be prompted for your serial number. Enter this and you're good to go. X-Particles has some Preferences options and these have been added to the CINEMA 4D Preferences on their own page.
Getting Started
X-Particles 2.5 adds its own menu to the C4D menu bar as shown below.
X-Particles menu
From this menu and the documentation suggests it, you can create a X-Particles palette. This palette can then be docked into the interface. You would then save your layout. Here's what the palette looks like. To make the palette fit across this page I have made the icons wrap over 5 rows. I also enabled the Text option so that you can see what each icon is for.
X-Particles Palette
The X-Particles Pro system includes the following:
- Emitter, Generator, Trail object, Sprite object, Particle deformer, Cache object, Skinner, Fragmenter
- Particle Painting tool
- 24 Questions
- 31 Actions
- 27 Modifiers
- 7 X-Particles tags
- Particle shader, Sprite shader, Skinner shader, Wet Map shader
- 37 XPresso nodes
The Pro version includes Particle Dynamics, Fluid simulation and Wetmaps.
Okay, so what is X-Particles and what makes it different from the standard particle system and Thinking Particles?
X-Particles is a complete particle system where you create a particle emitter in much the same way as you would create a standard particle emitter. Clicking on the X-Particle emitter icon in the palette as shown above creates a Particle emitter in the viewport. Press play and particles come out of the emitter object. The big difference is making the particles do things. This is done by setting up questions, actions and modifiers. No need for cryptic XPresso nodes as you get with Thinking Particles. For example you could create a Question (Object manager object) that asks 'after a specified number of frames do something' you could enter in something like 30 frames. You then refer that question to an Action (Object Manager object). In the Action object you set up one or more Modifiers that make the particles do something. In addition in the Action object you can particles change colour (handy to know that things are working).
X Particles 3 Serial Killers
You don't have to use questions and actions. You can for example add gravity simply by creating a gravity modifier or wind by creating a wind modifier. Regular CINEMA 4D Deformers and some MoGraph effectors also work with X-Particles e.g. Random effector.
X-Particles System Object
First up, you don't actually need a X-Particles System object to generate X-Particles. The System object is basically a null object, in that it has no visible editor presence or appearance at render time. Its function is to act as a collator of other X-Particles control system objects and to provide some convenient functions for the user like generating questions, actions, modifiers and then placing all these into a well structured hierarchy.
Adding the Questions, Actions and Modifiers is best done by creating a X-Particles System object then clicking on the Add Basic Setup button. This creates a structured Object Manager hierarchy for all of your X-Particles objects. Additional Questions, Actions and adding Modifiers can be added via the System object although all these be added manually from the X-Particles menu or toolbar.
This looks more complicated than it really is. Here's a 5min minute tutorial of creating a particle simulation where the particles, after their age is more than 30 frames, they change colour and fall under the influence of gravity. Pretty basic but try doing the same thing with Thinking Particles, plus this is something the standard particles system would struggle to do.
Click here or on the image above to play tutorial showing how to create basic X-Particles setup and simple particle animation (13mb)
Things start getting a lot more interesting once you have multiple questions and multiple actions.
X-Particles Emitter
The X-Particles Emitter is one of the key components of the X-Particles system. There's a ton of settings and I can't possibly go through them all so I'll just mention a few of the more important ones. I'll cover Fluids separately. Below is the Emission tab's settings.
Emission Tab settings
On this tab you can specify the maximum number of particles to be generated, particle emission speed, birthrate (particles generated per frame), whether you want Thinking Particles generated instead of X-Particles particles and a whole lot more. If all you want is a some particles generated you only need to create an X-Particles emitter. You only need to create a X-Particles System object with questions and actions when you want to do more complex particle simulations and or you want to keep the Object Manager hierarchy well structured.
Setting up Particle to Particle collisions is really easy. On the Collision tab of an emitter there are 2 options. The first options is Enable Particle Collisions. When this is enabled the Self collision option (enabled by default) becomes active and collisions with particles from the selected emitter occur. The With field is where you drag and drop other emitters in so that particle collisions occur with particles generated from other emitters. The Particle Radius defined on the Emission tab is important as this defines the size of the particle. If you're going to be using a polygon object as your particle and want accurate collisions you need to make the radius the same size as the polygon object. Here's a quick example of 2 emitters and particle - particle collision. I didn't need to create a X-Particles system to make this work.
Click on the image or here to play the animation (QT 4.3mb)
Spawning is something you'll often want to do with particles. Spawning is where after particles collide with something they break up into more particles and or more particles are generated where the collisions occur. This is easily done with X-Particles and just a matter of creating a Spawning emitter and dragging and dropping it into the Spawning Emitter field once the Spawn on Collision option is enabled. Here's an example of spawning where after the particles collide with the sphere, new particles are generated. I've used a question and action to kill the original particles after they collide with the sphere then a second question and action on the spawning emitter to kill the spawned particles after 20 frames.
Click on the image or here to play the animation (QT 900kb)
Ironically I haven't been able to do Spawning since the Fizz plugin stopped being compatible with CINEMA 4D after Release 10 came out. While it's possible to do Spawning with Thinking Particles that's too hard for my poor brain to figure out. Spawning with X-Particles is a piece of cake.
X Particles 3 Serial Ports
Path Editing - is really useful. The particle emitter has an Edit tab where you can enable particle editing. Once enabled you can go into point mode and move particles around or even delete them. A very common problem when using Thinking Particles is having stray particles i.e. particles in places they shouldn't be in. With X-Particles if you get stray particles it's simple matter of selecting them (in particle edit mode) and deleting them. Another one is where particles intersect with geometry (usually because the object being used is too big). Although you can define a collision radius for particles there are times when you want to edit the path that the particles are following to make them move along a slightly different path. X-Particles can do this in edit mode and then in Path mode. In Path mode each particle displays a path that resembles a spline with points at every frame number. You can then use point editing tools e.g. Magnet to fine tune the path. Usually you would want to edit the particle paths on the last frame of the animation. That way you get the entire path and you can make the path nice and smooth. Below is an example of where I edited the path of all particles using the Brush tool. I've left it Path edit mode so that you can see the (non renderable) paths for each particle. Obviously you would want to be careful showing paths if you had a high number of particles as your computer would slow down big time.
Click here or on the image above to play tutorial showing how to create basic X-Particles setup and simple particle animation (5mb)
Using Regular Deformers and MoGraph Effectors. In addition to using particle modifiers you can also use regular CINEMA 4D deformers and most of the MoGraph effectors. Just a matter of adding them into the Deformer field of the emitter. Have to say, I had a lot of fun using regular deformers and MoGraph Effectors and you can do some cool particle effects very easily. Below are a couple of examples. The first is using 2 Bend Deformers, a Twist Deformer and a Taper Deformer. The second one is using a MoGraph Random Effector with Linear falloff.
Click here or on the image to play the animation (3.0mb)
Click here or on the image to play the animation (2.7mb)
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