phoenix ink and body force problem - nothing seems to be working

[dbakewel]

Hi there.
using the phoenix ink preset as a starting point, i'm trying to use a body force in the shape of a cone to get the ink/smoke to form into the shape of that cone over time, but for the life of me, i can not get it to work.
i've tried using small values and extremely large values on the body force, but the ink particles are just ignoring the cone shape and doing their own thing within a container shape.
I've looked at the body force demo where it starts as an "M" , changes to a phoenix logo and then back to an "M", to compare with my my test scene, but i just can't figure it out.

so, what am i doing wrong?
or is this something that just won't work with the particles?

I'm using PFD 5.20 with Maya 2020.4
(a .ma file as a zipped attachment is now included)

many thanks in advance
Dave

[dbakewel]

zip file of .ma file with current setup

[georgi.zhekov]

Hey Dave,

Thanks a lot for the scene. Looks like the Body Force is not connected to the Cone.

Since you changed a lot of the Body Force settings I would suggest to start fresh and delete the one in your scene and create a brand new one.

With the new Body Force in the scene, select the Cone geometry and Ctrl+click over the Body Force, then from its settings choose "Add Selected object" button. This will connect the force and geo.
The other option is in the Outliner to just middle-mouse drag and drop the Cone geo in the phxbodyforce_set . This will do the exact same thing as adding the object through the button.

After that you will be able to see how the options will affect the drag particles.

Cheers!

[dbakewel]

you know, i could have sworn i'd added the object to the force, BUT i realised that when you select the body force icon from the shelf and the cursor changes, i thought that i was clicking on the cone in the viewport to select that as the object the body force was going to use and it would just be added to the body force set, similar to when you have an object selected to use as a source when using a preset.

but NO, i'm just placing the icon in the world and it doesn't add that object to the force set automatically.
so big user error here. (do pay attention to the little notification messages at the bottom of the screen folks!)

perhaps the selection process could be modified in future updates, maybe clicking on an object might add it to the force set/list
or if a user has that object selected already and wants to add a force, it again gets added to the body force set/list.

Though i realise the other icons function in the same way as the body force. the user is just placing an icon and not setting up an object to be a fire, water, particle or active body.

thanks for the help.
I can stop banging my head against hard surfaces now

Have a good one!
D