This tutorial is our take on engine exhaust effects in 3DS Max. There are various way to create similar effects but this technique is a bit more flexible, better looking and is easier to animate. During the course of this article you’re going to learn to manipulate the Super Spray particle system and create a suitable material for it.

While the technique itself is for intermediate-level users, this tutorial can be completed by beginners as long as you pay attention.

Preview

The scene

You don’t really need anything in your scene but remember that any effect such as this shines when introduced in a nicely orchestrated environment.

1/4 The particles

Fire-up 3DS Max and maximize the Perspective Viewport by pressing alt+w. Pick a Super Spray object from the Create{} >Geometry{}> Particle Systems and place it in the middle of your scene.

Go to 3DS Max’s Modify tab {} and from the basic Parameters tab set the Viewport display to Mesh so we can preview our changes without having to render the scene. Also set the Percentage of Particles to 50%

Roll-out the Particle Generation tab. Set the particle Emit Start to -20, the Emit Stop to 110 and the Life to 6. Given that our scene has 100 frames we set the start and stop outside that boundary so it will look continuous. The Life value tells the particles when to die (morbid but accurate).

Scroll down to the Particle type tab and select Sphere. This will make 3DS Max’s Super Spray emitter generate spheres.

If you render the scene now you’ll see a couple of tiny spheres launching from the middle of nowhere. That being said, we need to increase the diameter of our particles. Go to the Particle Generation tab again and set the size to 30 and the variation to 100%.

We now need to find a way to make the spheres blend together to create that jet exhaust look. Scroll down to the Rotation and Collision tab and set the Spin Axis Control to Direction of Travel/Mblur and set the stretch to a value of 20.

It looks more like what we need now but it’s still a bit blocky. Go back to the Particle Generation tab and set the Grow For value to 0 and the Fade For to 6. This means the particles will start at full size (30) and will gradually get smaller towards their demise.

This is it for the particle emitter for now.

See page 2 for the material part