Magical Particle Simulation | Blender 4.0+ Quick Tutorial

Easily simulate and render millions of particles in seconds with my new simulation tool, or stick around for the full tutorial to learn how to build a simple particle simulation system yourself. If you're a beginner, don't worry, I cover every step and explain many of the concepts as I go. Magical effects have never been easier in Blender. I'll show you the basics of using simulation zones, how to set particle lifetime, emission start and end frames, vector math, and applying forces like object normal velocity, directional forces, and noise. I'll also show you how to optimize your particles to keep your viewport responsive. Stick around to the end and I'll show you a trick to fake motion blur and speed up render times drastically, and how to set up your particle material to achieve a fiery, magical look.

Magical effects like this can be computationally expensive, requiring software like Krakatoa and Houdini, but with simulation in geometry nodes we're getting closer to realistically replace those options in a more approachable way. Many features are still lacking (like partitions, which allow rendering billions of particles in Krakatoa), but the solution always needs to scale with the demands of the project, and I think I'll be using this system quite a lot in the future.

TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Intro
00:50 Simulation nodes basics (Emit particles)
02:04 Adding forces (gravity, noise, normals)
05:26 Particle lifetime
06:40 Fast motion blur trick (Align particle to vector)
08:23 Viewport optimization (is Viewport)
09:04 Particle shader
09:48 Baking simulations

[brianlynn]

4.2.1 "Align Euler to Vector" is deprecated, replaced by "Align Rotation to Vector".

[DavidWinstead]

That effect looks awesome man, thanks for sharing! 🔥

[kilianstarzengruber]

Kuss auf Nuss, respekt brotha
Looks absolutely great and love it, tysm!!

[bumblebeeava]

Has anyone else had an issue with rendering in EVEE? Cycles works but EVEE keeps crashing! I followed the video closely, baked the sim, tried reducing qty. of particles, sampling etc. but it always crashes. Is the sim Cycles only? Many thanks for you help and awesome tutorial :)

[sojh]

Awesome tutorial! I've been trying to find a way to change the axis the particles move along to follow a curve object I can manipulate instead. I made a separate curve object that begins at the emitter, and pulled that into the node setup, but I'm not well versed enough to figure out how to substitute the curve tangent for the Z axis shown in the tutorial. No worries if there is not an easy answer, but figured it was worth asking here.

Awesome video regardless!

[caosking]

I didn’t think about anything like this wow

[brianlynn]

EDIT: somehow I ended up with the Emission shader attached to the Particle and Emitter objects, not just in the Geometry Nodes. Remove the extra shader links and it looks MUCH better.

9:24 yours looks amazing and mine looks like a blob of nothing. Yours has detail and shadows and mine looks like a mask outline. There is no color, no detail, just a solid blob of white nothing. No idea what I've done wrong. Everything up to the shader is matched click for click... The Emission shader just eliminated 100% of the detail and does NOT perform like yours.

[leoyang]

Thanks you! I've really learned a lot

[manojyt]

Bro can I know how to slow down the speed of particles emitted

[LukeHomay]

This is pretty dope! Thanks for the video. Is there a way to remove the sphere from being in it?

[rcarendsen]

Woow just one question : How can we make these interact with a collision so it will move aside .. ? Thank you very much for this tutorial . ❤👍

[elitetwan]

amazing and well presented. i will be subscribing

[itayozari]

Thank you!
straight forward and simple

[KIFDRAKON]

Thanks, but the lesson turned out to be interesting.

[oohMhax]

Amazing tutorial ! At 5:35, could you please explain how the "age loop" works? Why do you add 1 with a math node? Thanks !

[CapitalGearGaming]

I attempted to add the switch and Is Viewport to the density however it only ever comes up True; is this because it's before the simulation? I'm unsure why it doesn't work as expected, I figured it'd be nice to optimize it more. On 4.0, and not 4.1 perhaps.

Edit: It's cause it's before sim, makes sense since it can only really cache one simulation at a time.

[OfficialNinjagoCentral]

is it possible to add a trail to the particles when they move?

[bentontramell]

Somebody, call the ambulance for the keyboard. 😂

[Andresinia]

Hey, I just bought your particle system, but before that, I followed your tutorial, liked it, and got the result. However, the file I bought is much more complex. I'm learning with geometry nodes and would like some support for a few questions I have, is that possible?

[brianlynn]

Why does the speed of the animation change if I move from 24 to 60 fps? Everything is based on seconds, not frames, and the speed of change in seconds shouldn't change when I change frame rate. Trying to make this look right at 60 fps is not working well.