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CINEMA 4D R11 Quickstart – Thinking Particles
We still have a little problem, though. As you know the emitter is a node. A node cannot be moved, rotated or
scaled. What do we do if we want to change the emitter’s size or orientation? By simply assigning an object’s
coordinates to the emitter. Since we have already created a null object for the XPresso tag it stands to reason
that we use is as a “donor“ for the coordinates.
Drag the null object into the XPresso editor and assign it two output ports, one for “Global Position“ and one
for “Global Matrix“. The emitter node already has an input for the emitter’s position. Give it another input port
– “Emitter Alignment“. Connect both emitter’s ports and we can already treat the emitter as an object. It will
follow every movement and rotation the null object will make.
Even if it doesn’t take a lot of time to create such an emitter it can be quite tedious repeating these steps for
other emitters. This emitter has a critical disadvantage in that every parameter change requires the selection of
the node in the XPresso editor. Never fear – MAXON has placed a standard emitter setup into the CINEMA 4D
Content Browser’s preset library that gives you convenient access to all emitter attributes over the null object’s
user data information. Here you can also make changes to geometry (standard is a cube) linked to particles
with a simple drag & drop. The Content Browser’s preset library also contains many more Thinking Particles
setups. They’re worth a try!