Lightning Object Tutorial - Particle Flow

If you are in a hurry just jump to 34:00 to watch a quick overview of the project.
Tutorial about how to create some lightning and make it get the shape of an object.
You can use your own object but, if you like, you can download the starting scene with the skull here:
Files: goo.gl/34u8Ek (the end scene is there as well)
You can use and extruded vector of your logo or any image, even though, i really recommend you to use something with a good silhouette.
The idea is based on this amazing slow-motion lightning reference:
vimeo.com/28457062
by ZT Research.
Like us on FB and keep learning:
particleskull
Developed by Alvaro Moreira and Particle Skull.
Soundtrack: Memories - ProleteR
goo.gl/wLvhbH
www.particle-skull.com

[@jameson63926]

You are a particle effects wizard. Excellent tutorial, learned so much!

[@ParticleSkull]

thx! glad it helps ;)

[@dokn221]

every day im learning some thing new !!!!!
Good job

[@pawan4902]

You are doing great things bro

[@ParticleSkull]

thx Pawan!
-
Alvaro

[@keithtam8859]

great tutorial. May I give a humble comment; I know you did explain what you were doing, but sometimes I notice you skipped commenting and proceeded with the next step, it normally happens when you were changing the values of an option, or for example, the second time you slotted in the "spawn" command in the PF window. I know commenting and doing the tutorial is hard work, and i very much appreciate it!!

[@brunogabbai2490]

mto bom!
faz em português pô!!!!! haha
falta material de particle flow em português
vlw
abs

[@ParticleSkull]

E aí Bruno, blz? Fiz em inglês pra abranger mais gente mas, se surgir dúvidas, manda aí que respondo em portugues - hehe
Em português tem o curso da 3d1 que tá bem completão, da uma olhada:
www.tresd1.com.br/dvds/cursos/video-curso-particle-flow
Abs!

[@omarelizondo8857]

Hi, first of all, thanks for the tutorial its really helpfull, and second i have a doubt, i want to make a storm scene and i need to make the lightning to fall faster and maintain the same quality the only way i can do it was adding gravity, it is there other way? thanks

[@ParticleSkull]

Hey Omar, i'm glad it's being useful!
gravity should work just fine but you might need to teak some parameters on the Wind's tubulence stuff as well.
I think you could also decrease the integration steps to check if it looks better somehow.
Cheers, let me know when you get some cool results
/Alvaro

[@omarelizondo8857]

ok, thanks i will give it a try

[@ritaliu1051]

what's your unit setup?

[@ParticleSkull]

hey, it's Generic Units
/Alvaro

[@ritaliu1051]

Thank you so much!!

[@ritaliu1051]

And how about your home grid?

[@conesillyvalley7182]

Le Liu do you know how to ask with a "please"? Do you think chinese deserve all answers so they can copy copy copy?

[@TheOmnipRotenT]

[@ParticleSkull]

+TheOmnipRotenT :)

[@TheOmnipRotenT]

+Particle Skull Do you use something in particular or do you have some tips to improve viewport performance? I made a scene very similar to use for my project and my PFlow looks a lot like yours, but i only have ~22000 particles in the viewport at max. I takes a HUGE amount of time to go through the scene timeline.
My setup looks like this :
125 particles born on an object, lock/bond onto it. (Ticks)
Each of them generate a trail by travel distance 0.5, no velocity inherited.
The trail as a successive relative scale of 95% and is deleted based on size (scale test)(when they go under 0.5) There is also a delete operator by age, to back it up just in case.
The particles have a sphere 20-sides for it's shape.
My graphics card is a GTX Titan so i doubt that's the problem.

[@csabaparazso]

3Ds max export file format ? PRT ? and support prt file format ?