Hello! I am trying (rather unsuccessfully) to simulate water running from a tap (flowing). So far my attempts have made the water appear as though it is flowing in slow motion, or the effect doesn't look very realistic (kind of like a cloudy gush that trails off rather quickly). I am dying to find a tutorial on P/E's, or advice if anyone has some. Thanks, and have a smashing day! bboT

Try to increase the velocity and frequency on your Particle Emitter and enable Blur object or you can use the MetaMesh plug-in from Akurodigital to simulate water. http://www.kawachi.zaq.ne.jp/kurozuka/akurodigital/

Depending on the effect you are after, you might consider this method which doesn't use particles. It's just the "twist" spline object from the browser tray, reduced in size at the lower end and rotated around the Z axis during the animation. The bubbles are just a few vertex spheres. As you can see, the caustics works quite nicely.

Excellent animation! Supurb effect. Maybe you could post this just a little bigger?

Thank you for the tips, Claudiomil and Falconperigot. I REALLY appreciate them. I had never thought about using anything other than the PE for the effect -- I really like your suggestion Falconperigot! Very cool! Using a spline object for a the effect will be easier to manage than a PE, especially since I am doing a looping animation. Thanks again, gents. You rule the pool. Isn't that ironic, all things considered? ;)

Is the twist spline object something I have to add from the Carrara content CD or is it a behaviour (and not an object)? It does not appear in my browser tray. Mind you, I am using Car1.1 at the moment -- I do have Car3.x at home (I will check when I get home). Perhaps it is a default object in Car3? Thanks again :)

Glad you like it Ed! Here's a larger version.

Boogeyman, the object is in the Browser tray on the left in C3. No idea whether it's in C1, so long since I used it.

Thanks a million, falconperigot! You are a beautiful human being :D

That's the wonderful thing about the Internet, nobody knows I'm a bird. ;-)

For a bird you do nice work! Thanks for the repost. My failing eyes can make out the droplets now. :-)