Using Cinema 4D Dynamics

Note that this page refers to the use of X-Particles with the inbuilt dynamics engine (Bullet engine) included in Cinema 4D. X-Particles has its own set of dynamics objects and the documentation for these can be found on this page.

You can use the Dynamics engine in Cinema 4D with X-Particles. To do so, you must:

• add a Generator object or a Sprite object to the scene and link it to an emitter (you must generate objects for Dynamics to work, the engine will not work on bare particles)
• if using a Generator object, add an object to be generated; if using Sprites, select the type of sprite you want - note that this will not work if you generate lights, since they have no geometry
• set up Dynamics tags on the objects you want particles to collide with in the usual way
• add a Dynamics tag to the Sprite or Generator object, NOT to the object to be generated - this is important!
• set the required options in the Dynamics tag
• finally, in the Dynamics tag, Collision tab, set 'Individual Elements' to 'Top Level' (or any of the options in the drop-down other than 'Off') - if you don't do this you won't get any dynamics effects

Now your particles and their objects can be used with the inbuilt Dynamics system.

You should be aware that Cinema's Dynamics will take control of the generated object away from X-Particles. The particles themselves remain under the control of the emitter, but the objects may be completely divorced from their source particle. Unfortunately there is nothing we can do about this, as the Cinema 4D SDK does not provide any functions for controlling dynamics or accessing the dynamics data.