Particles dispersed to 3d shape to dispersed again

Steve Schulze

I've been banging my head against the problem for a while - it seems like it shouldn't be all that difficult, but finding a solution that fits my needs is proving a little challenging.

Essentially all I want to do is spawn some particles that are spread out in random positions, move them into the shape of a 3D object then move them back to random positions. Ideally, being able to repeat the process so the particles form between multiple different object shapes in their lifetime would be good, but we can probably work around that. The closest I've gotten to what I want is firing the particles at an invisible collision object, then dampening all of the velocity so that they effectively stick the surface, but the result isn't great.

 We're doing work for mobile VR so don't have an enormous amount of power to throw around and are working with 2018.3.6f1, so might not have the absolute most tools. Also, no one here has much of an idea of scripting for particles, so we're kinda stuck with Shuriken.

RyanB

I would write a script for this but there's a hacky way you could get something similar. 

Create your particle system, set the speed to zero or very small if you don't want it to align perfectly

Set the particle lifetime to something short, 0.5 or less

In the Shape tab, set the Shape to Mesh.  Set Randomize Direction to 1.

Turn up the Randomize Position value and watch the particles fly away

Now, you could animate the Randomize Position value to make the particles form and break apart. 

You could also animate the Normal Offset in the Shape tab.

Mix some animation of other values and it might be acceptable.