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I'm using an emission particle system to create a forest. For the most part it's working fine without problems. But I do have a little problem. Some of my trees tend to float over the plane rather than coming straight from the face. Here's an image of what I mean. enter image description here

I'm using an emission particle system Here's my settings. enter image description here

I'd just like the trunks of the trees to come straight from the faces of the plane, and not have some of them float above.

I'm using cycles if that's actually necessary.

EDIT

This is what it looks like if I change from grid to random or jittered. enter image description here

Axi0m
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    Do you have any other modifiers on the object? If so, does checking use modifier stack help? – PGmath Jan 19 '15 at 00:52
  • I did have a modifier, but checking the use modifier stack did not help. Neither did applying the modifiers. – Axi0m Jan 19 '15 at 00:55
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    How about changing from grid to random or jittered distribution? – PGmath Jan 19 '15 at 01:02
  • If I do that, the trees end up on their side like the picture I'm adding in. – Axi0m Jan 19 '15 at 01:14
  • Actually, I just did that and changed the rotation to "Global X" and everything worked. Thanks a lot for the help, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the particle systems. – Axi0m Jan 19 '15 at 01:15
  • @Axi0m Could you post the .blend for experimentation, it is hard to figure it out just from screen shots, you can use a service like pasteall.org to host your blend – GiantCowFilms Jan 19 '15 at 02:31
  • Select Rotation and rotate your duplicated mode as desired. – J Sargent Jan 19 '15 at 03:40
  • related?: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8918/why-are-the-objects-in-my-hair-particle-system-not-sitting-on-top-of-the-ground –  Jan 19 '15 at 03:46
  • also: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/8104/rotate-group-objects-outwards-on-spherical-particle-system/8106#8106 –  Jan 19 '15 at 03:53
  • Yeah I've since fixed it. I've actually even said in like the 5th post. But thanks for the added information, at least now I know what the problem is and how to tackle it should it arise again. – Axi0m Jan 19 '15 at 06:32
  • @Axi0m if you solved your problem please write an answer, so that others down the line can learn from your experience. –  Jan 19 '15 at 15:47
  • Whoa. don't use jittered. looks like a tornado whipped through. :) – ruckus Jan 20 '15 at 17:46

1 Answers1

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When you are planning to make those kinds of particle systems, you should use a Hair system instead of an Emitter one.

In your system the particles are being thrown from the faces and, despite you have the system freezed at frame 0 (I think Blender don't use negative frames in any simulation), it looks like some particles had enough velocity to be outside of the faces.

So the best approach to achieve your work is using a Hair Particle System. It's very simple for your purpose:

  1. Create a Particle System and set it to Hair. The Hair strands are perpendicular to the surface, just what you want.
  2. Change the Number of particles. The Hair Length is not necessary for you.
  3. Under the Render properties of the particle system, select object and then set Dupli Object to your tree. Then change the size at your will.
  4. Maybe you need to re-orient your tree in Edit Mode to align the vertical axis.

Additionally, you can create a group of a few different trees and set the Render particles to Group. The particle system is going to randomly select the trees for every strand.

Regarding to your actual situation, maybe if you set the Normal Velocity to 0, those trees would not float. But the Hair System is the best choice in this case.

Antonio Buch
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