How do I achieve a particle trail effect?

Question

So I was attempting at the "Houdini Trail Effect" in Blender as shown:

but got stumped with the whole particle system.

I managed to create the following through trial and error with the Vortex on each pole, and added Forces to the Emitter (Sphere)

& then this was the result:

I am wondering if anyone knew how to create the Swirly Trails in the Emitter, then maybe convert to spline afterwards? I know the Ivy Generator is the closest thing but it relies on the Origin Point and etc. I'm not sure if Forces would affect Ivy, but who knows.

Anybody that has a clue, it would be greatly appreciated! I will try again but I doubt I will find a workaround with the Trails. Thanks!

You can use trail particles, so you only have to figure out how to make the particles move in that manner. — J Sargent, Aug 02 '16 at 03:48
@NᴏᴠɪᴄᴇIɴDɪsɢᴜɪsᴇ Yes, I am aware of the trail particles, but how would I go about converting them into splines? or real objects? to apply an emission material as shown above. — Art Jr., Aug 02 '16 at 03:59
http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/7744/particle-trails-in-cycles — eromod, Aug 02 '16 at 04:13
@eromod I already have that addon installed even though it's still in development. Is that really the only way currently? — Art Jr., Aug 02 '16 at 04:24
you can use dynamic painting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yW4FN-C2hA — eromod, Aug 02 '16 at 04:29
You can trace particles, but to create this effect is another story. Blender's particle system is extremely basic. You can only dream of the things and level of control that Houdini has, trust me on this one. You would have to create huge amount of force fields around a mesh (with python) to guide the particles like in Houdini or you would have to create the curves yourself (with python). I am assuming that we are talking about this effect: http://i.stack.imgur.com/62dUE.jpg — Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny, Aug 02 '16 at 13:44
@jerry Why with python? Couldn't you do it normally?And couldint you use dynamic painting to trace those lines? — eromod, Aug 03 '16 at 22:09
I got this far Now I need to figure out how dyno paint works...
http://i.stack.imgur.com/e7UvC.gif — eromod, Aug 04 '16 at 01:10
@eromod Wow, hey thanks for trying to figure it out, but I think we are both close. Check out this sample I created with that BTrace add-on. https://s32.postimg.org/alr47e8ut/swirly.jpg .. Now would you happen to know how to swirl around an object? — Art Jr., Aug 04 '16 at 03:41
@Jerryno Hey Jerry, thanks for the tip. I do realize that Blender is an all-in-one Swiss Army knife, but I wanted to see if it had enough potential, but I must've expected too much. Thanks anyway! I think I am finding a solution towards my liking anyway...! — Art Jr., Aug 04 '16 at 03:42
@eromod The thing is that dynpaint is not curves, which limits what you can do with the result. Using python is necessary to stick curves onto a surface precisely, manually it can be also done but is more work imho. It would be really cool to convert the dynpaint into curves - that would solve the surface sticking and having curves. — Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny, Aug 04 '16 at 06:04
@LeonCheung Bingo - implementing Houdini math into animation nodes and either tracing it with BTrace or building splines with AN is the solution. Also Sverchok should be capable of producing those splines. — Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny, Aug 04 '16 at 12:26
@LeonCheung I think that's still too complicated of a process. I should've been a bit more clear in this question but watch how easy it is for this to be done with X-Particles on Cinema4D ..http://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/creating-swirly-patterns-with-x-particles/ — Art Jr., Aug 08 '16 at 16:57
@Jerryno The thing is, this can be done without Math (What artist wants to do Math) ...I posted the Cinema4D X-Particles tutorial above. You can almost get it in Blender, but would you know how to 1. Keep the Trails following the surface of an object 2. Convert Final trails to splines. I feel like you can do this quite easily but I may be wrong. But have a look if you can and see where Blender can't support it. — Art Jr., Aug 08 '16 at 17:01
@ArtJr. Unfortunately the first point is very hard to do in Blender. The curve trail is not that hard, because an addon already exists, otherwise it would be also hard to do. I had a look at Sverchok and Animation Nodes and even they do not offer all that is needed. It cannot be done without scripted subprogram nodes (so without python code). Thinking particles is a VERY advanced particle engine, miles ahead of what blender offers even with addons. — Jaroslav Jerryno Novotny, Aug 08 '16 at 18:59
@Jerryno I see what you mean. Yeah I had no luck searching for a workaround. Many thanks for your contribution anyway Jerry! — Art Jr., Aug 15 '16 at 20:40

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Mar 14 '17 at 09:14

I think it can be done.

Unfortunately it requires skill.

In this example I used a sphere emitter and a slightly smaller sphere that had collision physics enables, dynamic painting as a canvas, and a negative strength force field to attract the particles.

The slightly larger emitting sphere isnt rendered, and the render starts after the particles were alive for about 100 frames and had enough time to settle and get going.

So the emitter would drop all the particles and the colliding sphere would attract them and get dynamically painted on its surface.

to make the particles move on the surface, I made three vortex forces. Although in your example it looks like there are six, plus two forces(one on top one on bottom)

I also saw that your example had lots of compositing done ontop of it so I attempted a transition to a bokeh blur... Have next to zero experience with compositing atm.

Here is the file But you will need to re-bake the canvas for dynamic painting and set the timeline to start at frame 1.

P.S. temporarily make the particle scale(in particle panel) super tiny before dynamic painting or else you will get super wide paint marks.

How do I achieve a particle trail effect?

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