3D Explosion

3D Explosion with sound, camera vibration smoke, fire and blurring effect.

How to do it.

Particle Bomb Tutorial

(3D Studio Max 9)

Before I start…

I am assuming you already have a little experience with the user interface in 3D Studio Max. If you don’t please read about:

Particles System and Forces.

Create a box or the model to explode. Make sure you get lots of segments so the explosion will have lots of pieces to fly around. Apply the “particle system” and create a “PArray” .

From the “Modify” panel, click on “pick object” and select the box or object to explode.

This box will be emitting the particles of the explosion. Under viewport display option select “Mesh”.

Under the particles motion set speed and divergence to 0 “Zero” Set life to the time of the animation or desired.

Under particles type select “Fragments”

Under “Object Fragment control” select “number of chunks” and set it to 100 or desired.

Now under “Forces” create a “PBomb” and set the icon next to the box or object. Note: the PBomb will act as a real bomb exploding your 3d object, so you can set it under, inside or wherever you think is the best position for a bomb in your scene.

Now we need to “Bind” the particles array with the pbomb emitter force.

Click on the “Particle array” icon and on the top menu click on the button that says “Bind to Space Warp”. Now click on the particle array again and drag it to the pbomb emitter. This action will bind the 2 forces.

Now select the PBomb and open the parameters. Under explosion start time select 0 “Zero” or the time desired for the explosion to start. If you turn on the “Range Indicator” The box or object inside the range selected by you will be severely affected by the explosion.

Now “Hide” the original box or object.

Now go to the create Panel and under “Forces” add the “Gravity” icon to the scene.

Now “Bind” the particle system with the gravity force using the “Bind to Space warp” button again.

Now create a “Plane” under the box or object.

Now under “Space Warps” create a “UDeflector”. Under the “UDeflector” parameter pick the “plane” as the object to deflect the particles of the explosion.

Now “Bind” the “Particles System” with the “UDeflector”

Under “Particles Bounce” set the value of “Bounce” to 0.9

You can now adjust all parameters to your preference.

CGI-Computer graphics Image animations. Design and animation of 3 dimension characters and atmosphere environment, including dynamics , gravity and collision detection of objects in 3-D Worlds.

For projects Contact me at

eribeiro@charter.net or eribeiro@cgs27.net