How can I emit objects from the center of a face, as shown?

Face-Centered Object

When I try to emit from faces, they are randomly distributed. None of the settings seem to allow for a placement of one object per face, evenly spaced. This is how it looks:

Randomly-Centered Object

As you can see, the objects are indeed spawning on the faces, but there are issues: some faces have multiple objects, others have none, and all are randomly positioned on their planes.

Emitting from vertices behaves in the desired fashion:

Vertex-Centered Object

How can I achieve this behavior with face-centered object placement?


To make particles emitted evenly from each face's center set up the next things:

  1. Uncheck Random in Particle System settings (which you already did, still for completeness).
  2. Make sure the object which will be used as particle instance has origin in the center of its geometry.
    If you don't this still will work but when scaling particles' size it will grow somewhat unexpected.
  3. Set Particles/Face to 1 in Particle System settings (by default 0, i.e. automatic selection). This will mean that you ask particle system to emit only 1 particle per emitter's face.

    particle system settings

    particles emitted from each face example

    This will work in a similar way for Emitter type of Particle System too.

  4. Number of particles - in order all this to work it has to be not less than total number of faces of the emitter. It may be higher though (doesn't matter how much, Particle System will automaticallsy cut what's not needed).
    This behaviour is less predictable if Even Distribution in Particle System settings is left being turned on. In order to make number of particles exactly fit amount of faces uncheck this option.

  • $\begingroup$ Now I realize that I was simply misreading one of the parameter labels - I had "Particles / Face" set to 32 thinking it was total number of particles. Since this question was based on a simple misunderstanding, should I delete it? $\endgroup$ – splic Apr 14 '16 at 20:41
  • 2
    $\begingroup$ @splic I think you shouldn't delete question because we all learn things, sometimes on errors, hence it can serve as a guide for further reference. Note that this site assumes providing useful information not only for questioner but also for future readers (like wiki). $\endgroup$ – Mr Zak Apr 14 '16 at 20:50
  • $\begingroup$ thx for not deleting, I got reminded to turn of "random" because of this post. $\endgroup$ – VRM Sep 21 '17 at 18:53

A simpler alternative implementation of this design utilizes duplifaces.

Ensure that the duplicated object (in this case, the cone) has its origin at its base.

  1. Parent the duplicated object to the host object.
  2. Enable duplication faces in the object tab of the parent object.
  3. Scale and rotate the child object if necessary.
  4. Make the duplicates real.
  5. Delete the base child object.
  6. Join the duplicates to the host if desired.

GIF of the process


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