Local direction of travel (particle axis)

[Narad13]

I have this animation set up with a deer walking and I've got random faces expanding out periodically and then returning to their original position. I created this using Birth Objects, Face Fracture, etc... But the issue I'm having is that I want the faces to travel outward in the direction of the Normal of the face that they were created from. Right now It looks like every particle has the same axis alignment as the mesh that they were created from because using Particle X, Y or Z for the speed direction yields the same results as using world coordinates. 

At the moment I am using Random 3D for my direction but it's not really what I want and I'm sure there must be a way to do this.
Thanks in advance for your help!

[tyFlow]

I would do 2 things:

1) To align particle transforms to face normals, use a Rotation operator set to surface alignment mode and also disable 'affect particle shape orientation'. That will cause only the transform to rotate, allowing you to orient particle Z-axes to the surface.

2) Use the Position Transfer workflow to simulate the particles on a static deer, and then transfer to the moving deer after. It will make your life a lot easier There's an official example scene showing how to use that operator but it's pretty simple.

[Narad13]

I would do 2 things:

1) To align particle transforms to face normals, use a Rotation operator set to surface alignment mode and also disable 'affect particle shape orientation'. That will cause only the transform to rotate, allowing you to orient particle Z-axes to the surface.

2) Use the Position Transfer workflow to simulate the particles on a static deer, and then transfer to the moving deer after. It will make your life a lot easier There's an official example scene showing how to use that operator but it's pretty simple.

Yes this is perfect!!!
I was already doing tip #2 because you advised me of that earlier in this project.
But the Rotation-surface alignment is EXACTLY what I needed.

Thanks so much for always being around to provide support for this great product!!!
E