Your Guide
Elvis Deane
Independent animator elvis@astoundingadventures.com
STEP 1: Start with a library emitter file
Add the Simple Weightless Sparks emitter from the June 2004 library to the stage. It’s a pretty simple effect, with particles flying away from the emitter at a consistent rate. We’ll adjust it into a much more dramatic sparkle emitter.
STEP 2: Add movement to your particles
Set the Weight graph of the emitter from 0 to 100 percent. This will cause the particles to fall. Lowering the Weight in the sparks particle type to 0, and then increasing the Weight Variation to 200, gives a mixture of particles rising and falling.
STEP 3: Pick your center point
Under the Particles tab of the emitter’s Properties, click the Reference Point button. Moving this will determine the center point each particle spins around. Click to the left of the shape, with a coordinate of about 100,0.
STEP 4: Set your spin variations
Nothing is spinning, so changes need to be made to the Spin graphs. Set the Spin Variation to 100 to get them turning. Under Spin over Life, set the graph to 0 until halfway through the particle’s life, and then up to 100 percent by 0.7 through the life span.
STEP 5: Set your velocity
You’ll need to do something similar in Velocity over Life. Set the initial point to 20 percent, and keep it that way until 0.3 of the particle’s life. At 0.5, increase the graph to 100 percent. The particles drift slowly until they shoot off and spin.
STEP 6: Pump up you colors
Under the Colors tab move the final orange key of the gradient to the end, and drop a navy blue key in the center. This makes the changes in the particle’s color quite a bit more dramatic.
STEP 7: Add a new shape at the last minute
Finally, swap the particle shape under the Change Shape tab. Select the small blur star shape from the list and click the Make Active button. Drop the Size graph down to 10 and you’ve got a delicate and energetic emitter. Don’t forget to turn on Motion Blur!
Elvis Says Keep in Mind...
The more than 1,800 particle emitters that ship with Wondertouch particleIllusion 3.0 can be used as-is for quick particle effect solutions. But for those who want more, they also are great starting points from which to make enhanced or completely new effects. Here we’ll enhance a simple "sparkle" emitter to make it more exciting. I work on an AMD Athlon 4600 X2 system.
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