Texture variants
At the bottom of the Texture Browser area there
is a control for how the textures are applied. The options in the menu are
Single, Animated, and Animated (random start).
Single means that each
particle will use a single texture file throughout its lifetime.
Animated allows you to use
animated textures, or sprites, on your particles. This means that for
every particle that is generated, its first frame will receive the first
texture file, frame 2 will receive the second, and so on, until the end of
the list of textures. At this point it will start over at the first
texture. In order for this to work well, generally your texture files have
to be set up to create a looping animation.
Animated (random start) is
similar to the animated setting, except that it does not always start at
the first texture on the list. Each particle starts at a random texture in
the list, then loops through all of the textures, as mentioned above.
Set the Texture controller to Single.
Texture tips:
• Using multiple textures can give greater
depth and realism to your effect.
• Textures will greatly slow down the rendering
time of the canvas. When working on the placement and movement of the
particles, you can turn the textures off temporarily by using the Preview
Emitters option in the Canvas menu. Once the particles are moving the way
you like them, you can turn Preview Emitters off to see how the particles
work with the textures again.
Turn Preview Emitters on now. Your Texture Browser should look like
this:
Position
This section of controls allows you to adjust
the location of the emitter, the source of the particles, and how the
particles will react once they have been emitted.
Emitter type
There are two types of emitters available.
Point emitters are, not
surprisingly, a single point on the canvas from which the particles spew
forth.
Rectangle emitters, as I'm
sure you've worked out by now, are rectangular shapes from which the
particles are generated. The size and aspect ratio of the rectangle are
completely adjustable.
Both types of emitter can be moved about the
screen simply by clicking and dragging them to where you want.
IMPORTANT: You cannot change
from a point emitter to a rectangular emitter without losing all of the
keyframe information which you have set. Be sure to select the appropriate
emitter type before you start creating your effect.
We will use a Rectangle Emitter for our fire. Place the emitter
slightly low and to the left of the window. Later we will add masks to
make it appear to be coming from inside.
Fire needs oxygen
to burn, that is why flames would shoot out of our window. As the oxygen
in the building is used up, the flames reach up and out to find
more.
