Timing Particles Sprites, Streaks and etc

[Darkwing]

Is it possible to start and finish a sprite at any particular point in time. For example, if I was doing a shot that was 15 seconds long, could I have the particle start at let's say 10 seconds and end at 13 seconds? Can this be down with lights like lens flares as well?

[clonewar12345]

In the coreography set the rate of emission at 0 untill 10 seconds. Than turn it to wateaver rate you want and back to o at 13 seconds. And i dont know if this will work for lens flares as well but i imagine it will if you turn on and off the light when you want the flare

[johnl3d]

you can set the life of a sprite and turn it on and off so if you turn on sprites at 10 sec off at 11sec with 3sec life the sprite should be there for only the 3sec

[Darkwing]

It's not working! For reference, if it means anything, I have V13, if that changes anything, but it shouldn't.

[Caroline]

ParticleDemo.zip

 

An avi movie to illustrate this - the main gotchas are clicking "show more than drivers" and also putting the interpolation to hold. These are shown in the movie.

 

Let me know if this helps - I'm experimenting with Camstudio - I am amazed that 21mb zips down to 1.8mb.

[johnl3d]

By watching Caroline's tut you should be able to do something like this

 

 

fire.mov

 

fire.zip

 

 

each "spark" is on for 10 frames then off the on again..watch frame count in right upper corner

[Darkwing]

The tut helps, it makes sense now, it has to be done to the shortcut to the sprite. Thanks a lot!

[Vance]

I'm doing something similar, and this information helped me to get one particle emitter behaving correctly. When I put a second copy of the particle emitter into the chor, I have not found a way to make the second copy of the particle emitter object's sprite emitter "rate" value change over time.

 

I tried doing what I thought I did the first time around, changing it in the shortcut to the particle material under the original particle emitter, not under the shortcut to the particle emitter in the chor (the latter shortcut doesn't have anywhere to change it). This changes the value, but does not create a key, and the new value is constant for the entire chor. I have clicked on the little lock that comes up when you change the value and I selected the clock icon (change value over time), but it does not make the value change over time. I've also tried changing the value under the Driver hierarchy, but this does not help either (under the driver there is no lock to select change value over time).

 

Of course I can create several separate particle emitter models and set each one up the same way, with only one of each in the chor, but I was curious if I was missing something that would allow multiple copies of the same emitter.

 

Also, I don't fully understand drivers. I looked in the tech reference and did not find much about how to create and use them, except as an artifact of other operations. I also searched the Tutorial forums and did not find anything that really goes into detail. Is there anyplace else I should be looking to dig deeper? Thanks!

 

-Vance

[Caroline]

When I put a second copy of the particle emitter into the chor, I have not found a way to make the second copy of the particle emitter object's sprite emitter "rate" value change over time.

 

???

 

I used the cube from the primitives, using the top as the emittor. I dragged the cube into a chor twice, so in the Chor I had Shortcut to Cube, and also Shortcut to Cube (2). Using the method described above, I could set each of the cube's emittors independently.

 

(I don't understand the word "driver" in this context either. I shall have to go and surf.)

[johnl3d]

Are you making the changes on each short cut ...the one for each emitter ..it should work. If you have trhee emitters each emitters short cut to material will have to be adjusted like in the example I posted each has different timing

[Vance]

You were, of course, right. I went back through the tutorial and there was a step that I missed. Thanks for your help.

 

-Vance

[Darkwing]

Man, I wish I was as good as Johnl3d. I hardly know anything about this program. Apparently it does all kinds of cool things, I just don't know about them.

[johnl3d]

I'm not that good considering I have played with AM since 98. I just know some things from playing with AM a lot .