Trouble with keyframing material properties

[alano]

Started using AM after many years away now that I have more time to devote to animation projects again.

I've got this cauldron steaming very nicely and I want to change the color of the steam to pink (love potion) over time. I keyframed the shortcut to the streak emitter's attribute's diffuse color to change over a few frames and I get a lovely gradient of this on the timeline (see pic). Alas, the actual attribute's color remains stubbornly gray. I've tried reloading the project in case things needed to be started from scratch but no joy. I feel I must be missing some simple switch or something. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Alan

 

[robcat2075]

If you could make a version of the PRJ with everything stripped out except for the model with the emitter and the relevant particle materials I'll take a look at it.

[alano]

Thank you. Seems like it should work, yet it doesn't.

 

Alan

 

strip.prj

[robcat2075]

The PRJ doesn't seem to have the model or a Chor in it.

Project>Embed All and resave it.

I will look at this at Live Answer Time today if you want to drop in.

 

[robcat2075]

Alano,

I gave it try today with a generic particle emitter and wasn't able to get the color to change. It is probably a bug that needs to be fixed.

There is a work around... render the scene with grey particles up to where the transition from grey to pink ends and render it again with pink particles from where the transition starts, then cross fade between the two renders in your video editing app.

[alano]

Thanks for your efforts. I just recreated the problem in a new project included here. I can keyframe the emitter to change the Rate of Emission and that works, but keyframing the  attribute won't actually change the surface properties. I think an easier workaround for my particular situation is to have two emitters, one gray and one pink, and cross-fade their rates of emission. I will check it out.

Weird. This is the second time I found a bug doing stuff I didn't think was all the groundbreaking. The first was years ago when I was using the toon shader on models with hair.

 

Thanks again,

Alan

 

streak.prj

[yoda64]

As a workaround

What's working is , when You key the color change in the material cache , not in the instance .

streak2.prj

[robcat2075]

The streaks are changing color over their lifetime but the emitted color is not changing (the effect Alan is seeking)

For clarity i changed the pink to bright red...

streak3.prj

 

[yoda64]

22 hours ago, robcat2075 said:

The streaks are changing color over their lifetime but the emitted color is not changing (the effect Alan is seeking)

Like the attached video ?

This is possible , but I don't know yet, if it will be possible for all particlesystems, (streaks and blobbies , yes, the other I must check first)

And it needs a new boolproperty in the particle system settings (suggestion for naming welcome ) , to control the behavior of color changing.

But in general changing, surface attributes for particle systems in a chor or action will not work. I have spent yesterday some hours to figure out this .

Your way is the correct way , and when I remember correct , it's so described in TechRef too.