In this tutorial, we're going to cover Multi-layered projects, transparencies, particle color, and emitter motion. This tutorial picks up from the last tutorial. If you didn't do it, or didn't save your work, no worries. We've got you covered - the final project file for Tutorial 1 can be found with the rest of the files you downloaded (or download them here and unzip them to your hard drive) . Below is a picture of the particleIllusion's main project page (same as in the last tutorial) which we will be reffering back to throughout the tutorial:
1. Main Toolbar
2. Nudge Toolbar
3. Playback Toolbar
4. Layer Window
5. Hierarchy Window
6. Stage
7. Graph Window
8. Preview Window
9. Library Window
When last we left off, we had 3 nice fireworks going off over a star field. We are going to add one more, but we are going to do it on a new layer, with more background footage. Let's get started:
1. In the layers window (4), right-click anywhere. It will bring up a popup menu.
2. Choose "New Layer." A pop up asking you to choose a name for the layer should appear, but for this tutorial, leave the layer name as "Layer 0."
Ok, that's it for adding in a layer. You should have 2 layers now, and the layer window should look like this:
Next, we are going to add an image into the layer (Layer 1). But this time, instead of it being background footage, it's going to have a transparent background, allowing us to see through to the layer below, partially covering some of our previous emitters.
1.
As in Tutorial 1, In the layers
window (4), double-click on the big gray box
next to the words “Layer 1.”
2. A "File Open" dialog will appear, allowing you to pick what image you want to import. Navigate to the folder you unzipped the tutorial files into and highlight “Skyline.TIF.” Then just click “open.”
Now, the first thing you will notice is that your star field background is gone. There doesn't seem to be any transparency in the image, but fear not, it's there.
We have to tell pIllusion to use an image's existing transparency, or it ignores it. Here's what you need to do:
3.
4. Choose "Transparency." An "Image Transparency" dialog will appear.
5. Check the box marked "Use existing image transparency. " Once you do that, the skyline's black background should disappear, leaving a checkerboard in it's place.
6. Click "OK."
The first thing you'll notice when you get back to the main project view is that the transparency is still not activated. What gives!? There's still one more step:
7. In the Layer's Window, on Layer 1, you will see a "T" icon with a red bar going through it (the first icon next to the thumbnail image of your skyline). Left-Click on the icon to enable transparencies for the layer.
Viola! Now you've got a skyline with a nice sky behind it. If you play or scroll through your animation, you'll see that your fireworks are now behind the buildings.
Next, we are going to add one more fireworks emitter into the foreground, but instead of just sitting there, it's going to move.
The first thing we need to do here, is add in the new emitter. If you don't already have the tutorial library open from the last project, open it now.
1. As per the image below, at frame #44, add the emitter called "FW_W_TRAIL" to your stage. By the way, that stands for "Fireworks with Trail," but there wasn't enough room for the full name to fit on screen. The emitter should be placed right below the actual stage, but in the stage window:
2. Next, we are going to want to move the emitter, but before we do that, we need to activate the "select" button on the main menu (1).
If you don't do this first, clicking anywhere on the stage will add a new emitter. Once you do this, clicking on the emitter will grab hold of it until you let go of the left mouse button.
3. Go to frame #52, and drag our new emitter to the above left of the Space Needle (that's the tall building that has a saucer at the top, in case you didn't know). Use the image below as a guide:
If you don't have the "Show Particles" button activated, you will see a trail of dots that represent the emitter's movement. If you do have the "Show Particles" Button activated, you'll see a nice fiery trail following your emitter. If you scroll beyond frame #52, you'll see that at frame #53, it explodes into some red white and blue sparkles that are visible in front of the skyline. In the next section, we are going to change the color of the sparkle particles.
Alright, we've got our project mostly done, but we are going to adjust the colors of our new emitter. Let's get moving:
1. In the Hierarchy window (5), make sure that Layer 1 is expanded to show it's emitter, by clicking on the "+" (next to the words "Layer 1"). It may already be open, so don't panic if there is a "-" next to it instead, and you can see the emitter called "FW_W_Trail 1."
2. Right-Click on the emitter and choose properties. This will open up the Emitter Properties dialogue.
3.
In
the Emitter Properties Dialog, select the tab called Particles and then the sub-tab
called Colors.
Quick Note: Just to clarify our terms, an emitter is the object on your stage that emits particles. Particles are the images (such as a sparkle or smoke cloud) that shoot out of the emitter. One emitter can have several particle types – that is, different kinds of particles that look and behave differently. For an explosion, you might want to have sparks and smoke - multiple particle types are what make this possible.
If you
look In the Emitter Properties' Hierarchy Window, you will see that under the
name of the emitter are a sub-tree of emitter properties - such as
"Life," "Number," "Size"...etc. At the bottom of
those emitter properties there are 3 particle types listed: “Burst,”
“Copy of Burst,” and "Trail." It is important to be aware of this,
because when we make color changes in the next step, we
will need to do it twice
because we are altering 2 of the 3 particle types.
When you go to alter a particle type (as we started to do in step 3), pIllusion automaticlally select the first particle type listed (In this case, "Copy of Burst"). When you need to alter another particle type, just highlight it in the Emitter Properties Hierarchy Wiew and make your changes.
In the Colors Page you will see a gradient containing 3 color keys (those rectangular markers), red, white and blue. The gradient is set to pick any color on the gradient at random. This can be changed to cycle through the colors as well, but we aren't going to do that.
4. Select the blue key and turn it into a green one. You can select the color by clicking and dragging in the two color windows (color and black and white), or by entering the color component values directly.
5. Select the red key and turn it into a purple one
6. In the Emitter Properties' Hierarchy View, select the particle type called "Burst."
7. Repeat steps 5 & 6.
8. Click OK (lower right corner of Emitter Properties Dialog) to exit and keep your changes.
If you scroll through your animation, you'll see your new changes. At this point, we could call it quits and go out for more donuts, but we are going to do one more thing to take our animation up a level. We are going to add a simple motion blur, which will make our particle motion look more realistic.
1. At the very top of Illusion there is a standard menu that includes
"File," "Edit," "View," and "Help."
Click on "View" and select "Project Settings."
That will open the Project Settings Dialog.
2. Check the box marked "Motion Blur". This will add the blur to your particle animation. It will also bring up several more options for motion blur.
3. Check the box marked "Preview." This will allow you to see the motion blur even when you aren't playing the animation (like when you are just sliding the Frame Indicator, and not actually playing the animation). Depending on your system resources, this may slow you down a bit. If you are finding that particleIllusion runs really slowly, go back into the project settings and uncheck the Preview option.
As you can see, there are several options available in the Project settings dialog. Since we don't need to alter anything else, let's just leave them alone for now. Feel free to come back in here and play later, though.
4. Click OK to save your changes and exit the dialog.
Well, that's it. There you have it in a nutshell. pIllusion is easy to use,
and it gets results fast. Not bad for a few minutes' work. Now, about those
donuts...
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