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Using x-particles or thinking particles to create flat random opacity, controlled radius size, etc
Hey guys, i’ve been given a pretty specific brief and and i’m finding it very challanging!
So i am using X-Particles 2 i’ve only really had a few days experience with it but i have to get this project done and felt this was a quickest and easiest route, i only have a small amount of knowledge of thinking particles so thought i could use x-particles to perform most of the process.
My brief is to create a swirling snow scene that turns into an earth which then rotates, as similar to the style as in the picture attached. Easy right?…thats what i thought.
My issues are as follows
i have been struggling to work out how to adjust the opacity of whole flat particles, when adjusting the transparency setting in the x-particle shader it gives me the whole group of particles changed, instead of individual particles having individual solid variations of transparency. and when using the noise it uses noise on the edges to create realistic snow like effects, instead of a 3d noise field effecting the particles alpha channel
I tried using a disc with thinking particles, by key framing the visibility but the geometry severely slows down the system and i was sure there must be a way of creating this effect using x-particles system?as you can see from the image the smaller the space of sea and the closer to the edge, the smaller the particles. Is there a way of controlling this with a map, indicating where the particles should be large and where they should be small? otherwise if it is randomised scale, whole countries get lost
if i was to extrude a wraped spline of the earth just out from a sphere and use an attractor at the centre of the sphere would this resolve my issue?also, the fact that the earth has to rotate at the end causes more issues as then the smaller edge particles would have to grow as they came around to the centre.
So, if anyone can help, thatd be amazing…wow, im stressed out by this….THANKS!
Sam
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2 Replies
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you could use a modifier to “face” particles to the center of your sphere. That way the “flat” particles will orient to the round surface.
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I don’t see any way to control the size of particles via texture in X-Particles 2. You can in X-Particles 3, but that obviously won’t help you unless you upgrade.
You can, however, get variation in transparency by assigning the particles a mass (say 10) in the emitter>emission tab and setting variation to 100%. Then check the Mass box in the shader’s transparency tab and set the range to something like Min 0 Max 15.
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