-
Another Puzzle – at least for me!
Hi All
I’m trying to make a Star Wars type laser gun effect for my X-Wing Fighter. I’m having loads of problems, my approach is:
* Emitter always active
* Particle Life graphed as a train of pulses amplitude from 0 to 23
* Velocity and number so it looks good and a small dot shape for the particle
It works OK but there is always a small green blob attached to the emitter all the time. It’s as though the Life is set at 1, but I’ve checked and it’s zero except when I want a burst of light.
Any ideas? Is the best approach?
James
-
2 Replies
-
I would never use “life” to control when particles are present and when they’re not. I’d use “number”.
But this may be the long-standing “green particles” bug. For some life values (very long usually, but maybe for short ones too) the particles turn green at some point in their life, even though there is no green in their color gradient. It’s something to do with the number of gradient points, and the amount of time the particle is alive. I’d suggest messing around with the color and/or transparency gradient, and add/remove points.
Or perhaps use “size” instead of “life”. (Although I would personally still use “number” — creating 100 particles that have a 0 life or 0 size still takes some time and memory.)
Alan.
-
Thanks Alan
I would not have thought to use Number as Life seemed more appropriate but now I’m wondering why I thought that!
The green bit is misleading as my particles are green! I’ve just reloaded the program and the green blob is now no longer there until the emitter has fired once – then it remains for the whole animation. Reducing the Life percentage to zero gets rid of it (and everything else) Increasing life makes it longer. No matter I will either sort it or use your number method!
James
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up