How to mask a particle producer

[Mike Derk]

Have you thought about moving the generator to spell out the letters, and turning the gravity to zero so the particles won’t move?

[Bigmitch]

Hi Mike, thanks for the reply. I’m home now, so I found out I’m using CC Particle Systems II. I’m trying to turn the smoke on/off during a horizontal or vertical pass through the letters. I’ve tried simple masks, and animating the birth rate and max opacity attributes but it doesn’t really change anything. I hope I don’t have to make each and every letter segment a different solid/effect, that would be about a hundred!

For each horz or vert “pass” of the producer across the screen I need to turn the smoke on and off up to 8 times.

Any ideas welcome!

[David Bogie]

Get on the phone right now and find someone you know and like who has Final Cut. LiveType and Motion both have a lovely animated font that is perfect for skywriting.

However, your client may have some unreasonable expectations. You may need to find a very expensive 3D artist who can do this for you if you need to show the airplane or airplanes (modern skywriting is performed with 8 planes laying down dots of smoke) or if you need to show some of the smoke being disturbed by a passing aircraft.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”