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Q: Finding and/or Reverting-Back-to-Original in Particle Shapes More Easily
Please Note:
I realize PI is a very complex application and this is a question that may have “duh” solution I am not yet aware of. It may also be moot for those with perfect photographic memory of every particle shape inside and out.
But maybe not for newbies or even a-bit-more-than-newbies who start out by using and tweaking default libraries. And/or bringing this up may turn out to be food for thought for future program enhancements at some point.
Either way, thanks for any help.
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Q: Finding and/or Reverting-Back-to-Original in Particle Shapes
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A Simple Situation in “Properties/Particles/Change Shape”:
Desire to change shape, but after various tries, not happy with results, so wish to go back to the default or original particle shape.
“Hmmm…” Conundrums:
1. No way to do this except to wade through the tree of emitters to find the original by sight because:
— Only the Total Shape Size (i.e. 66370 KB), dimension (i.e. 128 x 128) and file type (i.e. 32 KB) show up o over the shape’s image on the right on first opening Change Shape:
— The particle’s shape name in the tree is never highlighted — only the folder is, i.e. “8-bit Shapes”. A highlight appears only when one clicks on a new shape in the tree.
2. If one can’t find the original, the only option left is to do a full Properties Cancel. Which obviously wipes out any other changes done during the Properties session.
3. And even when one does change a shape and Save, unless one makes a note of which one it is and where, back to square one: the new one isn’t highlighted either upon re-opening Change Shape later on.
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Last, I realize one partial solution to this is to re-organize the particle shapes in some order that one can personally relate to, which I will be doing soon.
But it still would be nice if the name and location of an emitter’s component particle shapes would appear by default upon opening this part of the magical PI machine 🙂
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6 Replies
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That’s a good point, and something that I’ve noticed myself. Perhaps I’ll be able to do something about this soon (rather than waiting until 3.5 is released).
One thing to point out: if you’re doing a lot of editing of the emitter libraries, you’ve a greater chance of “messing up” the original emitters. I always add an emitter to the stage, then edit it there and “add to library” if I’m happy with the results. That way I never kill the original emitters.
Alan.
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I forgot to add that my quick solution would be to designate the original shape somehow.
Alan.
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Thanks, Alan. I’ve combine-replied to both of your responses here.
…………………………………………………“That’s a good point, and something that I’ve noticed myself. Perhaps I’ll be able to do something about this soon (rather than waiting until 3.5 is released).”
— Cool 🙂
…………………………………………………“….if you’re doing a lot of editing of the emitter libraries, you’ve a greater chance of “messing up” the original emitters. I always add an emitter to the stage, then edit it there and “add to library” if I’m happy with the results. That way I never kill the original emitters.”
— Yup, learned that the hard way early on. Had to reload everything to make sure I had all the originals. Fortunately that was BEFORE I spent hours re-organizing my libraries. Phew 🙂 Though I did make that boo-boo recently again, but it was minor tweak, so no biggie.
…………………………………………………“I forgot to add that my quick solution would be to designate the original shape somehow.”
— Not sure what you mean: save the particle shape as a copy/other name upon opening Change Shape — so that one can know what and where it is the next time around — i.e. give it a name related to the emitter/s it is part of?
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Hi,
As stated earlier, I don’t want to mess with the particle shapes part of PI unless I know what I am doing. Especially now, since I just had an emitter library corruption again, the details of which I will email to support, incl. error log file. Luckily I have backup of the library, albeit a bit out of date.
For now, below is the Q in my last post that I would like to have answered. I may have answered my own question through the question itself, but I can’t know unless it is confirmed.
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(Alan wrote) “I forgot to add that my quick solution would be to designate the original shape somehow.”
— Not sure what you mean: save the particle shape as a copy/other name upon opening Change Shape — so that one can know what and where it is the next time around — i.e. give it a name related to the emitter/s it is part of?
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My message was the programming solution I intend to try to make, not something you need to do. I did think of a nice little workaround though. It’s not perfect, but better than nothing.
Ok, so you select a particle type and want to start experimenting with different shapes. Make a copy of the particle type first! Then you always have a reference. Delete the copy when you no longer need it.
Alan.
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Thanks. I also understood that the first part of your responses was what you said it was (to-be considered enhancement of PI 🙂
As to corruption issue, since it’s Friday, I’ll probably send that email with screen-shots and log file over the weekend to be dealt with next week.
Have a nice weekend. NRN.
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