[Alan Lorence]

I agree that it’s not an effect that particleIllusion can do. You might be able to get a “rays of light” effect, but you could not make it move across the screen.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

I finally watched the episode, and even though I knew what to look for, there were so many other layers of effects on top of the pIllusion stuff that I couldn’t pick them out.

In the big explosion that destroys Cloud 9, a Pro Emitter “glass” emitter was used, as was a modified version of “Vbloom” (or something similar). I believe the glass emitter was used to “shatter” the big dome.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

The way to analyze an emitter is pretty simple. Start at the top of the hierarchy and select each property one at a time, and look at the graph. Any graph that is animated (has more than one data point) should be experimented with to see what it does to the overall effect.

Most of the “magic” happens in the particle type “over life” properties.

Also look at the particle shape images used for each particle type.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

By “layers” in an emitter, I assume you mean particle types. Just to be clear:

Layer
Emitter
particle type
particle type
Super Emitter
Free emitter type
particle type
particle type
Free emitter type

I know what you’re saying, and that sounds like a bug when loading a project — the “enabled/disabled” state should be preserved. The toggling of particle types when the parent emitter is toggled — that’s how it was designed. I do see the need for preserving them though — don’t know how to best implement this.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

The Feb. emitters are a bit late. I should have them ready for release in a few hours.

I didn’t realize how people look forward to the monthly emitters.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

There are 2 ways to do this, depending on which direction you want “gravity” to work.

If you want gravity to rotate too (as if the “camera” were laid on its side), use the Layer Angle to rotate the entire layer.

If you want gravity to remain “pointing down”, then just use the super emitter “emission angle” to set it to 90 or -90.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

I don’t understand the question. That’s one of the emitters in the “Eclectic 02” Pro Emitter library.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

Tim,

You would have been sent the boxed version when it was ready. Contact support at wondertouch dot com and send your full name and mailing address and we’ll figure out something.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

Sounds like you need to reinstall — some files are missing.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

If you don’t see the correct layout at startup, yes.

Alan.
wondertouch