[Dokool]

Okay, so I’ve done a lot more fiddling – what I did was create a single particle emitter that shoots out one particle and lets gravity do its thing, now the problem is in getting the particles to ‘flare’.

Ideally, the sequence will look like this:

1. Regular firework occurs, fades out (probably colored gray or something so it’s not overpowering)
2. ‘Image’ firework flares into existence – shines really brightly, kinda looks like it’s hanging in the air
3. Particles in ‘Image’ firework start to succumb to gravity, fall, fade out.

I have a rough render at https://www.thirdlensopen.com/private/firework_fullsequencetest.mov

The problem is that the keyframes for ‘scale over life’ seem to be screwing things up. The flare-in happens but the flare-out happens WAY TOO FAST, and I can’t figure out how to fix it.

The project is at https://www.thirdlensopen.com/private/firework_fullsequencetest.zip

A better version of the ‘image’ firework is at https://www.thirdlensopen.com/private/firework_imageburst.zip – it’s ‘better’ because i edited the image into a .psd so that fewer of the replicator points are on black space, wasting processor time. The export of that project can be viewed at https://www.thirdlensopen.com/private/firework_imageburst.mov

I know how ridiculously close I am, I just can’t figure out what needs to be corrected in order for this to look perfect. Ideally I’d like to save this as a custom replicator so that when I need to repeat it (the sequence I have in mind calls for me doing so, with several different images serving as templates for the firework burst), I can just drag and drop.

Help!

[Dokool]

The former – I’ve actually made a bit of progress but I’m still looking for more perspectives.