Nov. 6, 2009, 9:53 p.m.
posted by nuclear
Mapping Particles
Mapping particles is simple. Just drag and drop any Material you like on the targeted emitter. The single most important Mapping Channel for a Particle System is the Opacity Channel. If you use it with the right Map content, you can create particle shapes and objects that emulate many forms — stars, flames, smoke, water, and more. You’ll need to have some skill in an image-editing program (like Adobe Photoshop) to create the Maps to have your own accessible library of Opacity Maps. If you set the Gradient Map to radial in the Opacity channel, you can create smoke effects on particles with facings.
The Snowflake
If you’re working with the six-point Snow particle in the Snow or Blizzard Particle System, here’s that “better snowflake” I promised earlier. What I did was to create a six-sided Opacity Map for the snowflake, as shown in Figure.
When this Opacity Map is used on a Material targeted to a Snow or Blizzard Particle System emitter, the result is a lot more pleasing than the standard six-point particle, as shown in Figure. Ah, progress.
On the CD The Opacity Map for the snowflake is included in the Textures folder on this book’s CD-ROM. It’s called Snwflk_01.tif. You can also take a peek at the animation called SnwFlk2.avi in the ANIMS folder on this book’s CD-ROM. Wherever you are, whatever the sky is doing, and whenever the next holiday gets here, Happy Holidays!
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