Machine gun ejecting casings with Particles

[HassleHead]

Particles should do it, theoretically. But I can't figure out from the manual what settings will work. The manual shows how to make smoke. But it doesn't fully explain all the settings and I'm having trouble getting a picture of a casing to act like I want it to using particles. Any help? Thanks so much.

[Nolan Scott]

Draw your cartridge an drag it into a particle layer / select the particle layer /
on top of your viewport check “Particle on” and open the “Particle Options” /
maybe start with an animation length of 180 frames / and experiment wit the following settings:

Particle count 100
Lifetime 100
rest all 0
but Velocity maybe 2
for a little unevenness maybe Velocity spread 0.50

Direction 90 Spread 2.50
Acceleration 135 Rate 3

and maybe check as well “Evenly spaced”

This should give you a nice pull out for “starters” /
just experiment with the settings /

Animate start and end with checking and un-checking “Particles on”

Cheers
Nolan

[HassleHead]

Thank you Nolan. I will give this a shot and see what I come up with. I'll let you know.

[LittleFenris]

I know everyone wants an easy solution like particles or filters or whatever, but you do have the old fashion way where you would animate one casing shooting out of the gun, then duplicate that layer and offset the timing of the animation. I know its more tedious, but filters and particles don't solve everything and sometimes are more of a pain than they are worth.

I think Nolan has a good idea with the particle settings though.

[HassleHead]

I agree Fenris. At the moment I think I hit on a particles solution that might work. I'll see. And I'll be done with the piece pretty soon so you will have the opportunity to judge for yourself if it worked or not. I'll post to "share your work" when the piece is finished.