Moho Forum

Hi,

i made a tutorial for those who didn't succeed in making the flame inspired from Trapcode Particular used in Kung fu Panda 2.
I'll post a new one to show you an improved version of it.

Thanks! A winner as usual.

Nice, thank you for a very detailed instruction on particle-based method.

I also saw Victor's presentation of flame animation with frame-by-frame drawing (around the 20 minute mark of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRUyfhFu3s8), which was really neat in the end-result, but a little difficult for me at this stage to draw so many frames consistently, so your method will be helpful in the meantime!

Hi Oddity, I tried following your tutorial, and I got to the point where you place a rectangular layer with a gradient over the particle layers, but after that all the particles became squares and it didn't look like a flame at all. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks for your help, or anybody else answering this post. I'm a newbie, only on my third animation, so please be patient. Cheers.

This sounds like you a) didn't mask this new layer properly and/or b) accidentially assigned this layer as source in the particle layer. Name it and check.

No, the gradient layer is not a particle layer, and the masking is correct: "Mask this layer". I've checked and double-checked with Oddity's tutorial. The funny thing is when I export the animation, the gradient layer, the particles and the masking are all working correctly. But it's very hard to adjust the particle layers in the normal program workspace view when they are all big squares. I've noticed odd things like this happening in other masking I've done with AS Pro - the masked layer changes from example from a circle to a polygon when it is selected, but renders and exports correctly. Is this a bug, or something wrong with my PC?

Thanks.

More a question of how many particles your computer can show in realtime.

Dashiell wrote:No, the gradient layer is not a particle layer, and the masking is correct: "Mask this layer". I've checked and double-checked with Oddity's tutorial. The funny thing is when I export the animation, the gradient layer, the particles and the masking are all working correctly. But it's very hard to adjust the particle layers in the normal program workspace view when they are all big squares. I've noticed odd things like this happening in other masking I've done with AS Pro - the masked layer changes from example from a circle to a polygon when it is selected, but renders and exports correctly. Is this a bug, or something wrong with my PC?

Thanks.

Try disabling GPU acceleration. It simplifies how it displays shapes to have real-time playback. Complex masking will often show incorrectly in the workspace. Always render to verify the results.

I've had this same problem, so went back and checked some things. Still not perfect, but if you turn off GPU Acceleration the squares will now render properly based one the shape of the particles. However, the gradient color will now go away.

If you have shape effects turned on in the display quality the gradient will show up when things are stopped, but not when you scrub or play back.

That at least allows you to set up the particles properly.

Of course as people mention, when you actually export things look as expected.

Very useful and easy to follow

Thx for posting this