DOT-s V2.0
Working with DOT-s
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work wit DOT-s. Though a particle system is based on complex math, playing and working with such a engine is real fun and easy.
To start connect a Background tool in video resolution to DOT-s' BG input and another one, sized 30x30, fully white, to DOT-s' particle input.
switch to the Modifiers tab, activate an attractor and adjust its strength to something like 1.0. Grab it onscreen (it's the green crosshair at the center of your image) and move it around. Try moving it to the birthline (emitter) and see what happens. Who said math couldn't be fun?
Now let's size them a bit over time.
Go to the Behaviour tab and enable Grow In/Out. I a graph will show up. The x-axis (from left to right) represents the lifetime of the particles. The Y-axis is the size.
Create a point in the middle of the graph and drag the right point completely down. You should now have a graph that looks like this:
Your particles will now size according to their age using this graph: They grow in and out again.
Again grab the attractor in the view and move it around.
Let's give it some color!
Switch over to the Color tab of DOT-s. Check ColorTinting. Below the color graph you find the tinting strength graph. As we have all white particles, and there is no reason to keep the original colors adjust the graph's left point to the upmost postion possible. Now we have full tinting strength at any age of the particle.
Return to the upper graph that sets the color.
You see 3 spline each representing a different colorchannel: red, green anf blue. Again x- axis represents the lifetime, while y-axis sets the amount of color at that time.
Enable each channel spline seperately and click-drag them randomly. Disable the previous channel and move to the next. You have now created quite a few colors that the particles will have over their lifetime.
Grab the attractor and move it: See the particles changing color as they age.
You may want to check out what is happing. Return to the Setup tab and increase the lifetime to a value of about 80. You maybe want to turn on proxy (1:2 will do just fine) too as the particles have almost trippled now.
Go on and try some more - it is your particle system!
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work wit DOT-s. Though a particle system is based on complex math, playing and working with such a engine is real fun and easy.
To start connect a Background tool in video resolution to DOT-s' BG input and another one, sized 30x30, fully white, to DOT-s' particle input.
switch to the Modifiers tab, activate an attractor and adjust its strength to something like 1.0. Grab it onscreen (it's the green crosshair at the center of your image) and move it around. Try moving it to the birthline (emitter) and see what happens. Who said math couldn't be fun?
Now let's size them a bit over time.
Go to the Behaviour tab and enable Grow In/Out. I a graph will show up. The x-axis (from left to right) represents the lifetime of the particles. The Y-axis is the size.
Create a point in the middle of the graph and drag the right point completely down. You should now have a graph that looks like this:
Your particles will now size according to their age using this graph: They grow in and out again.
Again grab the attractor in the view and move it around.
Let's give it some color!
Switch over to the Color tab of DOT-s. Check ColorTinting. Below the color graph you find the tinting strength graph. As we have all white particles, and there is no reason to keep the original colors adjust the graph's left point to the upmost postion possible. Now we have full tinting strength at any age of the particle.
Return to the upper graph that sets the color.
You see 3 spline each representing a different colorchannel: red, green anf blue. Again x- axis represents the lifetime, while y-axis sets the amount of color at that time.
Enable each channel spline seperately and click-drag them randomly. Disable the previous channel and move to the next. You have now created quite a few colors that the particles will have over their lifetime.
Grab the attractor and move it: See the particles changing color as they age.
You may want to check out what is happing. Return to the Setup tab and increase the lifetime to a value of about 80. You maybe want to turn on proxy (1:2 will do just fine) too as the particles have almost trippled now.
Go on and try some more - it is your particle system!