Apple Motion 2 Tutorials - Manual (Page 168)

168 Tutorial 4 Working With Particles
The Gradient Editor is divided into three areas:
• The thin rectangle at the top displaying the opacity bar
• The thin rectangle at the bottom displaying the color bar
• The thicker rectangle in the middle displaying the effective color gradient,
incorporating both opacity and color
The small squares above and below the gradient and opacity bar are color and opacity
tags. These tags indicate color and opacity and their position within the gradient. Once
a color tag is selected, a small triangle appears between the selected color tag and the
adjacent tag. These triangles are spread controls.
The spread controls specify the midpoint of a color gradient, where the colors specified
in the adjacent color tags are equally mixed. You can move the midpoint of the
gradient by moving the spread control. For these particles, moving the spread control
close to a color tag creates more narrow bands of color.
2 Advance the playhead to frame 150.
3 Double-click the color tag in the lower-left corner of the Gradient Editor.
The Colors window appears.
Opacity tag
Color bar
Opacity bar
Color tag
Spread control