Apple Motion 4 - Manual (Page 612)

Additional cells can be created by either selecting multiple sources when initially creating
the emitter, or by dragging additional source layers onto the emitter in the Layers tab.
Note: When multiple sources are used to create a particle system, the resulting emitter
is positioned at the average of the sources’ position.
Customizing a Particle System Emitter
When you create an emitter, the particle system starts working according to the default
parameters in its Emitter and Particle Cell tabs, located in the Inspector. You can use the
Emitter HUD to easily change the most important of these parameters to suit your needs.
To display the HUD for a particle emitter
µ
Select the emitter for which you want to display the HUD.
The HUD appears when you select the emitter. If the HUD does not appear, press F7.
Using the HUD to Create a Simple Smoke Effect
In this example, use the Emitter HUD to create a smoke effect. Use the emitter created
in
Creating a Simple Custom Particle System A Blur image from the Content category in
the Library will serve as the cell source.
Before making adjustments to the selected particle system, it may be helpful to move
the playhead forward in the Timeline to a frame where you can see the particle system
in full effect. That way, any adjustments you make are readily apparent.
Particle system at frame 30
The first thing you may notice in this example is that the size of each particle is so big
that it’s hard to make out any texture in the particle system.
612 Chapter 11 Working with Particles