I’m working on an animation of a spacecraft with a particle source for the engine exhaust. I was able to achieve the effect I wanted in 2.45 using static particles, but I can’t find any way to produce the same results in 2.46. If I select “None” for the Physics, the particles just stay still and never leave the emitter; if I select “Newtonian” they trail behind the rocket rather than inheriting its velocity as real rocket exhaust would. Setting an “Object” component for initial velocity does nothing. Any ideas?
Like with a real rocket, your particles should come out of the exhaust with high speed, but have a very small lifespan. To do this, set the physics type to newtonian, the lifespan of the particles to ~5 frames and the normal velocity to about 15.
That should give you a good start to further tweak your animation.
I’ve tried lifespans as low as 1 frame and the normal velocity is currently 0.1. The flames are still much longer than I want. That’s why I was using static particles with 2.45; it caused the particles to move with the rocket rather than being left floating behind it. By the “real rocket” analogy, what I want to simulate apparently is lifespans much shorter than one frame (probably not unreasonable for a physical rocket, but problematic in Blender).