animated handwriting

Support Basics & Interface
1

Hi everybody,

since a while I tried animating a handwriting with particles. I created a path and let particles follow this path. The particles should stay on this path until a new letter begins, but they do not stay, instead they fade out. Can anyone help me with this problem?

Edit: The funny thing about this is, that one time I made the particles stay on the path before the next letter started, but I don´t know how I did this. :expressionless:
The blend-File will follow.

Greetings,
Predice

2

this sounds just like the cutting a logo out of a piece of metal tutorial
u might want to take a look at it… don’t have link tho… it used to be on here but all the tutorials were moved :frowning:

3

but they do not stay, instead they fade out

They will only stay there as long as their “EndLife” value (frames) lets them.

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4

Thanks for the fast answers.

I´ve got the blend-file so everybody can see the differences between the two particles.

@Fligh %: I already tried to change the EndLife-Values, but they don´t stay on their place. Maybe the file can help you finding the problem.

CurveFollow

Thanks again,

Predice

5

The one on the left now has StartFrame=1, EndFrame=100 and Life=100
It should have a life of 200 if you want the writing to still be visible at the end of the anim.

The one on the left now has StartFrame=100, EndFrame=200 and Life= 300 (which could be 200 and still work)
But it has a Norm: value of 30 (left purple button) which makes the particles fly off the path. Set it at 0.00

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6

I believe this is what you’re looking for.

7

Great, thank you very much, guys.

@ Fligh %: I gave the left one the Life-Value of 100, because I wanted the Particle to fade out when the next letter starts.
In fact, all Particle emitters there have got a norm-value of 30.
What is this “Norm:” for, anyway? What does it do?

Thanks again for your help, especially for the link.

Greetings,
Predice

8

The Norm value. and most of the others in that area, set the initial velocity for new particles.
A norm of 30 means that the particles will start moving at a speed of 30 when they’re created, in the directon of the surface normal of the emitter.

9

Okay, now I understand.
Changing the Norm-Value from 0.030 to 0.000 would only take the effect, that the particles do not start anyway, I tested it a couple of hours ago. The Main particle just follow the curve but doesn generate other particles who stay on their path.
I really don´t know what I am doing wrong, even the tutorial “vliegtuig” gave me wasn´t quite helpful.

Predice

10

Does this help?

11

Yes, this REALLY helps, but could you please tell me, what you changed, or added to get to this result?
I need to know my faults, so i won´t get such troubles anymore (I hope).

Thanks again for the answers,

Predice

12

I believe this is what you’re looking for.[/quote]

Has anyone tried this welder tutorial with 2.37a? I cannot get it to work, (granted I cheated and just pulled down the blend file to see how it was done) but it didn’t work.

13

It works for me - note that there are 3 scenes (the SCE: pulldown in the menu bar) - it opens by default at the final render scene, which won’t look right unless you render the other two first.

What you’re after is in the “AlphaMap” scene

14

It works for me - note that there are 3 scenes (the SCE: pulldown in the menu bar) - it opens by default at the final render scene, which won’t look right unless you render the other two first.

What you’re after is in the “AlphaMap” scene[/quote]

Aha! So I actually should “READ” the tutorial too ! LOL

Thanks, gives me something to do over lunch today. :slight_smile:

15

I don’t know how hard this may be to implement, but when one letter is finished, perhaps replace the particles with an image as you move on to the next letter? Maybe even the one you used (or a variation of it) to “trace” the writing.

16

This is possible, but why exactly would you like to do this? It is some extra work, and what benefits would you get?

Could you please explain a bit more. I don’t really understand this part (please excuse me for my lack of understanding of the English).

You’re absolutely right, I’m sorry.

This is what I changed of the right emitter (I set the left emitter to the same values as the right one). All changes were made in the effects-panel (blender 2.37a).

  1. Changed the Norm-value from 0.30 to 0.00
  2. Deselected the vect-button
  3. (though not necessary) Deselected the Face-button

Explanation:

  1. 0.30 means that the particles will have an initial speed (given by the emitter-object). We don’t want this though. We want them to stay at the place where they are emitted, so we change this speed to 0.
  2. The vect-button will render your particles as vectors. This is for example handy when creating fireworks, since this looks more like lines than dots. But we don’t need want that, so we turn it off.
  3. Since you’re using a mesh of only 1 single vertice this option isn’t very important for you. However when your mesh has faces they would also emit particles, while the particles emitted by your vertices are already more than enough (in this case).

Some additional information:

Life: this is the number of frames the particle will continue to show up after it was emitted. So if the particular particle was emitted at frame 137 and it has a life of 300, the last frame it will show up is frame 437.
Note: Suppose the startframe of the effect is 100, the endframe is 200 and the life is 300. Then there will be particles visible from frame 100 to frame 500.
Note2: The value of randlife will alter these numbers, for it gives the particlelife a random variation.

If you’ve still got any questions just say so.

17

This is possible, but why exactly would you like to do this? It is some extra work, and what benefits would you get?..
Life: this is the number of frames the particle will continue to show up after it was emitted. So if the particular particle was emitted at frame 137 and it has a life of 300, the last frame it will show up is frame 437.[/quote]
I have not done much with the particle system, but it seems to me there might be times when you don’t know exactly how long you want the particle to continue. For a short animation - sure, you’ll know exactly how many frames it will need to stay there.

I was thinking of a situation where you have a blank piece of paper, and the writing starts to appear at the top. Well, by the time you got to the bottom of the page, that is ALOT of particles that are still being drawn. It might be better to switch the particle-letters with material/textured letters that look identical.

Just an idea. :slight_smile: You know far more about Blender than I do. 8)

18

That’s indeed a good point you have there.

Here’s a suggestion how to do it:

  • render the particles (ONLY the particles) of the character. So at the first frame when that character is finished writing.
  • use this image as a texture for a lamp (spot) *
  • project this image on a plane *
  • keyframe the layer of the spot so it is set at an invisible layer when the writing takes place, and at a visible layer when the writing is finished.
  • keyframe the particle emitter so it is set at a visible layer when the writing takes places, and at an invisible layer when the writing is finished.
  • this method isn’t widely used, but it’s quite flexible. I myself used it once to do some tests on creating procedural text. Note: this example was just to show that it could be done, it looks crappy.
19

That procedural text looks pretty cool, if’n you ask me.

With a texture, you could also probably work up some alpha-channel goodness. Picture the old lemon-juice-invisible-ink paper being passed in front of a candle, so only portions of the words appeared at any one time…