Well, I was trying to do a tutorial on how to make a cutting torch effect, and I’m having some trouble getting a particle system right.
The tut said to set the Halo at 0.2, and mess with the emitter cube scale until it looks like this:
The best I could get is below. Why doesn’t it look right, and why is my “m” shaped curve path showing up solid in the render? How do I get the background black like in the first picture? The curve type is poly. Thanks in advance for the help. 
To change the background black go into the materials buttons and click on the world option, then change the world material color to black and your done.
Thanks, that fixed the background but the particles still aren’t right and I can see the edge of my curve…
Try increasing the halo size slider, trial and error say 0.100 at a time. Tutorial settings generally need tweaking IMHO.
Hope this helps
Nobody
You can also try to up the particle count, making it denser.
Ok, I think I have things close enough to go on with the turorial. I’ll post again if I finish it up allright. I can still see the edge of the curve a bit… Ah, well…
Ok, how do I assign a previously rendered animation to a texture? :-?
Do I just set the texture type to “image”, then select the .AVI?
yes.
try using (dare i say it) unified render for your particles
What’s unified render, and why are you reluctant to suggest it? (I know, so many questions… Be patient, you’ll only have to tell me once. %| )
Aarg! I’ve given up on this one for the moment, I’ll come back to it when I’m a little more experienced. Thanks for the help!
for future referance:
to make the curve not fill go to the curve panel in editing buttons and enable ‘3d’. this will make it not fill.
also, the unified renderer renders everything at once instead of what blender usually does which is to divide it up. the button is in render buttons in the lower right.
edit: that’s the scene buttons, where you go to hit render.
