I am working on a logo which requires the animation of lightning arching from point a to point b. I have the particles halo and path set up i have linked teh particles to the path. I converted teh path to a polly. I now need to know how i can animate the seperate vertexes of the path as the particles still follow it to create a moving beam of electricity.
Thanks-EPB
i would need to make something similar, but my approach is trying to be through particles. neither know how to simulate electricity with blender; hope someone give us a hand.
if i get how to do it i ll let you know
regards
pablo
@pablow: Two things, the following Tut will help you create a lighting bolt with particles:http://www.falgor.net/tutorials/lightning/
If you want to animate your curve, you can add hooks. In Edit mode, select the curve point you want to animate and press Ctrl-H. This will add an Empty that is attached to that point. Now, you can animate the empty and it will modify the curve.
hey thanx i ve already seen that tut, but it is not the effect i m trying to achieve; i d like to do something like this, and the biggest problem is that i need it to simulate the flow of the electricity through a building, so the electric particles are seen from a wide angle, the effect i m achieving with the particles is poor, mostly because i can´t make the rays more tiny and with less glow.
does anybody has some suggestion for making the electricity effect i m trying to achieve? please?
use an animated texture on a plane and/or switch the particles to bilboard maybe, its hard to say without seeing what it looks like now and what you want to achieve.
hi AdamTM, thnx for you reply, you can see the video in wich i m trying to achieve that effect here, and you can imagine the electricity effect just before the elevator weel starts to roll.
Offhand, what comes to my mind is some kind of Python script that would randomly move some of the vertices up or down.
I would think that the best effect would be achieved by randomly selecting some number of vertices (say, “eight of them”), selecting a random offset to be applied to them, making sure that the resulting figure did not get to be too-high or too-low, and then updating the position.
The resulting effect would be quite-realistically random, but since the actual number of changes from one frame to the next is limited (only so-many vertices are changed in each pass…) the effect will not appear to be too chaotic.