metaBalls + dupliverts

Support Modeling
1

hi everyone

i was wondering if it is possible to change the size and colour of a meta ball that is dupliverted to a particle system. i need this for a energy charge and it would be awesome if it would be possible. i knoe that its possible with normal particles, but im not sure about dupliverts since they are copies of an object.

any ideas? (if no, does anyone has any idea how i could get that effect???)

-BlendMaster-

2

hmmm, this is odd…need to activate email notification:P

3

Does it not work if you just scale the original metaball? It should…

-Chris

EDIT:
Just tried it…works fine for me if you just scale the original :smiley:

-Hope this helps!

4

yes i know that

but i want that the scale changes as the particle moves, so the meta ball begins large, and then as time progresses, the meta ball gets smaller ans smaller

better descirption:"

at the beginning of the particle life, the metalball is large, and at the end of te particle life its small, wile new big meta bals are created as new particles are created and they get smaller as their life progresses

5

Ooooohhhh…okay. It still works. If you key the scale of the original metaball at frame one…then say go to frame twenty and scale it again, every metaball particle(as soon as its spawned) will then take the same animation as if its from frame one.

So in simpler terms…just make a scale animation from frame one till the end of the particle life…it worked for me…

Hope this helps!

-Chris:D

6

hurray, this works great!

this is exactly what i wanted! thank you so much

hmm…the answere brought forth another question…

im not sure if you have seen advent children, but there, the limit break (energy around a sword) follows the sword as its being draged.

i was wondering if you could group the created particles to the sword, so that when the sword moves, the particles move with it instead of being left behind.

i one wanted to create (for school) a tornado animation, however stopped because the particles sorta just stayed where they were created and i wasnt able to animate a nice tornado (since it sorta looked like it fell apart:S)

but yeah, im not sure if you know what i mean, but do u think you would help me out with this particle delema? (or maybe have some stay with the sword 100%, (while still rising fromt he emiter), and others like leacking throyuhg so that there is a little trail but not long or everything

…this could be interesting

but once again, thanks for the meta ball duplivert help and the scaling, Arigato!

7

also,

i tired to animate the colourchange the same way, but the whole changes as a single mass. is this normal or is it because its meta balls and they join to a single mass???

8

Hmmm…I dunno about the whole sword following problem…I may look into it…I’m bored…but about the materials…you may want to add in a blend material…Otherwise they all have the same material so its not like the new ones will have a different material(does that make sense?). If you use a blend texture then it can look like the ones further up the sword are different color though. Its worth a look.

Hope this helps

Chris

9

ok, i solved the material problem!

have a blend texture, and then this is the important part!

have an empty in the mittle with map to object selected (flat)

this will mapp the coliur onto the new mesh as it moves, looks really good::slight_smile: thanks for the idea

but yeah, that particle grounping is really important any clues? or ideas?