why doesn't particles scale with their emitter??

Support Basics & Interface
1

Good Morning…
i am trying to make a fireball that gets smaller with time, till it disappears!
the fireball, is simply a UVSphere, and it works as an emitter of particles.
i tried to make an animation where the sphere simply keeps on shrinking, but, particles didn’t shrink with their emitter!!! the fireball stayed large!
how can i make the fireball get smaller?

thank you very much in advance

2

Hi

When you are at keyframe 1 set the size of your sphere and press RecalcAll in the AnimButtons for the Particle-Effect.
Now go to keyframe 2, resize the sphere to your likeness, insert the Size-Key again and press RecalcAll.
At least for me, this procedure seemed to work…

Renzo

3

I’m not sure that works for an anim, you would have to hand render each frame… The problem is the emitter mesh controls how the particles are emitted, but once they are emitted, they are independant objects controlled only by the damping factor and forces (possibly latices, too).

The best thing to do is raise the particle count, but lower the life of the particles. The already emitted particles won’t shrink, but they’ll only last a frame or two. And the new particles are emitted from a smaller area (shrinking). You may need to set an IPO for the halo size and/or Alpha, since there will be more particles in a smaller area as the ball shrinks, and it would appear to get brighter. Have Alpha reach 0 at the point where you want the fireball to disappear.

Or you couls skip particles and just use a halo texture on your sphere. Factal subd. to break up the geodesic pattern.

Bob