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Effects (build, wave, particles)
Blender comes with some nice animation effects that can be applied to meshes. These
effects can be used to create wave effects, things appearing, fire, smoke, sparks, clouds,
shooting stars, fireworks, etc. The list is only limited to your imagination. For any of these
effects to work well, you usually need a high number of verticies. You can get this by using
the subdivide command in edit mode.
Build Effect
The build effect is nice for simulating something building linearly along time. Text is a
good example of something you may want to use with a build effect. Blender generated
text cannot be built, but EleFont text can used.
The first step in creating a build effect is to have a mesh
that you would like to build. For this example, we will use
this EleFont text. A high vertex count is usually needed for
a nice effect. Notice the location of the object’s “center”
point. You may need to move this to get the effect you
desire depending on what you plan to do with the object
(discussed in the basic editing chapter). When bringing text into Blender from EleFont,
the letters will all be separate objects. Be careful when joining them together. You need to
join them together in a straight sequence (hold down the shift key and start at one end and
select the letters in sequence-don’t jump around). After all letters are selected, press
“Ctrl”
and “J”
to join them.
Jumping around when selecting them to join will cause it to build
oddly.
With the object selected, go to the
Object
buttons, select the
Effects
tab, click the “
New
Effects
” button, then choose
“Build”
from the list of effects. You will have 2 things to set- the
Length
and the
Start Frame
(how long do you want it to take to build and when in the
animation do you want it to start).
Length of the build
When to start the build
Don’t be alarmed if the object disappears when you select build. You will only see the
amount of it that should be there on your current frame. Press
“Alt” and “A”
to see it animated
on the screen. This also now works in shaded view (
“Z”
key).
Build an frame 1
Build an frame 50
Build an frame 100
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Wave Effect
The wave effect can be used to make something look like it’s swimming like a fish or
blowing in the breeze among other things. Again, you need to start with something that
has a good vertex count. For this discussion, I will use the EleFont text and a plane. The
text already has a high number of verticies, but the plane does not. With the plane selected,
enter edit mode (
Tab
key) and select all verticies (
“A”
key). In the Edit buttons find
“Subdivide”
and press it about 3 times. You can also subdivide while in edit mode by
pressing the
“W”
key and selecting
Subdivide
from the menu. Exit edit mode (
Tab
key).
Here’s what we have so far:
Once again, with the object selected, go to
the
Object
buttons, select the
Effects
tab,
click the “
New Effects
” button, then choose
“Wave”
from the list of effects. Place your
cursor in the 3D window and press
“Alt and
“A”
to see your animated wave effect. Hit
escape to exit. Here’s the basic wave effect
on the text and plane:
The basic wave settings have
the object in
Cyclic
mode and
waving on the X axis and Y
axis.These can be set to
achieve different effects along
with the height and width, start
time and length of effect.
Particle Effects
This is probably the nicest and most flexible of the effects. When you turn an object into
particles, it can be used to simulate snow, fire, smoke, clouds, sparks and much, much
more. When an object is turned into particles, it no longer exists as a solid shape and
releases particles as per the settings you used on it. With particles, you can set the size
(using halo),texture, color and transparency through the material buttons. You can set the
particles to come off the object in a sequence or radomly by using
Hash
in the
Edit
buttons.
Particles can be set to be pulled using X,Y, and Z forces. You can control the number of
particles, how long the particles live, when to start and end, if they have a starting speed
and much more than we will describe in this chapter. Like all of the other features we’ve
discussed, experimentation beyond this chapter is the best way to learn.
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For our example, let’s create a
UVSphere
and keep the segments and rings at 32. Once
again, with the object selected, go to the
Object
buttons, select the
Effects
tab, click the
“
New Effects
” button, then choose
“Particles”
from the list of effects. You get a few more
options with particles than you do with the other 2 effects. Here are the ones we’re interested
in at this point:
Delete-
Start
over if needed
Recalc-
Sometimes
after making changes
to the setting, you need
to hit this to update the
animation
Static-
Use this to
make the particles
“stick” and not be
animated- Good for
clouds
Start and End-
When do you want
the effect to start
and end.
Life-
Sets
how long
each particle
should live
after it is
created.
Tot-
Total
number of
particles in
the entire
animation
Vect-
Gives
the particles
a vector
(draws as a
line (like a
spark trail)
Random Life
Use this to
slightly vary
when particles
die.
Norm-
Gives
the particles a
starting speed
(blasts
outward)
Force X, Y, Z-
Push or pull the
particles in a given
direction
Ob-
If the object is
animated, the
object can effect
the starting speed
Rand-
This can
give the starting
speed a random
variation
Vect Size-
Controls the
size of the
vector trail.
As mentioned before, there are a lot of settings here not discussed. For most basic
particles effects, these are the ones we need to adjust. As you become more comfortable
with Blender and effects, try out some of the others. To change any of the above settings,
you can click to the left or right of the box, drag the mouse in the box using the LMB, or for
more accuracy, hold down the
“Shift”
key and mouse click in the box. You can then keyboard
in any number.
Let’s work with our example. Make sure the sphere we created
is not in edit mode (
Tab
key) and is selected. Select the particles
effect and change the
Norm
setting to about 0.2 or 0.3. This
will give the particles a starting speed causing them to “blast
out”. Move your cursor to the 3D window and hit
“Alt-A”
to see
the animation. It should look something like this:
The particles come off in a pattern. This may be what
you desire, but if you’re making a flame or explosion
effect, you need a more random
release of particles. To do this, enter
edit mode (
Tab
key) and select all verticies (
“A”
key). Go to the edit
button and select “
Hash”
. This will randomize the vertex sequence. Re-
animate the window with
“Alt-A”
again and see the effect.
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Materials on Particles:
Particles emit their own light so it isn’t necessary to have lamps in the scene to see them
when rendered, however, you will need to add a material to them to give them color and to
control their size and transparency.
If you look at the scene we created so far, we have a camera and a sphere with a particle
effect. The verticies have been randomized with the
Hash
command. If we change our
current frame to a higher number like frame 50 and press the
“F12”
key to render, this is
what we see:
We see a randomized particle system without a material added to it. The particle size
may be adequate for your needs, but in order to control size, we need to add a material
and use the halo effect. You may also need to select
“Z Transparent”
and adjust the
“Alpha”
to set a transparency effect for the particles. The transparency effect is ideal for flame
effects where you use multiple objects with particles on them and add different colors to
get a realistic looking flame.
Here, I’ve taken the sphere and placed a material on it. With the “Halo” button pressed,
change the halo size to affect the size of the particles. Color can also be adjusted.
The halo size needs to be adjusted for the size of
your scene and what you are using the particles to
simulate. For example, smoke needs a smaller
particle count and a larger halo setting and a Z
Transparent and Alpha setting very low so the smoke
looks transparent. Fire may need a higher particle
count and a smaller halo setting to look good.
Depending on what you want, you can turn on the
rings, stars and line in the halo settings.
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Basic Settings:
Here are some basic settings that can be used for a variety of effects. The numbers given
in these examples are based on a 100 frame animation. If you lengthen the animation or
change the size of the objects, you will need to adjust things like the total number of particles,
forces and starting speeds. These settings can be “tweeked” to your own personal
preferences. they are just intended to get you to a starting point.
Snow
Subdivide
a plane 3-4 times (or more) and “
Hash
” the verticies. Change the following
settings:
Tot Frames: 1000 Random Life: 0
Sta frame: 1
Norm: 0
End Frame: 100
Force Z: -0.05
Life: 75
Vector: Off
Clouds
Create a
UVsphere
and shape it with
Proportional Vertex Editing
. Pull the shape around
to try to look like a cloud.
Hash
the verticies and put a material on it. Hit ZTransparent and
take
Alpha
down very low (.1-.2). Set the
Halo Size
to about 4.00.
Tot Frames: 100
Random Life: 0
Sta frame: ---
Norm: 0.03
End Frame: ---
Force : 0 for all
Life: ---
Vector: Off
Fire
Start with a
UVSphere
,
Hash
and put a material on it. Go with a yellow or red color. Add a
Halo
effect and set the
Halo Size
to 1.2.
Tot Frames: 500
Random Life: 0.5
Sta frame: 1
Norm: 0
End Frame: 100
Force Z: 0.3
Life: 25
Vector: Off
Fireworks
Start with a
UVSphere
,
Hash
and put a material on it. Go with a yellow or red color. Add a
Halo
effect and set the
Halo Size
to 0.5.
Tot Frames: 500
Random Life: 2
Sta frame: 1
Norm: 0.1
End Frame: 1
Force Z: -0.1
Life: 30
Vector: On- Vect.Size-1
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