8

Material Dynamic Operator 187
M ater ia l Dy na mic Opera tor
Particle View (page 2–121) >ClickMaterialDynamicinan
event or add a Material Dynamic operator to the particle
system and then select it.
The Material Dynamic operator lets you give
particles mat erial IDs that can vary d uring the
event. It also lets you assign a different material
to each particle based on its material ID. When
used with an
animated texture (page 3–1002) ,
this lets you assig n a different frame or m ap to
each particle based on its total age or the amount
of time it has spent in the current event. In this
context, one example of an animated texture is a
material that uses a multi-frame bitmap, such as an
AV I f i l e , a s t h e D i f f u s e
Bitmap map (page 2–1441) .
Otherexamplesofanimatedtexturesarematerials
that use the
Part icle Age map (page 2–1485) or the
Part icle MBlur map (page 2–1486) .Alternatively,
you can use different sub-materials from a
compound material such as Multi/Sub-Object.
Note: When using Object Motion Blur, if an event
contains a Material Dynamic operator that uses
a material with a Part icle Age/MBlur/Bitmap
map, the event should not also contain a Delete
operator, or a Spawn or Collision Spawn test. Also,
the event should not contain any tests that are
w ired to another event. The only exception to this
is the Age Test operator when set to Absolute Time
without any variation; that is, all particles leave the
eventatthesametime.Thisappliestotheuseof
Object Motion Blur only; there are no restrictions
with Image Motion Blur.
See also
Overview of Materials in Particle View (page
2–182)
Material Static Operator (page 2–183)
Material Frequency Operator (page 2–185)
Procedure
Example: To assign animation frames to particles
bas ed on a ge:
1.
Prepare a file to be used as the animated bitmap.
This can be a multiple-frame format such as
AVI, or an image file list (IFL file) that points to
a sequence of st i ll images. With the latter, you
can use images in a format such as Targa that
contain predefined alpha channels to specify
particle opacity selectively.
2. Open the Material Editor, and assign a
Bitmap map as the Diffuse map.
3. UsetheSelectBitmapImageFiledialogto
assign the file from step 1 as the bitm ap. This
dialog appears automatically when you first
assign a Bitmap map; alternatively, click the
Bitmap button on the map’s Bitmap Parameters
rollout.
4. On the map’s Time rollout, turn on Sync
Frames To Particle Age.
5. If y ou want to use the image background or
alpha channel to define tr ansparency, on the
Maps rollout, copy this map to the Opacit y slot,
and set the parameters accordingly.
6. At the material level, turn on Show Map
In V iewport.
7. Addacameratothesceneandsetitupas
desired. Ac tivate the Perspect ive viewport and
press t he C key to set the viewpor t to show the
camera view.
8. Create a default Part icle Flow system.
9. Open Part icle View.
10. ReplacetheShapeoperatorwithaShapeFacing
operator .
Usingthisoperatormakesiteasiertoseethe
animation.