8

274 Chapter 18: Effects and Environments
You create a fire apparatus, or "gizmo," to position
theeffectinyoursceneandtodefinethemaximum
boundaries of the effect. The apparatus is a Helper
object found in the Atmospheric Apparatus
subcategory.
There are three kinds of apparatus:
BoxGizmo
(page 3–300)
, SphereGizmo (page 3–303) ,and
CylGizmo. (page 3–302) .
You c an move, rotate, and scale the apparatus, but
you cannot apply modifiers.
Using non-uniform scale is a good way to change
the shape of the apparatus for effects. (You w ill see
a warning when you use this transform. Because
you don’t modify atmospheric apparatus, you can
safely ignore the warning.)
Fire Parameters rollout
You must assign an atmospheric apparatus to a fire
effect before you can render the effect. Use buttons
in the Gizmos area to manage the lis t of apparatus
objects.
Gizmos group
Gizmo for the fire in the scene shown at the beginning of
this topic
Pick Gizmo—Click to enter Pick mode and click an
atmospheric apparatus in the scene. The apparatus
displaysthefireeffectwhenyourender.Thename
of the apparatus is added to the apparatus list.
Multiple apparatus objects can d isplay the same
fire effect. For example, torches on a wall ca n all
use t he same effect. Assign a different seed to each
apparatus to vary the effect.
You can assign single apparatus to multiple fire
effects. For example, one apparatus can display
bothafireballandatendrilflameeffect.
You can choose multiple gizmos. Click Pick Gizmo
and press H.ThisdisplaysaPickObjectdialogon
which you choose multiple objects from t he list.
Remove Gizmo—Removes the gizmo selected in
the gizmo list. The g izmo remains in your scene
butitnolongerdisplaysthefireeffect.
Gizmo List—Listsapparatusobjectsassignedtothe
fire effect.
Colors group
You can set three color properties for a fire effect
using the color swatches under Colors. Click
a color swatch to display the software’s
Color
Selector (page 1–157)
.
Inner Color—Sets the color of the densest part of
the effect. For a typical fire, this color represents
the hottest part of the flame.
Outer Color —Sets the color of the sparsest part of
the effect. For a typical fire, this color represents
thecooler,dissipatingedgeoftheflame.
The fire effect is colored using a gradient between
theinnerandoutercolors.Thedenseareasofthe
effect use the inner color and gradually blend to
theoutercolorneartheedgesoftheeffect.
Smoke Color—Sets the color of smoke for use with
the Explosion option.
IfyouturnonExplosionandSmoke,theinner
and outer colors animate to the smoke color. If
youturnoffExplosionorSmoke,thesmokecolor
is ignored.