User Manual

Common Controls
Conditions, Style, Region, and Settings Tabs
The Conditions, Style, Region, and Settings tabs are common to all Particle nodes, so their
descriptions can be found in “The Common Controls” section at the end of this chapter.
pImage Emitter [PIe]
pImage Emitter Node Introduction
The pImage Emitter node takes an input image and treats each pixel of the image as if it were a
particle. The main differences between the pImage Emitter and the normal pEmitter is that
instead of emitting particles randomly within a given region, this node emits pixels in a regular
2D grid with colors based on the input image.
Inputs
The pImage Emitter node has three inputs. Like most particle nodes, the orange input accepts
only other particle nodes. Green and magenta inputs are 2D image inputs for custom image
calculations. Optionally, there are teal or white bitmap or mesh inputs, which appear on the
node when you set the Region menu in the Region tab to either Bitmap or Mesh.
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Input: Unlike most other particle nodes, the orange input on the pImage Emitter
accepts a 2D image used as the emitter of the particles. If a region is defined for the
emitter, this input is used to define the color of the particles.
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Style Bitmap Input: This image input accepts a 2D image to use as the particles’
image. Since this image duplicates into potentially thousands of particles, it is best to
keep these images small and square—for instance, 256 x 256 pixels.
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Region: The teal or white region input takes a 2D image or a 3D mesh depending
on whether you set the Region menu to Bitmap or Mesh. The color of the input is
determined by whichever is selected first in the menu. The 3D mesh or a selectable
channel from the bitmap defines the area where the particles are emitted.
Basic Node Setup
The pImage Emitter node is placed at the start of a particle branch, replacing the location of a
pEmitter node. Below, a MediaIn node is used to emit particles using the colors from the clip.
A pImage Emitter node emits particles based on an image connected to the orange input
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