Warp – AlphaParticles
The AlphaParticles plugin lets you break up an object into particles and have those particles fly around using a gradient image as a “shape template†for how the particles move.
AlphaParticles options and example
Gradient Image
Click on this button to display a file requester to select a gradient. You can use any .bmp, .png or .tga image file as the gradient.
Reverse Gradient
Normally the particles move towards the lighter areas of the gradient. Checking this option causes the particles to move towards the darker areas.
Direction From Transition
When checked, the particles move towards the lighter areas of the gradient. When cleared, the objects move in the direction indicated by the direction spinner.
Rotation
If Direction From Transition is cleared, this spinner will control the direction in which the particles move.
Flight Axis
These buttons determine the 3D axis (or plane) the particles will move along. Click on one of the buttons, XY, XZ, YZ to change the axis on which the particles move.
Start Time From Image
When this is checked, the particles will start to move based on the corresponding brightness of the gradient. Particles that are positioned over dark parts of the gradient begin to move first, and particles that are positioned over light parts of the gradient are last to start moving. This makes the object break up in the “shape†of the gradient you are using.
Progress From Transition
When checked, the break-up and movement of the particles is tied to the overall time of the transition. If you wish to keyframe this movement separately, clear this checkbox and use the time slider to control and keyframe the particle movement.
Progress
When the Progress From Transition checkbox is cleared, you can use this slider to control and keyframe the timing of particle movement separately from the overall effect time.
Particles
This controls the number of particles that are used for the effect. At 0, every polygon is used, at other values, the plugin will break up the object into the specified number of particles (if possible).
Velocity
This slider determines how fast the particles move. The higher the value, the faster they move.
Rotation
This slider controls how much each particle rotates (spins) as it moves. The higher the value, the more it will spin.
Pull
If Tie direction to gradient is checked, this determines how much the gradient brightness changes will affect the direction of each particle. The higher the value, the more each particle will be “pulled†towards the brighter areas of the gradient. Increasing this slider also increases the time required to calculate each frame.
Chaos
Increasing this value adds more chaos or randomness to the movements of each particle.