CompuServe Messages

Bill, – Assuming you are familiar with creating an animation, open a new project in the Project editor and set up a 50 frame animation in the Action editor. – While in the Detail editor, with the sphere object picked (blue color) using the LSHIFT-M combination (Move Axis) position the axis at the top of the sphere. **Ensure you are using a PRIMITIVE sphere (ie with triangular faces making up the sphere's surface). – Save the Sphere as ball.obj. – Go to the Stage editor and load the ball.obj – Place the ball.obj at Z=+200.0 (XY=0.0) – Load the ground object and place it at Z=0.0 (XY=0.0) – Load two Light Sources (Point or Spherical Lights) – Main (X=500 Y=-1000 and Z=1000 RGB 255) and Fill (X=-1000 Y=500 Z=-500 RGB 150) – Save Changes – Go to Action editor. – While in Add mode, click on the Sphere object's F/X line at frame 2 and frame 50. This will leave the ball unchanged in frame 1 and the explosion will occur from 2 through 50. – Select the Particles F/X. – In the requester set the following parameters: – Delayed and Bounce Buttons – selected – All other Buttons – deselected – Travel Distance – 200.00 – Triangle Scaling – 1.0 (leaves the triangles size unchanged throughout the animation) – Scaling Delay – 0.0 – Minimum # of Triangle Rotations – 1.0 – Maximum # of Triangle Rotations – 3.0 – Time to terminal H velocity – 49.0 (gradually increases each triangles horizontal velocity over time) – Gravitational Constant – 1.0 – Random Number Seed – 69.0 – Elasticity – 50.0 (higher numbers bounce more) – Time to terminal Z velocity – 40.0 (increases the vertical velocity a little faster than horizontal) – Ground Z Coordinate – 0.0 (tells the triangles where to bounce, regardless of where you put the ground object – 0.0 will align the two) – Speed Factor – 0.5 – Min/Max Angle from Z – 0.0/180.0 (defines a range of tragectory vectors each triangle can initially move away from the sphere on – straight up = 0.0 and straight down = 180.0) – Min/Max Angle from X – 0.0/360.0 (defines the azimuth range around the Z-axis that each triangle will depart the sphere object: +X=0.0 (360.0) +Y=90.0 -X=180.0 -Y=270.0 – Wind Speed – 0.0 – Wind Angle – 0.0 – Wind Start/Stop – 0.0 – Emmision Amt – 0.0 – Particle Subgroup – (N/A) Save Changes and Return to the Stage editor. Adjust the Perspective window until you can see the entire scene and Select Make from the Animate menu (accept the default settings). This should achieve the effect you were looking for.:) Alan Henry – Digital Plastic F-100-PW-200 Inside