I’m trying to create a particle effect of lines emanating from a single point (light), and then freeze them so I can animate the camera around the lines. I’m using the function “speed=speed*(frame<magnitude)” to freeze the particles on the frame defined by the magnitude value, and that’s working great. However, if I try to use the “Lines” option in the generator, the particles will disappear at the freeze point (bug?). Fine, so I have other options to create lines. If you set the generator size to “1”, then “Quads” or “Cones” will create nice lines. But at the freeze point, they will both change from lines to points (bug #2?). OK, so then I try to use “External Node” with a long skinny cylinder from an FBX import, but I get two more problems. I don’t see any option for aligning the cylinder along the vector that the particle is moving (so they don’t look like lines emanating from a point), AND the orientation of the cylinder will suddenly changes at the freeze point. So, even if I could orient them along the vector, that method would probably fail as well. I’m quickly running out of options. If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. Thanks!
I’ve failed to make this work in the past as well.
I think in the end I ended up making individual skinny cylinders, putting the center of the axis at the end, duplicating and then rotating them all over the place, then dropping in a few replica nodes and offsetting those a bit, then doing a rotate round all of that.
Not the answer you’re looking for I’m sure, but you’re not the first to be frustrated with flame’s particle system.
I tried with your expression and it does the same. It does feel like a bug, right?
Actually, this is not a bug. Maybe a mis-feature. The length of the lines depend on their speed. Since you stop them using the particle function this is expected behaviour.
Let me see if I can find a workaround.
Sorry. No go.
Thanks for giving it a try! I was really excited because I thought Flame particles should definitely be able to handle this (I’ve done MUCH harder particle effects in Flame), and I can understand why it won’t work due to the mechanics of how speed determines line length. It would be great if they could add an animatable “Freeze” button that was independent of speed, but I’m not anticipating any new features in particles.