Mimic Tutorial
By: Jim Marten
Mimic is making particles write out Jim's name.
Sample Content location:
One of the first things you’ll notice is that the only thing in the scene is a null object that follows a motion path. This will be the path the particles will follow or "mimic". Setting up a motion path is the first step in creating a project that uses the Mimic controller.
2. Open Particle Storm2.
3. Click on Simulation in the Items view, and set Stop Time to 3.3 s.
Rename the Particle Group for this simulation. Also, designate the amount of particles for the simulation, and create the .lwo file for the group.
4. Click on the Particle Group named Pgroup in the Items view.
5. Rename it to MimicGroup.
6. Set the Number of Particles to 1000.
7. Click on the File Requester button.
- Choose the directory you would like to have your .lwo and .psm files stored
- Type "MimicGroup" for the name.
8. Right click on MimicGroup in the Items view under Particle Groups, and select Create Effect Object.
Create an emitter for the particles to start from.
9. Click on the Fountain Controller.
10. Set Birth Rate to 100 particles, so the particles are emitted slow enough to be present throughout the simulation.
11. Set Scale- X: 20%; Y: 20%; Z: 20%.
The particles will follow the path, relative to where they were emitted. So, when we use a scale of 20% for each parameter, we will get a grouping of particles following the path, rather than just 1 particle at a time.
Create the Mimic Controller for the simulation.
12. Right click on "Controllers" in the Items view and select Mimic.
13. Turn on the X Enable, Y Enable, and Z Enable by clicking on their respective On/Off buttons.
14. For X Value, Y Value and Z Value, select Layout Item from the drop down list.
15. Also, for X Value, Y Value and Z Value, select Null as the Layout Item.
16. For X Value, leave Position X selected.
17. For Y Value, select Position Y.
18. For Z Value, select Position Z.
19. Record the simulation by pressing Stop, Record, and Play and letting it run to the end.
20. Exit Particle Storm, and in Layout, add your created Mimic.lwo object and apply the Particle Storm Displacement Map Plug-in to it.
21. Click on Options; then click on Load PSM File, and load your created Mimic.psm file.
22. Close the Particle Storm Displacement Map Plug-in panel.
23. Render the animation!
The Camera panel already has Motion blur on the particles, so when you render this animation, you will see motion blur.
Quick Tip:
1. Try setting the scaling to 0%, 0%, 0% to see what that looks like. 2. Also, try setting the scaling to 100% for all three parameters, to see what effect this creates.