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Published on August 23, 2006 By TYCUS In Tutorials




Sparkles ~cursor theme

Sparkles was the first cursor of the elements project, mainly, I use some basic and not so heavy effects on it, but even though you will find them kindda tricky. On this tutorial I’m just gonna explain two effects: the sparkles effect and the explosion with the fire ball effect (including the ring wave). For mayor help I have done a video of all the process (but without audio and you will need a codec for it, look for the link at the bottom of this tutorial), the file was uploaded at rapidshare.com, if you dont know how to move on that site just ask me: Link

Effect #1: Sparkles (or fairy light)
Part 1: Snow

First of all, we have to go into the "Create" menu and then we choose the option called "Particle System" (see image #1).

1:

Now select the option "Snow" (see image #2), and drag in any place of one of the four views that 3ds max display (Top, Front, Left or Perspective).

2:

As you can see, you create a shape (like a 2d square with a line in the middle) that will represent the source of our sparkles; now just rotate the shape according to the direction you would like that your particle system flow (the line in the middle of the square represents the direction of the particles, is like an arrow). Now we are going to setup the particle system.

Part 2: Snow setup

**The following setup is just for this tutorial, after the tutorial you can play with the setup and apply it as you wish, it all depends in how or where you want to use it.

Ok, let’s start now! The first part to change is the "Flake Size", this one has a value of 2.0 but we are going to change it to 5 (5.0., is the same), now we are going to change the speed up to 25 (we are going to use this value because we are not using an Atmospheric force like wind or gravity), your setup should look just as image 3:

3:

Finally we are going to setup the life of the snow system just by changing the values of the Start and Life options. I suggest you to leave it like that but if you want a short display of the particles we just need to change the value of the Life option to 15. Now just add a material (texture or color.., in other words), by pressing the letter "M" on your keyboard. A new window will appear showing some gray spheres, each one is a material ready to be setup by you (…lol, errmm.., sry), we are just going to make the material completely white with a 100% of Self-Illumination, now just drag the material to the snow emitter.

And well.., at this point we finish the setup of the Snow system, if you want to see the effect in action just move the time line control (see image 4) and press F9 button at your keyboard, the preview should look like the image 5:

4:

5:

Part 3: Glow

Now let’s begin the setup of the glow effect. At your keyboard press the number eight button (the one that is up of the letters.., the numbers on the right side of your keyboard don’t work in here). A new window will appear showing two main tabs, one says "Environment" and the other one say "Effects", you will choose the second one (yes.., the tab that says Effects). Now you will need to add a Lens Effect just by pressing the Add button; then, at the lens effect parameter (see image 6) you will choose the effect that says "Glow". Go all the way down of the window and go to the section that says "Glow Element", there you will find two more tabs that says Parameters and Options, in parameter you will change the setup like this (see image 7):

6:

7:

Now go to the Options tab and change the setup like this (see image 8):

8:

Finally just close the window and right click the snow emitter, choose "properties" option and a new window will appear, almost at the bottom of that window at the option "G-buffer" change the value of the Object channel to 1.

And we are done, press F9 button on your keyboard and see what we have done.., a recommendation I suggest to save your work before you display the preview.

This will continue…

…next week

Important note: this and the next tutorials are for people who has at least a basic knowlage of 3D Studio Max, even though, you are free to make any question about this tutorial.

Link for the video codec: Link

Download the first file (TSCC Codec).
Comments
on Aug 28, 2006
TYCUS: Thanks!
One day I'll take time to actually sit and teach myself this craft. Then I'll want all the BEST help I can get. Yes! We're paying attention.
on Jan 27, 2007
Excellent step-by-step! I really appreciated this tutorial. Man, I would love to see more of these kinds. I enjoy 3D Studio Max, but don't know quite enough to make anything cool.

KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK!