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Nevhision
05-12-2005, 11:44 PM
So I want a good way to do star wars laser shots. Here's what I have going: The laser is a group of 6 planes with an opacity map on them. Next, I have a super spray instance geometry. I have grow and fade on. The Problem is that the instanced geometry won't point in the direction that the emiter points. I try'd giving an orientation contraint of the original geometry to the emitter but that didn't seem to help. I'm sure there's an extremely obvious answer but thats what I get for being rather new.
Ian Jones
05-13-2005, 12:00 AM
Which version of Max are you using?
Nevhision
05-13-2005, 12:33 AM
I'm using 3ds max 7.0
majmovan
05-13-2005, 04:38 AM
Try to use "GhostTrail" plugin.

http://www.bytegeistsoftware.com (http://www.bytegeistsoftware.com)

here is a sample
http://www.geocities.com/majmovan/g_trail_test.avi
galagast
05-13-2005, 11:01 AM
theres also a cool free plugin @ www.maxplugins.de (http://www.maxplugins.de) just search for the word "trails"

hope this helps :)
Nevhision
05-13-2005, 11:54 AM
I'm not sure thats what I need. If have my emiter at / angle and I have ! particles (instanced geometry) Whats happening now at / angle, the particles are still pointing in +Y direction. So how do I get them emit at the angle of the emitter arrow?
galagast
05-13-2005, 12:11 PM
i see, you could just go under the super spray's Rotation and Collision rollout and look at the second group SPin Axis Controls, set it to Direction of Travel/Mblur

the trails plugin are also good, coz you need not use planes to act as lasers.
you could also look at this thread, the guy here made a wonderful scene using this plug.
the maker of the plug also has his a named http://www.lastjedioutpost.cgtalk.ru but it seems to be down...

hope this helps!
Chris Thomas
05-13-2005, 03:51 PM
If your instanced geometry is facing the direction of travel of your particles, but is still off axis in some way, maybe they are 90 degs to the left or right or whatever? Simply adjust the pivot of your original geo. So, do not rotate the geo, but go into the third tab of the control panel (heirachy) and choose "Affect Pivot Only". Then rotate the pivot in the appropriate manner to fix the orientation.

Make sense?
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05-13-2005, 03:51 PM
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