I have created an animated snow fall using the Particle Emitter -- it looks cool, but... I would like to create a looping animation. As it stands, when I loop the existing snow fall, the snow isn't as dense as it is toward the end of the loop. This creates a bit of an inconsistency! Does anyone have a bit of advice in terms of creating either a constant animated volume of snow, or is there another way to create the same effect more efficiently? Thanks for your time... Boogeyman (a Carrara nubian)

There are two ways, used together, to deal with this. 1. "Activate" the particle emitter ahead of where the animation begins. In addition to duration of the emitter, you can designate when it starts and completes within the animation 2. Do not allow a particle quantity range (the +/- feature). Instead, have a specific number of particles for any given time. The problem that you may still have is the location of the particles when it comes time to loop the animation. Since snow is erratic, while you may control the quantity issue, the particles will not be in the same place when the animation loops. This may be cotrolable by the parameters for the motion. However, I don't have time to play with it today and see! :( Mark

Attached Link: http://www.i-tex.de/download/partalpha2.zip

Hi Boogeyman, Hum, i don't think it's possible to make a loopable animation with the particles emitter of Carrara . What i would do is to use something else to generate the loopable snow in 2D and include it to the scene by mapping the animation on some planes . Infinity Textures 2 is a shareware that has some 2D particles generator feature, and it can do loopable animations . The best thing is that you can download the alpha version of the generator for free, and it works very well :) ! So check out the link if you choose to go this way . litst

Thanks Mark and litst! Both of your suggestions are great -- I reeeeally appreciate them. I will get to experimenting immediately. Thanks again! Boogeyman

Glad i could help :)

Hi Boogey, I tried adjusting the Snow Flurry preset in the particle emitter last night to acheive more predictable results. No luck. Litst suggestion of mapping a movie to a plane is the best one. Mark

Hey Mark, I am honoured that you would try experimenting for me -- thanks a million! I too have been unsuccessful with successive attempts at making the particle emitter "put out", so to speak. Last night, I tried Infinity Textures. It really does a good job of creating looping textures. The alpha download that Litst suggested is quite fun to play with. I managed to create snow that almost loops properly; I figure if I twiddle a bit more with the setup I may successfully create a good loop. The full shareware version of IT2 is fully functional for 30 days, and has a snow preset that is pretty cool. Great tool for 2D stuff! Thanks and ciao for now... Boogeyman

Yes, Infinity Textures is great :) ! I've bought the 1.3 version some time ago and i'm really happy with it . I've found the 2.0 version kinda disappointing, but i haven't spent enough time on it to make a definitive judgement . I strongly suggest everyone to download the particles generator, it's really useful and fun :)

Attached Link: http://www.i-tex.de/stuff/snow_indeo.avi

Hi, the Animator in v2.1 is a little buggy. The bugs often prevent it from creating seamless loops. In the upcoming v2.2 i fixed the bugs and also added a loop calculator, that computes loop length and warmup framecount. You can see a working snow loop here at http://www.i-tex.de/stuff/snow_indeo.avi (~920k)

@litst : Sorry that you got disappointed with 2.0. Many users at first think that it's not userfriendly, but after
understanding the main concept of the interface, they recognize that it's elegant and very efficient. Many complex tasks can be done in a single step and you are not
so limited like in 1.3. Ever tried to emboss a sprite directly into a texture?
Old users of I-Tex at first get shocked : Everything has changed. No wonder : There's only about 5% of the old code left.

Great snow anim, Tobias 8) ! Saved to my HD ! So you've fixed the little "noise displacement" problem with looping animations i see :) Like i said, i haven't spent enough time on I-Tex 2 to make a final judgement . The main reproch i'd make is that i was used to I-Tex 1.3 and now i got to learn another interface . Well, that's my problem, i just have to find the time . Also, at first it looks like the main area of I-tex (texture generation) has gotten less attention than the other goodies (First Day engine, texture generator, particles generator...), though they are fun, useful and very well thought . But i did realize how powerful the new I-Tex must be . I've noticed the scripting options and there seem to be amazing possibilities in it, as the presets show . Anyway, i'll surely come back to I-Tex soon because when you need tileable textures for 3D, it's a good alternative to classic 2D softwares . Just open Photoshop and try to make the textures i attach, you'll see what i mean ! Happy Holidays, litst

Yes, i fixed all the bugs and verified all presets for making "seamless loops". The bug was, that the particles behaved "indeterministic". Their movement and size was not reset with parent emitter. If you think that i spend more time with making the "goodies", you are wrong. That are perhaps 10% of the time i spend on the interface, the engine, the functions and the help files. Believe me, it's not that trivial to get a stable multiprocessor engine, or why do so few apps have support for multiple CPU's?

Carrara does have a bi-proc renderer :) I didn't wanted to say that you had been lazy on the interface . Oh no ! Programming alone a soft like I-Tex is a real feat of strength ! Haven't you received some proposals from big companies like Adobe ? Hum, by the way, these ones are lazy ! Or maybe it's just me, maybe i'm a fool to think that the very expensive Photoshop is just a very frustrating software with an interface that's too straight ... I can't get used to it, it hurts my logic ! I-Tex does not, on the contrary it makes me creative because you're free to do whatever you want :)

Attached Link: http://www.i-tex.de

Just wanna let you know that I-Tex v2.2 is out, with the fixed particle emitter and lots of improvements and new functions. Feel free to send me some feedback :)

Impressive list of new features ! If you were Adobe, users would have to pay for such an update ;) I'll have to check this out .