Hi im tyring to get the particles to emit and stop at certain frames ( trying to control it with sound file), have tried using the I key over the settings but the header bar says this cannot be animated ie wont create a key so cant bake a fcurve to it is there some other setting I am missing or is this not an option?
The first thing I thought of was to add a Blend texture to the particle system. Activate the Color ramp and delete one of the default two ramp colors. This effectively turns it into a solid. When it is white it is on and when it is black it is off. We can animate the color between white and black and route it to particle velocity. This allows us to control when particles that are already born will receive velocity and thus exit the emitter surface.
Ok, everything doing with particle generation including emission doesn’t work with animated textures and is sampled at ending frame it seems. Velocity as a workaround is nice, and could work for systems with low particle life. Where long life is needed, not so much since the pile of particles at emitter will get pretty big and slow down the simulation.
Agreed, they do pile up on the emitter until you issue them velocity.
I think a lot of us are waiting for this Node based particle system that was demoed a year or two ago. A new workflow should solve some of these problems.
Cheers for the input atom will check out your file and work around, all ideas bring to life new ideas… node based particles, cool will look that up sounds like something to look forward to.
Thanks a lot for your input frankie66 will check it out . Have learnt recently that you can change the hertz setting when importing the sound file to limit its strength of the fcurve bake . thought Id put that there for any one else that is experimenting with f curves.
@frankie66: I like that solution better than the material approach. The collision object is visibly in the scene and easily selectable. A material is more abstract and resides in another context.