Particle effects

In this guide you make sparks fly out of Blue’s fist when a punch lands, then fire an energy beam at a spot on the stage. After that you’ll find what every generated effect does, its styles and settings, and how to fix the usual problems. If you haven’t added an effect before, read Visual effects first: generated effects live in the same panel.

Make sparks fly from a punch

Sparks belong to the hand that hits, so you put them on that joint.

1. On the stage, click the red dot on Blue’s hand (the one on the right of the screen). The VFX panel says Blue · Joint 4, with Apply to Selected node.
2. Click Particles. A row called Particles opens. Its range, such as 1–48, means it plays for 48 frames from the playhead.
3. Set Emission to Burst: all the particles come out at once, and Count (40) replaces Rate. Set Look to Spark for short bright streaks.
4. Press Play or Space. The sparks burst from the fist and fade over their Lifetime (30 frames).
5. Don’t like the pattern? Click Shuffle next to Variation. Same settings, new random spread.
6. Now a beam: click Add, choose Energy beam, click Pick next to Aim at, then click anywhere on the stage. Press Play: it charges at the hand, then fires at that spot.

Choose where the effect comes from

A generated effect comes out of its target. Pick the target before you add it:

Aura needs a figure, so the scene catalogue doesn’t offer it. In the app, selecting an effect also shows handles on the stage: its position, the spray’s direction and speed (drag the arrow), the emitter size, the explosion size and the beam’s aim. Esc cancels a handle drag.

The five generated effects

All five are in Add › Effects › Generate, each with a small preview, and among the starting points of an empty figure. A Style changes what the effect is made of; choosing one also sets its suggested colour (and, for beams, its width, wobble, charge, travel and arcs) in one undo step. Change colours after you choose the style.

Units in the settings: f is frames, /f is “per frame” (how many particles each frame) and px/f is pixels per frame. Because they count frames, changing the project’s fps changes how fast they look.

Particles

• Emission: Continuous with Rate 6 /f (up to 200), or Burst with Count 40 (up to 5,000).
• Lifetime 30 f (up to 300), Look, Color, Size 6 px, Speed 3 px/f.
• Direction −90° (straight up; 90° is down, 0° is right), Spread 60° (up to 360°), Gravity 0 (−3 to 3; positive pulls down).
• More: Emit from (Target point, Circle, Body, Line) and Emitter size; End size and Size over life (Auto, Grow or shrink, Puff out, Pop, Flicker); Variation; Drag, Wind, Turbulence, Flow (swirling, like smoke) and Swirl (orbit the emitter); Rotation and Spin; Streak length (Spark); Fade out, Twinkle, Shading, Glow halo, Motion trail; Outline with its colour and width, for cartoon looks; Color mode (Over lifetime, Random per particle); Blend; Particles (Leave a trail, Follow target); Land on ground; Draw (In front of target, Behind target); Start delay, Animate on, Seed.

Aura

Style, Color, Intensity 1 (0–3), Height 1, Density 1, Turbulence 1 and Ground effect (off: dust, mist, crystals or light pools on the ground). Under More: Main layer, Body glow, Particles and Trail when moving (all on), Blend, Start delay, Animate on, Seed.

Energy beam

Aim at with Pick, Style, Color, Width 16 px, Intensity 1, Charge time 12 f, Travel time 6 f, Wobble 1, and Aim X / Aim Y (90% and 50% of the stage) while it aims at a point. Under More: Lightning arcs 3, Sparks 1, Charge particles, Muzzle glow, Impact splash, Draw, Blend, Start delay, Animate on, Seed.

1. Click Pick. It turns blue and reads Click the stage….
2. Click a joint, a figure’s origin or any point on the stage. Aim at shows what you picked, for example Blue · node 4, or Point on stage.
3. A beam aimed at a joint follows it as that figure moves. Click the ✕ next to the target to aim at a fixed stage point instead.

The beam charges for Charge time frames, then reaches its target in Travel time frames. Fire breath streams flames that reach the aim at the end of their life.

Explosion

Style, Color, Size 1 (0.2–5), Intensity 1, Density 1, Debris 1, Smoke 1, and the switches Sparks and Ground dust (on). Under More: Flash, Shockwave ring, Core blast (on), Blend, Start delay, Animate on, Seed. An explosion on the Scene puts its ground dust at its own position.

Smoke and steam

Style, Color, Amount 3 /f, Puff size 24 px, Rise 1.2 px/f (negative sinks), Wind 0 px/f, Lifetime 60 f (up to 400). Under More: Emission (Continuous or Burst with Count), Emitter size, Growth, Turbulence, Shading, Smoke (Leave a trail, Follow target), Draw, Start delay, Animate on, Seed. For steam from a cup, choose Steam, a small Puff size and a slow Rise.

Trails, timing and the look

Trail or follow. A particle stays where it was born, so flames trail behind a running figure and smoke stays where an explosion happened. Choose Follow target (under More) to move them with the target instead.

The tail. Particles outlive their clip by their lifetime: a burst on the clip’s last frame still fades out afterwards. The timeline shows this as a hatched tail after the clip, and a beam’s clip shades its charge-up. A clip fade-out fades everything by the clip’s end instead.

Sequences. To charge, blast and leave smoke from one clip, use Combine with another effect and give later effects a Start delay (under More). A delay as long as the clip means that effect never starts.

Hand-drawn feel. Animate on Twos or Threes holds each drawing of the effect for two or three frames. Your figure animation and the fps don’t change.

Blend. Auto adds light on dark scenes and paints solid colour on light ones, where a glow would vanish against white. Glow and Solid force one or the other. Smoke, cartoon looks, leaves, petals and debris are always solid.

Same pattern every time. Each new generated effect gets its own random Seed, so two explosions never look identical. The same seed always gives the same result, when you scrub backwards and when you export. Shuffle picks a new seed; type one under More to get an exact pattern back.

Common problems

• Nothing appears. Generated effects start at the playhead: press Play or move the playhead into the clip. Then check the row’s eye, Opacity, Start delay and the amount (Rate, Count or Amount).
• The effect isn’t in the list. The list shows At this frame. Choose Show all and check Start and Duration.
• Sparks come from the wrong place. They come from the target. Check the name at the top of the panel, then delete the effect and add it again with the right joint selected.
• The export cuts the effect off. Particles keep fading after the clip ends. Make the animation, or the export range, long enough for the tail.
• Particles go through the floor or a figure. Particles don’t collide with figures. Land on ground stops them at the target’s lowest point or the bottom of the stage.
• Pivot export refuses. .piv and .stk files can’t hold effects. Keep the .styk project and export video or images.
• Limits. One layer of an effect draws up to 65,536 particles, and a frame up to 262,144. Fluid simulation and particles textured from your own drawings aren’t supported.

Questions

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