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Page 3 of 5
Animating the Fireball
Now comes the trickiest part. In order to change the size of the fireball over time, we are going to connect the Shell Position inputs of our Absolute Shells gradient to function curves that are controlled by a time-based input. We are going to modulate the inner and outer radius of the gradient to grow and shrink over time, and also modulate the center color of the gradient itself. Each of these modulations will be adjusted with an editable Spline curve.
Create three Generator->Spline components to the left of your Absolute Shells. Then Create an External->Time component to the left of those.
Preparing for animation
Connect each of the Splines’ “Input” inputs to the output of the Time component. Then connect the Shell Position 1, Shell Position 2, and Shell Value 1 inputs of the Absolute Shells to the outputs of each of the three Spline components. At this point, your tree should look something like this:
Links for animation
Now comes the trickiest part. We’re going to shape each of the Splines so that the explosion grows and shrinks over time. We want the outer radius to always be a little bigger than the inner radius, and we want to overall puff size to increase and then fade out.
Here’s what I came up with. Double click each Spline to edit it, and try to match mine as best you can. In my tree, the input for Shell Position 1 on top, Shell Position 2 in the middle, and Shell Value 1 on bottom.
Animation Splines
If you’ve set everything up correctly, you should see… well, nothing! In frame zero the explosion is invisible. To preview what you’ve done, right click on the image of the Clouds component and select “Examine->Diffuse Level” This will allow you to play back your animation. You should have an expanding cloud shape.
Animated clouds
Note that you can also use the “properties” tab of the left-hand menu to change the “current frame” of the tree to something other than 0. This will change all the components’ preview images to another frame so it’s easier to assess your work.
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