How to make a rotating flower petals using particles?

[SOULAUNCHER]

Hi, I'm a newbie

I need Ur help, I want to achieve this flower petals effect http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuKgk3ojSvk (the effect is at the very beginning)

Do U guys have any idea how to achieve that with AS? I'm using AS7 btw ^^

Any feedback would be great!

[slowtiger]

First you animate some flowers rotating by themselves. Then you put these into a particle layer as seeds and adjust the particle settings to your taste.

[SOULAUNCHER]

First you animate some flowers rotating by themselves. Then you put these into a particle layer as seeds and adjust the particle settings to your taste.

Thanx 4 the advice ^^

I want to achieve the kinda 3D look, so I tried to rotate the petal picture by x and y axis(I use png format picture), but the picture ended up being distorted or skewed

Any more suggestions?

[slowtiger]

Don't do it with a picture then?

[SOULAUNCHER]

Don't do it with a picture then?

well, I used to make animation with pre made pic from photoshop, and I'm not very familiar with AS drawing tools and not sure if I can achieve the look that I want by using AS drawing tools.

But thank U so much 4 the advices, I really appreciate it
I'll figure something out (using 3D maybe) ^^

[lwaxana]

I highly recommend the technique slowtiger described. Simply rotating a 3D object won't get you the right result because the petals will look rigid. What will make it convincing is to show how the petals gently curve in the wind. Frame by frame or point animation will work perfectly for that.

Plus these petals are a nice simple shape so animating a short loop would be quick and good practice. If you haven't animated frame by frame before, this is actually a really good opportunity to give it a try. Then when you apply the particle effect, it can look just like the example you provided.

If you prefer to work with the drawing tools in photoshop, you can always animate frame by frame in photoshop and then save as transparent pngs. You can then import them into anime studio and place them in a switch layer.

[SOULAUNCHER]

I highly recommend the technique slowtiger described. Simply rotating a 3D object won't get you the right result because the petals will look rigid. What will make it convincing is to show how the petals gently curve in the wind. Frame by frame or point animation will work perfectly for that.

Plus these petals are a nice simple shape so animating a short loop would be quick and good practice. If you haven't animated frame by frame before, this is actually a really good opportunity to give it a try. Then when you apply the particle effect, it can look just like the example you provided.

If you prefer to work with the drawing tools in photoshop, you can always animate frame by frame in photoshop and then save as transparent pngs. You can then import them into anime studio and place them in a switch layer.

Thanx Iwaxana

I've done frame by frame animation before and understand what U're trying to explain here ^^

what about the wind effect then? can AS particle layer do that? or should I animate the petals one by one?

[lwaxana]

If you want a bunch of petals to move across the screen, you can use particles for that. But if you want them to change speed and direction half way through, like the sudden gust of wind in your example, you may have to animate that manually. But it's pretty simple. Once you have animated one petal rotating in place, you can make a few copies of that layer so you'll have several petals. Then move each layer across the screen as you like. Of course it will look better if you stagger the rotation loops, or make more than one loop so the petals all move differently.

The challenge will be to animate the petal rotating in place. Once you have that, the rest will make more sense. Just post if you have any questions! :)

[SOULAUNCHER]

If you want a bunch of petals to move across the screen, you can use particles for that. But if you want them to change speed and direction half way through, like the sudden gust of wind in your example, you may have to animate that manually. But it's pretty simple. Once you have animated one petal rotating in place, you can make a few copies of that layer so you'll have several petals. Then move each layer across the screen as you like. Of course it will look better if you stagger the rotation loops, or make more than one loop so the petals all move differently.

The challenge will be to animate the petal rotating in place. Once you have that, the rest will make more sense. Just post if you have any questions!

thanx so much 4 the explanation
I thought I should do it manually too, I asked anyway just in case there are some neat tricks that U guys might know ^^

I tried to use switch layer inside a particle layer (I draw the movement of the petal frame by frame using photoshop), but when I hit the play button, the animation is so jumpy and weird. The petals disappearing and appear at different place like magic. Is it possible to use a switch layer inside a particle layer?

If I duplicate the switch layer to create a bunch of petals, wouldn't it be heavy?
Please would U help me?

[SOULAUNCHER]

anyone? please help me ^^

[slowtiger]

Of course a switch layer can be used inside a particle layer.

I recommend to watch some video footage for reference, then do some test animation in AS with vectors (it would be really only an outline of a petal, moving points to create the illusion of rotation). then do the particle test, and THEN maybe replacing the vector loops with some bitmap loops.

I don't know why your images jump. If you can post an example, we'll have a look.

[SOULAUNCHER]

Of course a switch layer can be used inside a particle layer.

I recommend to watch some video footage for reference, then do some test animation in AS with vectors (it would be really only an outline of a petal, moving points to create the illusion of rotation). then do the particle test, and THEN maybe replacing the vector loops with some bitmap loops.

I don't know why your images jump. If you can post an example, we'll have a look.

Here's the AS file ^^
http://www.mediafire.com/?urr11cy6zswpude

[lwaxana]

I don't have a rar extractor so I didn't look at your file, but it sounds like you may have drawn the petal changing position in addition to rotating when you were in photoshop. To reuse it, you want the petal changing shape to look like it's rotating in one spot. You should be able to watch the animation in photoshop with the layer animation tool and make sure that everything is working correctly before you export individual pngs.

[SOULAUNCHER]

I don't have a rar extractor so I didn't look at your file, but it sounds like you may have drawn the petal changing position in addition to rotating when you were in photoshop. To reuse it, you want the petal changing shape to look like it's rotating in one spot. You should be able to watch the animation in photoshop with the layer animation tool and make sure that everything is working correctly before you export individual pngs.

I'm sorry about that ^^;
Here's winrar http://www.mediafire.com/?ezwav6g7rs1r0cx to extract the archive file

yeah, I made frame by frame animation for the rotating petal, I changed the shape to create an illusion that the petal is rotating in one place.

I test it on AS using switch layer and it looks ok, but when I insert the switch layer into particle layer and hit the play button, everything becomes chaotic. Many petals disappearing and appearing at different places, some of them got flickered.

I wonder how to fix that...

[slowtiger]

Sorry, can't open the file because it's AS7 - I only have 6.

The PNG drawings look fine, perfect. I recommend you don't leave that much empty space around them - crop them to 50 x 50px, this takes some workload off AS.