cuustomizing particle effects

[Wolfy215]

ok, i want to make an effect of falling leaves.i have a leaf.jpg on a white backroound. so i go to particle effect, under custom, i chose the stars falling effect.. i cliick on the picture in the attribute pannel, under partical;.i change it to my leaf.jpg. the problem is it uses the whole jpg, including the white backround. i thought c3d used white as a negative or nothing.
can someone help me?
thanx

[Wolfy215]

i also tried saviing it as a tga,png, and bmp, still it has the white bac,kround.why?

[Ron P.]

Hi Wolfy,

About the only way I've found to get rid of the background color is to first bring it into Cool3D PS, using the Insert Graphics, Convert to Vector. This will create a 3D Object. You will need to adjust the jump points, threshold, and tolerance so that you just have an outline. Then once you have your 3D object created, go to the attribute panel, select Texture, use image, and use the exact image that you used to create the 3D object. Click on the icon to use texture color only. Then adjust it so that it fits the oject. Now save that as a bitmap with transparency.

Now you can use it for your falling leaves effect. A little bit of work just to get a texture/shape to use. There may be another method, but so far I have not found it..

[htchien]

You need to save the file with transparency. When you save your leaf image as a TGA file, remember to set the background color as the transparent color key and save the file with transparency, then you can use it as the texture in the falling particle effect.

How to set the TGA file with transparency should be described in the manual of your image editor.

Hope this helps.

H.T.

[Ron P.]

I use PI 11 or 12 to create the TGA to be used in Cool 3D PS. However what I've been finding is that even though I save my image as a TGA with a transparent background, Cool3D PS is not recognizing this, and places a white background on it.

So to use an image for the particle effects, save your image as a PNG, with transparency. Cool3D PS will recognize the transparent channel when using it with the particle effects..

[Wolfy215]

I use photoshop 6, right in the help drop down menu is export transparnt imae. i also save as png
hanks ht