ATPA Lesson 5: Batteries

DISCLAIMER: The ATPA Lessons are a self-service pyro academy from the days of vPyro. I saved the lessons from the academy back in 2011 before the site went down for good, and feel that they should be accessible again, not just as a historical record of what was, but also for new pyromaniacs to learn the ropes in the same way that many of us did so many years ago. Because of their age, the videos included with the academy are of a lackluster quality, and some of the information in these lessons is outdated. In the name of history, I wish to preserve these lessons as they are, but as a recognition of how out-dated some of the advice can be, I will strikethrough and italicize the text of any information that should be ignored. If you run into questions or issues, leave a reply.

Also, the lessons ask for you to submit a video of your progress. Feel free to reply to the lessons with your submissions! Some of us old vPyro vets would love to see and comment on your progress and creations. 😊

- StickyGum32

5 – Batteries

You might have noticed this lesson is blue, that's because marking this as green would have been insulting to the green lessons...in other words...this is EASY

Batteries are great effects when you want to fill in long periods of the same kind of music.

What is a battery? A rapidly fired sequence of aerial fireworks.

1. Open your 3C Pearl Comet with the launch sparks, die-off emitter, and drift smoke. We're going to use this for our battery effect. Change the control emitter to 5.00 seconds - you can make your battery any length you want by changing the lifetime of the control.
2. On the Launch emitter, which also happens to be your Outer Glow from your ProColor, increase the particles to somewhere around 30. This will cause an equal firing of 30 comets in 5.00 seconds. For math buffs, that would be 0.1666667 of a second between each firing.

If you increase the particles, it will shoot at a faster rate - if you lower the particles, it will shoot at a slower rate. But it will ALWAYS shoot perfectly even. Back in Lesson 2, I had you add an emitter between the control and the Outer Glow - this was to keep all the particles shooting at the same time - otherwise they would have fired like these batteries. You may notice your smoke is blocking up a bit more than normal - simply decrease the amount of smoke particles from the comet and it will even out.

And that's it! That's how simple a battery is to make.

Next Lesson: Lesson 6A - Glitter (Basic)

Edited April 22Apr 22 by StickyGum32