ATPA Lesson 7: Palms

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age, the videos included with the academy are of a lackluster quality, and some of the information in these lessons is outdated.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

7 –Palms

Palms are often referred to as 'tailed peonies' but that's an incorrect generalization. Palms use an additional emitter that controls the grouping of the burst. Instead of simply adding a tail to your peony shell, we're going to start from scratch to illustrate the difference between a tailed peony and a palm.

You can see that there are distinct arms in a palm - a peony would simply throw stars in random directions.

Before we begin, I want to share this diagram with you. This should be your emitter structure for every effect you make from now on. Certain emitters might not be utilized, but you should prepare your effects for the off chance that you MIGHT use them. They don't really cost you anything to add in.

1 - CONTROL - How long your entire effect is / what default color it is.
2 - LAUNCH ROTATION - A useful emitter when you want to create a 'fan' launch. For this lesson we won't use it, but it's important nonetheless.
3 - LAUNCH - Shell goes up...
4 - STOP LAUNCH - Stops the launch motion and sets the firework up to burst.
5 - BURST SHAPE - Designates what shape your burst will be (round, irregular, one-sided, mirrored, perfectly spaced).
6 - THROW - The size and direction of your pyro burst. This emitter is also the beginning of your ProColor formula (Outer Glow).

1. We're going to start like we start any other shell. To the single emitter, add 2 more emitters to control the potential launch rotation and the launch itself.

A) Control
B) Launch Rotation (optional emitter)
C) Launch

Use the same description settings (particle, speed, life, etc) you used for your peony including a stop launch emitter. After that, you should have 4 emitters.

At this point, it's a very basic setup. Control - Launch Rotation - Launch - Stop Launch.

2. Now add a 5th & 6th emitter. This is where the formula changes a bit. We want to group clusters of stars at the burst instead of having them spread out all uniformly. On the 5th emitter, add 10 particles (this will control the amount of clusters) and on the 6th emitter, add 6 particles (this will control the amount of arms). You should now have 60 potential 'arms' grouped in 10 clusters.

Control - Launch Rotation - Launch - Stop Launch - Burst Shape (10) - Throw (6)

3. Now we need to add some properties for these emitters:

Burst Shape (5th emitter)
SPEED - 0.01
SPHERE - 10
Parent - 0.00
LIFETIME - 0.05

Throw (6th emitter)
SPEED - 0.00
SPHERE - 2.00
Parent - 1.00
LIFETIME - 3.25 - Random 30% (0.30)
DRAG ~0.20
GRAVITY ~0.15

(~) - "not totally equal to"

Note - Throw is also the emitter that begins your ProColor formula. Throw is your Outer Glow.

4. You should have some nice motion happening, but it's a pretty skeletal effect. During this time, add your ProColor formula, add your die-off emitters and be sure to clean up any straggling white particle emitters. If you're unsure of anything I'm talking about, be sure to review older lessons where I go further into detail. From here on out, the lessons will start to get really technical and concise.

You should now have something that looks like this.

5. The last step is to give the tails some life. We're going to use a variation of the moderate glitter from the last lesson. We can't simply copy and paste the glitter because we'd crash the game! Because this glitter will be multiplied 60 times (60 arms) we need to edit down the details of the glitter without losing the lush quality. This requires that you experiment quite a bit. I'll give you a cheat sheet for now though.

A) Your ProColor formula
B) Die-off Emitter
C) (Moderate) Glitter Tail

C1:START TIME - 0.05
PARTICLES - 140
POS SPHERE - 0.05
SPEED - 0.55
SPHERE - 0.40
Parent - .03
SPIN OFFSET X - 3.29
SPIN RATE Y - 3.52
SPIN RATE Z - (-4.27)
LIFETIME - .05

C2:
END TIME - 0.95
PARTICLES - 2
SPEED - 0.70
SPHERE - 0.10
Parent - 0.40
SPIN OFFSET Z - 4.71
LIFETIME - 1.60 @ 100% RANDOMNESS

C3:
START TIME - .50 @ 20% RANDOMNESS
PARTICLES - 2
LIFETIME - 0.10

These values are not one-size fits all solutions. They also do not factor in the look of the particles - you need to figure that out on your own based on the things you learned from the previous Glitter lessons. Experiment until it works.

6. If you have done everything right, your palm should look something like this:

It takes time and a little bit of a patience, but you can achieve some pretty spectacular effects!

7. Name your effect, save your effect (don't forget .frw!) and submit with a video containing multiple palms in a variety of colors. Be bold and experiment with Silver and White tailed glitter too!

Next Lesson: Lesson 8 - Willows

Edited April 22Apr 22 by StickyGum32