Fields in the Fountain Editing dialog allow you to use the existing effect or modify it to create specialized fountains. You can set the color, emission velocity, acceleration, and spread. If you check the Cone spray checkbox, the particles spray out in a cone.
Most of the Fountain settings have numeric fields as well as sliders. In many cases, you can enter numbers that are higher or lower than those allowed using the sliders.
· Angle of Spray. The pie-shaped field allows you to set the cone angle of the spray coming out of the fountain. You can click and drag to set the angle, or enter numbers in the field.
NOTE: Angle of Spray displays in the color of the effect. In Soap Bubbles and other nearly transparent effects, it is a very pale color. You may have to look closely to see it in the dialog.
· Texture/FX pop-up. Apply any listed texture or effect to the fountain.
· Color. Lets you set the overall color of the particles.
· Amount. The amount of particles emitted.
· Size. The minimum and maximum size of the particles.
· Bounce. Use the sliders to determine how much energy the particles have - how many times they will bounce.
· Life. Sets the life span of the particles. The life span of each individual particle is generated at random in between the settings of the two sliders.
· Speed. The initial speed at which the particles are emitted.
· Spin. Use the sliders to give the particles spin.
· Seed. The uniqueness of each fountain.
· Weight. This setting determines how fast the particles fall.
· Cone spray checkbox. If this box is checked, the water sprays out along the perimeter of the cone like an old-fashioned lawn sprinkler.
The controls at the lower section of the palette let you determine the type of particle in your Fountain effect.
· Sphere. Selects spheres of varying size, depending on your settings. This is the default setting. It is also uses the least memory.
· Metaball. The Spheres which are emitted from your Fountain will melt together, just like the Metaball modeler. The slider sets the Radius of influence. This choice requires more memory.
· Shapes. This option lets you choose a shape or shapes to be emitted from your Fountain. The pop-up contains all of the shapes currently loaded.
· Randomize. If you have selected more than one shape (see above), enabling this checkbox causes the shapes to be emitted in a random, rather than regular, order.
WARNING: Because of the number, complexity and motion of the shapes you can generate, the Metaball and Shapes options can be VERY memory intensive. Just because you can choose to generate a fountain of B-52s, doesn't mean you should. Your system may not be powerful enough to handle the calculations, and rendering times could get very long.
Wind speed and Gravity also affect the particles, by interacting with the Speed and Weight controls to affect buoyancy. These controls are found in the Air tab of the Environment palette.
To delete a Fountain, use the Texture tab of the Object Properties palette. In the Texture list, highlight the name of the Fountain or other effect, then click the Delete button.