Apple Motion 2 Tutorials - Manual (Page 186)

186 Tutorial 4 Working With Particles
Now some of the butterflies are larger than 60 percent, and some are smaller.
Although the butterfly clip is only 40 frames long, the particle system’s duration is
determined by the length of the project. The Life parameter determines the duration of
individual particles.
5 Play the project.
6 Save your project (press Command+S).
Using Custom Gradients
The default colors of the butterflies do not match the background. Use the gradient of
the Sky object as the gradient for the Color Over Life parameter of the particles. This
can be accomplished in one of two ways: by saving the gradient used in the Sky object
as a custom gradient, and then applying it to the particle system; or by picking the
colors from the background in the same manner as Exercise 1.
In this lesson, save the shape’s gradient to the Library and apply it to the butterfly cells.
Change the color properties of the butterflies to better integrate them with the
project’s background.
To modify the colors:
m In the Emitter tab, choose Over Life from the Color Mode pop-up menu.
Over Life applies a color tint to a particle during its lifetime, beginning with the color
on the left side of the color bar, and ending with the color on the right.