Apple Motion 4 - Manual (Page 602)

About Particle Systems
Particle systems consist of two basic elements: a cell and an emitter. Think of the cells as
the “mold” for the particles that are generated by the emitter. You can use nearly any
layer or group in Motion as a source for a particle cell, including images, shapes, text,
movies, and image sequences. Each particle that is created is essentially a duplicate of
the original cell, and is animated according to the parameters for that particle system (a
particle cell and emitter) over its lifetime.
Object prior to becoming a particle system Particle system
The layer you use as a particle system’s cell determines how that particle system looks.
Particle systems can contain multiple cells, resulting in the release of several types of
particles from a single emitter. You’ll find that many of the most sophisticated particle
presets in the Particle Emitters library are constructed in this way.
Particle system based on a single cell Particle system based on two cells
602 Chapter 11 Working with Particles