CREATING SNOW AND RAIN EFFECTS

Snow and Rain effects can be added to individual layers, merged levels and Finished Scenes. By using all levels and the finished scenes a veritable snow storm and rain storm can be built up. The snow and rain effects are created in code with the Tapptoons Animation Studio, rendered as bitmaps and stored in a Snow And Rain Effects directory in the Project Directory. These effects can be re-used in any scene.

Access to the Snow and Rain Effects controls is via the Main Scanning and Editing Form menu `Scene` and its sub-menu. This will bring up the necessary Form as shown below

This image shows a snow storm already in creation but a few settings must be made before it starts. The programme first needs to know if you want a Snow storm, Rain storm or a mix of both. Click the menu settings under Process Images as required.

The intensity of the snow storm is set under the next menu heading

You can adjust the colour of the Snow, Rain and background colour key in the next menu.

The Key Colour can be any colour except the ones you choose for the snow and rain. The Key Colour is used as the transparency key when the snow storm is overlaid onto the animation. The default is pure blue but most colours are okay, the main reason to choose a bold colour is so you can see clearly the effect of the snow and rain as it builds up on the screen.

The Snow and Rain colours default to a bright white but rain often looks better as a dark grey. But you can make it virtually any colour you want for effect.

When you`ve set your colours, left-click on the Total FX Frames menu and the box shown above will appear. The Number of FX Frames required will default to the length of the Dope Sheet but generally you will need MORE than this to build up a good choice of frames. If you have enough hard drive space a setting of 300 frames should be a good chooice.

The default setting of the programme creates effects that start on the left side of the image, moving gradually across to cover the entire frame. If you want your snow and rain to enter from the right hand side of the image click on the Image Flip menu option.

 

When all the options are set left-click the Create button and watch the sequence build up.

When the sequence has been completed you can use the Scroll Bar at the bottom of the form to find a frame on which to start overlaying the weather effects on to your animation levels. If you want to show the beginning of the `storm` you can move the slider right back to frame 1 but you can just as easily start at any point along the scroll bar slider.

When you`ve found your start point left-click the FX Start Frame menu item and the start frame will be registered.

If you have already selected a level to work on from the Dope Sheet on the Main Scanning and Editing Form then this next choice is not necessary but if you haven`t then left-click the Select Level menu item and choose either the level you want to overlay the effects on or the the merged levels tab if that`s what you want to use.

The effects can start at the beginning of the scene or on any frame you choose. Click on the Dope Sheet Start Frame menu item and the box shown below will appear. Type in the start and finish frames as required.

The last step is to left-click the Merge menu item and choose from the four options. The programme will then merge the snow and rain effects with the chosen bitmaps to create the levels or Finished Scene, as required.

 

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