time loop, and water question.

Hi again. I have 2 questions; one dealing with time loop, and the second is sparkling and ripples in water.

For the time loop, what does the local time do? I’ve figured out what the link time does, and what the durations does in the parems pannel, but Idk what the local time does.

My second question is how to do sparkles and ripples in the water. I’ve tried using the noise distortion (somehow) but I really can’t wrap my head around it. In fact, I may need help with water all together. I’m thinking I’m needing the warp layer and to do something else with it, but I’m not completely sure.

I’m useing these question for 2 different things right now lol, but if the time loop is needed for the water, I will use it there too.

Thanks.

I don’t know time loops very well. They are a sticking point for me as well… just looked at the wiki. “local time” seem just to be the start time–the time in the larger timetrack that your loop starts playing.

For water… Hmmm… sounds like a good challenge topic to me. For ripples I think I would start with an animated curved gradient. Sparkles… don’t know. I’ll play with it and see what I come up with.

Local time is where the loop starts. If symmetrical is false then before local time there is not loop (the context uses its own time) after local time the loop is applied in cycles. If symmetrical is true then the loop is repeated symmetrically before local time too and then local time just represent the center time of symmetry.

About sparkles you have two options:

  1. Draw and animate each sparkle
  2. Use the particle template wiki.synfig.org/wiki/Particles_V2.0

Before nothing, search for water splashed animations to get the keys you need. Particles wouldn’t give you a great result but might work if you’re in a hurry.
-G

Hope this thread will help you:

Thanks for the help both, but I have another question about water. I am using noise distortion for the sparkles. As I have it now, the main line is hidden behind something while the distortion part animates and looks like it is sparkling. Is there a way to get the while line to distort like the “Sparkles” do without hiding the main line? You know, like turn that main line into little dots.

If you have the default blend method on the Toolbox defined to “By Layer Default”, for the new layers the blend method is taken from the creted layer type. So for instance, for any geometry layer the blend method is “Composite”. For most of the distortions layers the blend method is “Straight” what makes the context of the distortion layer dissapear and only shows the distorted effect.
To reveal the context you just have to change the blend method of the Noise Distort layer to “Composite”.
Other blend methods produces some kind of nice special effects (try Alpha Over on the Noise Distort).
-G

Cool it worked! Before the sunlight sparkles on the were too big and numerous because I had to make a long line. Now that its hidden, I shortened it, and the shineing makes alot more sense.

Thanks again.