What's the best method to create a smoke effect in MMF2? Like a dusty/mistiness looming at the bottom of a gloomy cave. It seems like a difficult thing to achieve, as I've noticed if I export a shadow from Photoshop and import it into MMF2 a lot of the transparency data is lost. Thinking about it, this might have something to do with "compress graphics" or whatever the option is for the iOS exporter.
If you have any tips of actually drawing dust then I'd appreciate that. I see a lot of glows and other similar effects in MMF projects from time to time, but don't know how they're done.
I don't have the iOS exporter, but for the Flash exporter you can adjust the transparency of objects.
Right-click on the object in your event list, then select:
Effect -> Compatibility -> Set Transparency
Treat it just like you were adjusting the transparency coefficient (that is, use a number from 0 to 128 .). The higher the number, the more transparent the object becomes. You will need to Always set this coefficient to an Alterable Value if you want it to change via runtime.
As for other effects, I'd combine adjusting the transparency with stretching the X axis of the object, and maybe layering more than one on top of another. Slowly move them up and down, and you have some eerie ground mist.
For puffs of smoke, I'd suggest combining the two effects mentioned above, but rapidly increase both the transparency coefficient and the X scale. You'll see it stretch quickly to the left and right, as well as disappear. For this, you'll definitely need to link the coefficient to an Alterable Value or something like that.
When an object's Alterable Value is equal to or greater than 128, Destroy the Object.
Just a few thoughts, taking for granted that there's a "compatibility" option in the Effect for an Active Object. Hope it's useful.
Export the image as a png 32.
Import into mmf using the import dialog inside the animation editor.
It should retain it's transparency. It does for me!
The compress graphics option can be toggled on/off for each object individually! Check the object properties and turn compression off for the effect object!
Tbh it doesn't really give that much of a performance boost to compress the graphics though, so you should prolly try turning it off first.
Thank you, everyone - The information here is all really useful to me. I had a feeling some may use the Photoshop clouds for this, but wasn't sure about how MMF handled blend modes. A lot of mine seem to be disabled (probably an iOS limitation) but 'add' is there and seems to work well for a few things.
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Edited by s-m-r
