Creating a Material for the Explosion
 
 
 

Next, you'll create a material for the explosion.

Create a material for the explosion:

  1. Open the Material Editor.
  2. Select an unused sample sphere and name the material Explosion.
  3. Click Assign Material To Selection.
    TipIf the plane is no longer selected, you can drag the material from the sample slot to Explosion Plane01 .
  4. In the Blinn Basic Parameters rollout, click the blank button to the right of the Diffuse color swatch.

    The Material/Map Browser dialog is displayed.

  5. Click Bitmap in the dialog, and then click OK.

    The Select Bitmap Image File dialog is displayed.

  6. Use the Select Bitmap Image File dialog to find and choose hercules.avi.

    The Preview window displays the first frame of the animation, which is solid black.

  7. Click Open.

    The animation is incorporated in the material as a Diffuse map.

  8. On the Material Editor toolbar, click to turn on Show Map In Viewport.

    You can now see the frames of the animation on the plane object in the viewport.

    TipTo see the animation in the viewport, drag the time slider forward. (The first frame of the animation, which displays at frame 0, is black.)

    The material sample is currently a sphere. You can change that to a box to give you an undistorted view of the animated map.

  9. On the Material Editor vertical toolbar (to the right of the sample slots), choose the Box from the Sample Type flyout.

    The Material sample is now a box, not a sphere.

  10. Move the time slider and watch the explosion play on the plane in the viewport.

Next

Adding an Opacity Map