• Required Products: None
  

Zap, sizzle, crackle, and glow! This effects set provides a large variety of dramatic and beautiful fantasy and sci-fi effects– magical shields, glowing barriers, lightning bolts, muzzle flashes, and more. The set consists of five figures, each with its own array of features and possibilities.

• File List

• You can find new icons for loading this product in the following Poser Libraries:
  • Figures: “B9999_FX P4”
  • Figures: “B9999_FX P5”
  • Pose: “B9999_FX_MAT P4”
  • Pose: “B9999_FX_MAT P5”

• You can find new icons for loading this product in the following DAZ Studio Folders:
  • “B9999_FX”
  • “Shaders:B9999_FX”

• You can find new icons for this product in the following DAZ Studio Categories:
  • “Materials:Props”
  • “Poses:Props and Accessories”
  • “Props:Effects”

• Loading an Effect
  • Choose the figure you want to use (you can look through the MAT pose thumbnails or shader thumbnails to see which figure is used for each effect).
  • All of the effects figures load in untextured, so that you can see them easily for positioning, resizing, etc. Except for the Flared Flash, the figures are all quite large, and you may need to scale them down considerably for some uses, such a ball of lightning around a figure's hand.
  • Once you have positioned and sized the figure, apply one of the preset effects for that figure. In Poser, use a MAT Pose File (found in “B9999_FX_MAT”). In DAZ Studio, use a material preset (found in “B9999_FX_Preset” in your “shaders” directory). Each preset has a prefix indicating which figure it is to be used with, as follows:
    • FE = Flex Effect
  • FF = Flared Flash
  • MC = MultiCylinder
  • MSq = MultiSquare
  • MS = MultiSphere</ul>
• Special Notes to DAZ Studio Users:</b>
  • Be sure you use the material presets designed for DAZ Studio, and NOT the Poser MAT files. Poser and DAZ Studio handle diffuse and ambient color differently, and if you use the Poser MAT files in DAZ Studio, the diffuse and ambient colors will NOT be set correctly.
  • You will need to use both a material preset and a pose preset for some of the effects. Where this is the case, the material preset and the pose preset have the same name, except that the material preset has an “-M” suffix and the pose preset has a “-P” suffix, like this:
  • >MSq_Mandala-M<br>

MSq_Mandala-P

• The “Reset” Presets
  • Some of the effects presets involve resizing or rotating one or more of the figure's components. Therefore, after using one preset but before using another, use the appropriate “reset” preset to return the figure and its components to their default size and position. There are two “reset” presets for each figure:
  • “All_AmbWhite” removes all texture maps and returns all materials to transparent ambient white.
  • “All_Reset” restores all ERC controls, translations, rotations, and scaling to the default settings.

• Notes on the Various Figures
  • The Flex Effect
    • Do NOT use diffuse color on the Flex Effect! Because of its somewhat unorthodox geometry, the Flex Effect does NOT render properly with diffuse color applied and shows odd shadows at the joints. (These odd shadows also appear in “preview” mode in Poser and DAZ Studio.) However, it renders fine if only ambient colors are used. Since the presets all use only ambient color, this will not be a problem unless you make the mistake of appling diffuse color.
    • ERC. The Flex Effect has ERC controls (in the “body” of the figure) to bend, curl, or S-curve the figure front-to-back or side-to-side.
    • The figure is not designed to form tight spirals or extreme S-curves; it is intended to form slight-to-moderate curls and S-curves for spaceship exhausts, comet tails, and the like.
  • The Flared Flash
    • ERC. The Flared Flash has ERC controls (in the “body”) to change the diameter of two of the cylinders, and to change the width and length of the flat panels in tandem. Thus, you can widen or narrow, or lengthen or shorten, both panels at once, or change the diameter of a cylinder by turning only one dial.
    • Parenting. You will most likely want to parent the Flared Flash to something else, such as a gun prop or a figure's hand. To do this, do the following:
      • In Poser:
        • Select the effect figure's “hip” bodypart;
        • Go to the “Figure” menu and select “Set Figure Parent”;
        • Select the prop or figure body part (e.g., “Right Hand”) to which you want to parent the effect;
        • Click “OK.”
      • In DAZ Studio:
        • Go to the “Scene” window;
        • Select the effect figure;
        • Drag and drop it onto the prop or body part to which you want to parent it.
  • The MultiCylinder
    • ERC. The MultiCylinder has ERC controls to change the diameter of each of the two outer cylinders. For the four slender inner cylinders, it also has ERC controls to change the diameter of all four cylinders at once, to lengthen or shorten them, and to move them inward toward, or outward away from, the center.
    • Uses. The MultiCylinder is not so much an “effect” as it is a versatile “thingamajig” that you can use for a variety of purposes– for instance, to create a cylindrical tank for suspended animation, or part of a piece of equipment in a lab. You can even scale it down and use it as the barrel on a sci-fi gun or cannon. The more you play around with it, the more uses will suggest themselves to you.
  • The MultiSquare
    • ERC. The MultiSquare has twelve ERC controls (in the “body”) as follows:
    • The three “Spread” controls spread the four layers apart evenly– front-to-back, side-to-side, or up-and-down. Layer 1 remains stationary, Layer 4 moves the most, and the other two layers are spaced evenly between Layer 1 and Layer 4.
    • The three relative rotation contols (“RelRot”) rotate the layers proportionately on the indicated axis. Layer 1 remains stationary, Layer 4 rotates the most, and the other two layers are rotated evenly between them. (The “RelRot_Z” control is used in many of the presets to create the intricate mandala-like patterns.)
    • The three tandem rotation controls (“TndRot”) rotate the layers equally on the indicated axis– that is, if you turn the “TndRot_Y” dial to 45, all four layers will be rotated 45 degrees on the Y axis.
    • The “Rel-Scale” control scales the layers proportionately. Layer 1 remains the same size, Layer 4 increases or decreases the most (depending on which way you turn the dial), and the other two layers are sized relative to Layers 1 and 4. This control is also used in several of the presets.
    • The two “AllScale” controls scale all four layers equally on the indicated axis. For instance, if you turn the “AllScale_Y” dial to -0.5, all four layers will be scaled to half their normal height.
    • Scaling, Rotating, and Translating Individual Layers. You can, of course, scale, rotate, or translate the layers individually, thus giving you even more control in customizing the appearance of the effect.
    • Note Regarding the “Doorway” Effect: The “Doorway” effect comes with one image for the “view” through the doorway (a picture of a woodland trail with a deer). You will probably want to use your own image instead. To do so, find the template called “MSq_DoorwayImage.” Paste your image onto the template, making sure your image is just large enough to cover the white area. (The template is rather small, so you will probably want to resize it larger to get better resolution.) Then save the image under whatever name you want, and load it onto Layer 2 of the Multisquare. In Poser 4, load it as the “Texture Map.” In Poser 5 and in DAZ Studio, load it into the “Diffuse Color” channel.
  • The MultiSphere
    • ERC. The MultiSphere has the same ERC controls as the MultiSquare, except that it has an extra “AllScale” control for the Z axis.
    • Bumpy Morph. Each sphere has a “bumpy” morph in case you don't want a “too perfect” sphere. This is useful for achieving a better effect with the Lightning preset, as well as achieving some interesting effects with the other presets.

• Customizing Effects. The effects set works fine as a “load-and-use” package, but it is also designed for the user who likes to play and experiment and customize. For instance, load in the MultiSquare and apply the RadialFlare preset– and then experiment with changing the ambient colors on the different layers, using different size and rotation settings, etc. You can create a considerable variety of effects merely by modifying that one preset. Or, load in the MultiCylinder and experiment with changing the dimensions and positions of the cylinders, and see what you can create with it.
• There are 123 transparency maps (including 18 transparency gradient maps), and 60 color maps (mostly simple color gradients). Many of these are not used in any of the presets, so there are plenty of “Easter eggs” for you to discover and use in creating your own custom effects.
• Combining Effects. You can also use two or more effects together– for instance, use the MultiSphere to create a lightning ball, and use the Flex effect to create a lightning “tail” for it. Note: If you have more than two of the same effect in a scene in Poser 4, you will have the same kind of “cross-talk” between them as you would have between a figure and its clothing. This may be either a benefit or a hindrance, depending on what you're doing. However, you can eliminate the cross-talk effect by using the same method as you would with a figure and its clothing.

• 2016-01-19 - Removed no longer working Daz Studio files.
• 2012-09-10 - 1.3 - Fixed installer uninstalling issue, added metadata.

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