michiel | 8 years ago | 4 comments | 9 likes | 4.2K views

LostBoyz, IntroChamp, maxste and 6 others like this!

Here's a trick to make your magma glow.

What is magma?

Magma is molten rock stored in a planet's crust. When it reaches the surface, for example during a volcanic eruption, it is called lava. It's the same stuff and I like the word magma so I call it magma.

Screenshot 1: magma map

A magma map is a B&W texture. Black means the magma is invisible, white means the magma is visible.

Screenshot 2: attach particles

When you attach particles to the magma map (click on the ATTACH PARTCLES TO ACTIVE LAYER... button) , it looks like the 2nd screenshot: the particles are emitted evenly.

Screenshot 3: launch colour tolerance

When you set the LAUNCH COLOUR property of the particle layer to (255,255,255) and the LAUNCH COLOUR TOLERANCE prop to 0.5, the particles are only emitted from the white pixels.

Screenshot 4: displacementmap

Screenshot 4 shows the planet rendered with the AdvancedMaterials\ColourmapDisplacementmapReflectionmap effect, using a colourmap and a displacementmap.

Screenshot 5: result

When you combine this with the magma particles, star particles and a nebula skybox it looks like the last screenshot!

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