Trails

In motion graphics, an object moving rapidly across the screen without motion blur looks unnatural and choppy. While Oraphim offers standard optical motion blur, stylized motion graphics often require exaggerated, graphical Trails.

Creating a Simple Graphic Trail

To create a streak or trail that follows behind a moving object (like a shooting star, a glowing bullet, or a fast-moving text logo), you use the Trails node.

  1. Add your object (e.g., an sEllipse rasterized through an sRender).
  2. Keyframe the object so it flies across the screen from left to right.
  3. Select the object node and add a Trails node immediately after it.
  4. Connect the output of the Trails node to a Merge node to view it over your background.

Configuring the Trail

Select the Trails node and open the Inspector.

  • Length: Determines how many frames of history the node remembers. If you set this to 10, the trail will stretch back exactly 10 frames behind the moving object.
  • Fade: Controls how quickly the tail of the trail fades to 0% opacity. For a shooting star effect, you want the head of the object to be solid, and the tail to slowly fade into nothingness.
  • Merge Mode: Determines how the overlapping echoes of the object blend together. Setting this to "Screen" or "Add" works exceptionally well for bright, glowing objects.

Particle Trails (pSpawn)

If you are using the true 3D Particle system and want your particles to leave smoke trails behind them as they fly (like a firework rocket), you cannot use the standard 2D Trails node. You must use pSpawn.

  1. Create a standard particle system (pEmitter -> pRender).
  2. Insert a pSpawn node directly after the pEmitter.
  3. In the Inspector for pSpawn, you define what the secondary particles look like. You are telling the system: "For every primary rocket particle that exists, spawn 50 secondary smoke particles behind it."

This allows you to create highly complex, cascading particle systems (e.g., a firework shoots up, spawns smoke trails, then dies, spawning 100 explosion particles).