Shatter trail

Shatter trail leaves copies of a moving object behind it that break into glass. Each copy is cut into shards from the object's own triangles; every shard lets go at its own moment, turns about its centre and drifts outward, glassy with a faint body and a bright rim, until it is gone. The object itself stays whole. It works wherever the object moves, from an effect such as Slam, an animation clip, an ongoing motion or a drag in the studio, and leaves nothing while it stands still.

How it works

A copy is laid each time the object has travelled a set distance. Its shards are real pieces of the object's surface grouped around scattered points, so they are clean chunks with edges, not dust. Amount lays copies more often and cuts them into more shards. Kept on an object, the trail switches on before the entrance and keeps going through the exit, and it combines with every other trail.

Settings

- Length: how long each shattering copy lasts. - Amount: how often a copy is left and how many shards it breaks into. - Size: how far the shards drift apart. - Strength: how bright the glass looks. - Shard colour and Rim colour: the glass and the light along its edges. - Fade: how long the trail takes to switch on and off.

Use it for

Impact and speed, action and game scenes, crystal and glass products. To break the object itself, use Shatter.