In the last recipe, we switched a few parameters in the HUD for our replicator of stars; however, if we're looking to fine-tune the replicator, we need to go to the Inspector. Let's take a look at the additional parameters available.
In the exercise folder of this chapter, double-click on the 08_02 project. Play back the project. If you've worked on the previous exercise, you'll see it's where we finished tweaking our replicator in the HUD.
- Select Replicator in the Layers tab. Press the F4 key to open the Emitter tab of the Inspector. In the Cell Controls add an Angle Randomness value of
90. Each star now starts from a different angle position. - Change the value of Color Mode to Over Pattern.
- Under the Gradient Presets menu to the right-hand side of Color Gradient, change it to Rainbow as indicated in the following screenshot:
- Change the value of Color Repetitions to 20 and the Scale End to 20. Notice how the gradient wraps around the stars and how the stars start at 100 and get smaller as you move clockwise around the circle.
- As a final step, change the value of Build Style to Counter Clockwise and scrub the offset value to see how you can change the position of where the first star begins. When you're done, change the value of Offset to 80%.
Like emitters, you can use your own custom shape as a source to spread out the image you're replicating in that pattern. For example, if you change the shape of your replicators to Image and use Text as the source, the replicator will spell out the word if a substantial amount of points are made, the stars are small enough, and the value of Arrangement is set to Random Fill. See the following screenshot for reference:
- The Creating a replicator and changing parameters in the HUD recipe of this chapter
- The Customizing a gradient generator recipe of Chapter 2, Looking at Motion's Library