Particle Illusion 2023
Michelle Lemay
So an emitter is made up of particle types, and particle types are made from images, and particles are created by the emitter based on the properties of its particle types. In other words, an emitter creates particles which combine to form the visual effect.
So a super emitter is made up of free emitter types and free emitters are created by the super emitter based on the properties of its free emitter type. Each free emitter type consists of particle types, and particles are created by each free emitter based on the properties of its particle type. In other words, a super emitter creates free emitters, which in turn create particles which combine to form the visual effect.
These Emitter Library emitters are the starting point for building new particle effects: the first step in building an animation is to add one or more emitters from the Emitter Library to your project.
Background Image: When on the background will be an image instead of a solid color. Useful for some effects, especially if they get their colors from the source layer. (Particles can get their colors from source only in the plugin version). Note that selecting an emitter that gets its color from the source will use this image automatically for the particles regardless of the setting of this option.
Background Color: Although many particles look best when shown on a black background, some need a lighter color to display correctly (this is often indicated in the thumbnail image for the emitter with a grey or white background). Use this to set the background to any color.
Record Emitter Position Button: This allows you to record and playback movement in the preview. Click this button to turn it red, then click and drag around the preview. When you release the mouse button playback will automatically start and continue until you click this button again to stop it. This allows you to select and preview different emitters without needing to manually drag around the preview each time.
Scenes are similar to emitters in a library in that they both are a type of preset, both have thumbnail images, and both are added to the project in the same way. There are significant differences though:
Before looking at the parameters in the Controls View, remember from earlier that a regular emitter is made up of one or more particle types, and a super emitter is made up of one or more free emitter types, which in turn contain one or more particle types. This relationship is clearly seen in the Nodes View:
Although a large number of emitters work great when converted to 3D, the legacy ones were all created in 2D, and may rely on tricks of the 2D rendering pipeline that no longer exist in the 3D renderer. For instance:
The gradient preset dialog, besides letting you choose a preset, allows you to reorder the presets by moving the selected preset up/down, delete the selected preset, and restore all factory presets (in case you deleted some and want to restore the full set).
The parameters in this group allow you to adjust the noise field of each particle type individually. Remember that the base Turbulence Field settings are made in the Emitter Properties, and by default each particle type in the emitter will use the same settings.
When the sprite contains multiple frames, you can use the arrow keys below the preview to switch frames, or you can just scroll when your mouse cursor is over the image (using your mousewheel or trackpad scroll gesture).
If you really do want to use every one of the settings you had previously, including the seed image, the History keeps all of your previous generate results, including a scaled version of the resultant images:
Select any history item and all of its settings are restored, including the generated images. The images stored in the History will probably be smaller than freshly-generated images, but may still be a useful size-as is.
The interpolation control is between the two key navigation buttons, and is used to switch the interpolation type of the current key. Note that if the CTI is not at a keyframe, the interpolation type will not display (will show as an empty box).
The buttons with the left and right arrows are key navigation controls, and they have the same effect as the buttons to the right of the parameter value in the Controls View: they move the CTI to the next or previous data key (if they exist).
Emitter (and other object) position changes, for animation or not, can be made in the Stage by clicking and dragging the emitter. (This is usually much easier than manually creating position keys by entering specific values in the Controls View.)
There are three modes for the widgets/interactors which are indicated by the icons above the stage (see image above): translate, rotate, and scale. You can switch between the modes using the hotkeys W, E, and R (as shown in the tooltips for each mode icon).
These allow you to toggle playback, move one frame forward/back, move 10 frames forward/back, or jump to the start frame (frame 0) or end frame. The spacebar is a keyboard shortcut for the play button.
Just above the Mini Timeline are the trim controls for setting the In and Out points. Drag them to set the playback range, or double-click between them to clear both of them and reset to the full play range.
You will have noticed that in the mini timeline there is a cyan line that draws from frame 1 to the CTI. This is the cache indicator. Particle Illusion will cache particle calculations which allows for better performance when scrubbing the timeline (under many circumstances). Note that it is not an image cache, so for projects with a large number of particles you may still not get smooth scrubbing.
Abstract - AlphaFromLayer - Background - Cartoon, Toon - Clouds - Creatures - Disintegrate, Disintegration - Dust - Explosion, Burst, Pyro - Fire, Flames, Pyro - Fireworks, Pyro - Geometry, Shapes - Magic - Nature - Rain - Sci-Fi - Smoke - Snow - Space - Sparkles - Sparks - Teleport, Transport - Text - Texture - Trail - UI, HUD, Interface - Water - Distortion
Bright - Colorful - Dark - Extreme - Falling - Fast - Fiery - Flowing, Drifting - Geometric - Glowing - Lines - Miscellaneous,Misc - Natural - Puff - Rising - Simple - Slow - Smoky - Smooth - Sparkly - Turbulent, Turbulence
Preview Background: Select compositing over Black, checkerboard (which shows transparency), Source Frame, or Source Video. Note that the options in this list are ordered by performance, with fastest at the top and slowest at the bottom. (Source Frame and Source Video are only available in Particle Illusion Pro.)
Motion Blur: toggles motion blur for the Composite View. Performance is increased with motion blur off. (Note that the motion blur settings are in the Project Settings dialog covered later).
(The number of motion blur frames and the project resolution are both set in the Project Settings dialog, unless running as a plugin, when resolution is set by the host, and motion blur frames might also be set there.)
Force objects apply an acceleration to any particles that enter their area, a bit like wind (or a magnet depending on the force type). Force objects can also provide the complex, organic movement of fluid dynamics to your project.
In addition to the parameters that the Area Force has (Strength, Direction, Angle, Width, Height), a Grid Force has Grid X and Grid Y parameters to set the number of horizontal and vertical divisions, and Variation parameters for Strength and Direction.
With Direction Variation set to the maximum (360 degrees), each cell will point in a random direction. Depending on the placement of the emitter, the Strength value, and a few other options (Strength Variation, the velocity of the particles, number of grid cells, etc.) you can get very complex, organic particle motion:
The motion becomes even more interesting if the emitter and particles move into different cells over time. For example animating the Position, Angle or Direction of the Force can result in very sophisticated particle motion.
The Project Settings Window allows for customization of the current project: Stage size, Duration, Frame Rate and other features. (When PI is launched from a host such as Adobe After Effects, many of these parameters are pulled directly from the host itself, and cannot be changed).
Another feature available only when licensed is the importing of position data from text files generated by Mocha Pro or SynthEyes. You can import position data for the PI camera or for any emitter in your project.
Note that if you are unable to see the HUD even when it is turned on, check these preferences to ensure that the Opacity has not inadvertently been set to a very low value. (Note that you will not be able to set this lower than 20 percent. If you want to turn off the HUD, use the HUD button above the stage.)
Option/Alt click on a bezier handle in the Stage to disconnect from the other handle (disconnected handles move independently of each other). Option/Alt click on either disconnected handle to connect them again.
Particle Illusion is a powerful particle generator that gives users instant access to 3D particles. Available as a standalone application. Quickly create photorealistic particle effects to use for motion graphics, visual effects, titles, and lower thirds.
First released in 2020, the free standalone edition includes most of the key features of the commercial plugin, supporting unlimited particles and emitters; layers, forces and deflectors; and integrated motion blur.
I recently visited the wondertouch.com and I discovered a cool particle generator (Particle Illusion 3) capable to produce smoke, fire, explosions, sparks, etc. and Im wondering if is around here a more inexpensive program alternative able to produce the same efects?
Has anyone got any experience with Particle Illusion? I acquired the standalone version with Title Studio and I wanted to output a video from it that has a transparent background. Unfortunately the render format options are perplexing for someone like me who is not savvy on the subject. I know it should have an alpha channel, but that's about all. I want to be able to pull it into Vegas Pro so that it overlays another event with its background allowing the event to show through. Can someone enlighten me? Thanks in advance.
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