• Adobe After Effects

  Particular Emitter Path. Helix/perfect rising circle/orbit and similar.

  Posted by Miles Young on April 28, 2009 at 12:13 pm

  Hi,

  I’ve been trying to get the emitter of my (Particular) particles to move with a helix path but so far without success. Yesterday I tried out the Orbit preset from Andrew Kramer but because of the expressions, I can’t seem to animate the Y axis so that the circle rises.

  The Orbit preset only allows me to change the radius, speed and angle (I think. I’m at a PC right now without AE) and I’m not sure I could edit the expressions myself.

  The aim is to have the particles orbit a person from bottom to top and keyframing this motion by hand is proving time-consuming and tricky.

  I’d appreciate any help!

  Miles

  Ari Grunzeweig replied 10 years, 11 months ago 5 Members · 7 Replies
• 7 Replies

• 

  Kevin Camp

  April 28, 2009 at 5:09 pm

  dave’s process is right on, except for the last step.

  [Dave LaRonde] “Create your Particle layer. With an expression, pick-whip the emitter point to Null #2’s position point.”

  unless something has changed from my version of particular, you’ll want to change the emitter type to ‘layer’ and choose ‘null #2’ as the layer to use, rather than pickwhipping the emitter position to the null.

  in particular the emitter position controls are separated in xy position and z position, making it hard to pickwhip to another 3d layer’s position without using some layer space transforms… yuck.

  Kevin Camp
  Senior Designer
  KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
• 

  Miles Young

  April 28, 2009 at 7:55 pm

  Hi,

  Many thanks to both of you. It didn’t work the first time but changing the emitter type as suggested fixed it.

  If you were both in Munich, I’d get a round of beers in!

  Thanks again.

  Miles
• 

  Miles Young

  April 29, 2009 at 2:17 pm

  I’m not familiar with Salvator but will have a Maß beer for you when I’m out next time 🙂
• 

  Jonathan Cutrell

  September 16, 2009 at 8:28 pm

  Quick note… it is quite possible to use an expression to tie a null to particular.
  If the null object is labeled “Emitter”, these are the expressions to use.

  For the xy position:
  x = thisComp.layer(“Emitter”).transform.position[0];
  y = thisComp.layer(“Emitter”).transform.position[1];
  [x, y]

  For the z position:
  z = thisComp.layer(“Emitter”).transform.position[3];
  [x]

  Works for me every time, unless you are wanting to orient your particles (totally different story though).
• 

  Ari Grunzeweig

  September 25, 2015 at 2:07 am

  Hi,

  This is a very helpful thread!
  Works well for me, but I have one issue… If you look at the attached image, you will note that the motion path created as suggested above is appearing with hard angles and not a smooth curve.

  In my case, I parented a light to Null 1, instead of using a 2nd null.

  Any idea why my circles are harsh? Is there a way to refine?

  Thanks!

  

  Thanks,
  Ari
• 

  Kalleheikki Kannisto

  September 25, 2015 at 11:35 am

  Particular>Emitter>Position Subframe>

  select “10X linear”, work for most cases, there are further options of that doesn’t do it.
• 

  Ari Grunzeweig

  September 25, 2015 at 12:31 pm

  Worked perfectly! Thanks!

  Thanks,
  Ari

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