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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects How to create a looping Particle System with moving particles

  • How to create a looping Particle System with moving particles

    Posted by Jamie Macleod on June 21, 2009 at 2:18 pm

    Aharon Rabinowitz details an awesome tutorial here on making a looping particle system for stationary particles, however I need to create a loop for moving particles, which he says “is not impossible in the above tutorial, but doesn’t go into.

    I would greatly appreciate any help, I don’t know if it would be any different when using Particle World, which is what I am using.

    Thanks,

    Jamie MacLeod

    Kevin Camp replied 17 years, 2 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
  • 4 Replies
  • Jon Geddes

    June 21, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    I just recently did this for my latest Pro Motion Menu Kit that will be released very soon. I needed to create a looping particle system (using particle world), that the camera could still fly through. Use the same method mentioned in his tutorial, except don’t precompose the particle layer.

    If you use the wiggle expression to drive any of the parameters of the particle system, then the layer number will effect the expression. So to have all the layers be the same, you would create a null object and give it some expression controls (such as a slider), wiggle that, and then pick whip the particle system’s parameter to the slider control.

    You could also just apply the wiggle to the first particle layer’s parameter, and pickwhip the other layer’s parameters to it. Either way, you just simply can’t have the wiggle effect (or any random based expression) applied to each copy of the particle system.

    If you have any more questions, let me know. I would be happy to answer them for you.

    Jon Geddes
    Providing the Best Motion Menu Templates Available for Video Production
    http://www.precomposed.com

  • Jamie Macleod

    June 22, 2009 at 12:01 pm

    Many thanks for your swift reply, but I would be grateful if you could possibly be clearer about the use of Wiggle, as I have Wiggle gelatin, position, rotation, scale, shear… which do I use?

  • Jon Geddes

    June 22, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    You don’t need to use wiggle for anything. My point was that IF you happened to be using a wiggle expression on any of the parameters of the particle world effect (such as the Y Position of the emitter), then you would have to have the random wiggle generated on a single layer, then pickwhip it’s value to the other copies. A random wiggle applied to each copy of the effect will produce a different value for each one (and then your particles will not loop).

    Jon Geddes
    Providing the Best Motion Menu Templates Available for Video Production
    http://www.precomposed.com

  • Kevin Camp

    June 22, 2009 at 4:28 pm

    when you say ‘moving’ particle, i assumed you meant the particle is either footage or a comp that has an animation…

    if that’s the case, that footage/animation would need to loop and then your looping particle system would need to loop with with a duration that is a multiple of the particle loop… say your particle animation looped at 3 seconds, your particle system loop would need to loop in a multiple of 3, so it would need to be 3 seconds, or 6, 9, etc…

    if it’s a moving emitter, or source, then that movement will need to loop.

    Kevin Camp
    Senior Designer
    KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

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