• Adobe After Effects

  particular – particles in the shape of a morphing object how??

  Posted by Scott G on April 6, 2005 at 2:45 am

  hi,

  i’m trying to constrain my particles to a particular (no pun intended) shape. a simple example: a circle fills with particles, then the circle morphs into a square and the particles shuffle around to fill the new shape. think of those old rice commercials where the rice builds different objects on the plate, or the bread commercial for bergen where the bread grains form different symbols.

  is this even possible with trapcode particular? using a 3d program is not an option.

  i have tried using walls/floors as a bounce object, but because the particles are in 3d space and my wall/floor is a plane, this doesn’t work. you get all the other particles at a different z position going in front of / behind the shape i want them to fill.
  i thought i could render a b/w animation of morphing objects and then just use the alpha as a wall – the “infinite plane” option seemed to suggest to me that the alpha could extend infinitely into z space (it’s really only the z constraint i’m interested in, as the camera is locked off in front of the object).

  any help appreciated!!
  thanks,
  scott.

  Paolo1234567891 replied 21 years, 1 month ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Alexxx

  April 6, 2005 at 7:14 am

  Hi Scott,

  Quick question, do your particles HAVE to be 3D? Would a 2D particle solution also work for you?

  Alex

  http://www.lightdrop.com.au
• 

  Paolo1234567891

  April 6, 2005 at 9:33 pm

  I’m trying to create a similar effect but having trouble creating it
  with particular as well.
• 

  Scott G

  April 14, 2005 at 12:36 am

  so as far as i can figure out, i can’t do it with particular. no, the particles don’t have to be 3d, but i’ve tried ae’s built-in particle playground and that was a disaster )the particles don’t fill complicated shapes very well at all) and also the cc particle thingy, i forget what it’s called now. i even tried foam, and that actually worked the best out of all, but even that was awful. we’ve passed it to our 3d dept now. the reason i said inititally “no 3d” was because i wanted to do it myself in 3d. 🙂 that’s it. i suppose some things just can’t be done though…
• 

  Paolo1234567891

  April 14, 2005 at 8:19 am

  I suggest using, Cinema 4d, I’ve had it for a day and have made some amazing stuff with it already. https://www.hypa.tv/tims/animations.html Here are some examples and here is a link for the demo https://www.maxoncomputer.com/download_demo.asp. You can export the animation as a comp to ae or even as an alpha channel, C4D is a MUST for motion artists. GL

Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up