• Adobe After Effects

  Mask out CC Particle World?

  Posted by John Felt on April 25, 2008 at 11:20 pm

  Hi there

  I am working on a project where I am using CC particle world. I was wondering if anyone might have an idea if there was a simple way to mask out the particles.

  Here’s my issue:

  I have CC particle on top of a text layer. The producer is in the middle of the text. I want the particles to come out on top of the text. As the particles reach the last letters of the word, however, I want them to go underneath those letters. I realize I could break up the word and put the last letters on a different layer on top of Particle World, but for a variety of animation reasons, that would be a highly time-consuming task.

  What I wanted to do was just put a mask on the Particle World layer over those last letters, so the particles would disappear when they reached those letters. However, a mask does not mask out particles.

  Does anyone have any thoughts on a simple way to do this?

  Thank you very much for any help you can offer, it is highly appreciated.

  Best, John

  Jeremy Fabiano replied 18 years ago 3 Members · 5 Replies
• 5 Replies

• 

  Joey Foreman

  April 25, 2008 at 11:25 pm

  Precompose the particle layer, then add your mask.
• 

  John Felt

  April 25, 2008 at 11:30 pm

  Duh! Can’t believe I didnt think about that. Thanks!
• 

  Jeremy Fabiano

  April 29, 2008 at 10:04 am

  There’s another way to this which gives you a little more control and allows you to blend it with other layers..

  I did a DBZ-style aura and had to feather and mask parts of it..

  ended up like this in the time line:

  ORIGINAL FOOTAGE DUPLICATE (with masks and feathers added here)
  CC PARTICLE WORLD
  ORIGINAL FOOTAGE

  Here’s how it turned out..
  https://youtube.com/watch?v=weXo2r3gdrs

  You’ll notice the aura is around me completely, but in front you can barely see tinges of blue where I feathered it.

  Hope this gives you some more possibilities 🙂

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• 

  John Felt

  April 29, 2008 at 2:53 pm

  Hey

  Thanks for the help. Ill definitely try that out. Incidentally those arau lines are exactly what i’ve been trying to get with particle world but havent had much look. Any chance you’d be abele to share your cc particleworld parameters that got you that look?

  Much thanks again!
  John
• 

  Jeremy Fabiano

  April 29, 2008 at 4:43 pm

  Well, unfortunately its more than just CCPW at work there… I also had to throw in Trapcode’s SHINE plugin to get the fiery look, it just wasn’t working right without it..

  If you need any of th einfo I’d be more than happy to share, shoot me an email if need be.

  jeremyfabiano at gmail dot com

  Hope this helps 🙂

  -Jeremy

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