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Vector particles
Hi chaps, very vague question here, I want to create a small particle type animation, something really simple like “discs” floating randomly around, I want to render this out as an SWF (’cause I don’t know how to do this in Flash), ideally I’d like the ’emitter’ to follow a ‘path’ – anyone any thoughts please ? Regards Roger
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4 Replies
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You want particles that are vectors or you want a movie that can be used as a particle that follows a vector path?
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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Sorry Bogiesan – vector particles. Thanks Roger
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Yes you can. Here’s one way.
Using Dan’s 3D Particle Generator, change it to 2D since AE won’t export 3D Vectors graphics, then load in your own vector particle. You can use Audio Spectrum on a mask on a new solid (no audio Referenced) to make your own vector rings. Swap them in for Dan particle. Export as swf.
Download the project file from Dan’s tut “3D Particle Generator”.
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen.php
Make your particle. In a new comp, 128×128 (same size as Dan’s particles), add a new solid and them make a ring with the elliptical mask tool. To that layer add the effect Audio Spectrum. Choose, Path: Mask 1. Display options: Analog lines to get a solid circle. With no Audio Layer, the audio spectrum won’t jump with the beat as there is none to jump to.
Go to the comp “moving emitter”. Delete all but one of Dan particles named “star flare”. Turn off the little 3D cube to turn the particle into a 2D layer (AE won’t export 3D layers as vectors). Select that layer. Now from the project window, Alt Drag your vector comp (the one you just created) onto Dan lone particle. This swaps the vector into the particle, keeping all the original particles code.
You might want to disable an expression or two now. Select the new particle layer and hit EE, to reveal all expression. Click the equal sign next to the Rotation and magically all the rings are now parallel to the ground.
Now duplicate the layers as many times as you want particles, Ctrl D.
Also turn off the eyeball for the layer “spike blob.psd”.
You need to read through Dan’s tut to get a real idea of what’s going on. There are lots of thing you can change, such as gravity (line one in the Position expression), and Particle Life (lines 1 and 2) for the Point expression. Anyway it’s very versatile if you want to tweak the code.
This is my favorite tut of Dan’s.
The file size for the swf isn’t that small, 422 KB for 10 vector circle in Dan’s 4 sec comp, but if it’s Rasterized it jumps to over 2MB. So choose “Ignore>Unsupported Features”. Also Dan’s comps are 640×480, maybe you don’t need that big.
Also if you import (File>Import) that swf into Flash (make stage size the same), then Publish that as a swf, it will be much smaller, That 400kb file dropped to 26 kb when re-published from Flash. Obviously Flash is better at optimizing the vectors.
Methiks most other Particle generators won’t do vectors as even if you sub in a vector particle, AE won’t recogize effects, and Particle generators are effects, except for a few effects like Audio Spectrum, as vectors, but I could be wrong.
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Thank you so much Mike, I had come across Dan’s tutorial and it looked a little daunting but your generous contribution has made me think I could give it a go, it’s really interesting finding ways of using AE for Flash type work, I have created a couple of animations that have done the job really well on web pages, things I could never have approached in Flash … again, good of you to take the time.
Roger
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