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how to create a huge flock of birds
does anyone know how to create a good looking insect swarm/ flock of birds? i tried it with some particle systems including (trapcode particular) and i got something like a swarm but it’s not that dynamic i want it to be. i tried tweaking it for hours in different ways, keyframing velocitiy, keyframing emitter, freezing particles with the time physics factor, duplicating the layer and animate position, scale and so on, freezed particles and put some distortion effects on the layer etc etc…. but i’m lost now. so does anyone know a tutorial about such a swarm? but not that cow tut of creating a flock of birds, because it should look like this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXQRtp_z2iMi think the best way to do this in after effects is using trapcode form. what do you think? or maybe it’s easier in a 3d program? i’ve never worked with particle systems in a 3d program but i’ve heard that there are more possibilities 🙂
thx
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9 Replies
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I remember watching en excellent tutorial by Aharon Rabinowitz that should help you out incredibly. It’s a 2 parter, good stuff here;
https://library.creativecow.net/articles/rabinowitz_aharon/bird_flock1.php
-Tyler
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thx. but as i already wrote in my first post, i know about this tutorial but it doesn’t solve my problem because i need maaaaaany birds/particles moving in a DYNAMIC SWARM. as it is shown in the video above.
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After Effects by itself does not really support flocking and collision detection that you will find in larger 3D modelers designed for this kind of thing. If you are stuck with AE, you are stuck with the limitations of what has been written for it. Foam is where I’d start but CC Particle World has a moveable camera that allows some simulation of flocking behavior if you can switch your POV as you try to envision the camera is NOT the observer.
Card dance, interestingly, can do fabulous stuff if you understand how to use multiple grayscale images combined into the RGBA channels of a single video layer. You will be using the grayscales as independent drivers for the x,y,z positions of the cards.
Easier to hire someone to do it Blender!
bogiesan
This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”
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i do think that card dance may work pretty well, it creates 3d ‘particles’ in 3d space. you’ll just need to generate an animated layer map to manipulate the positions of the particles, which is the tricky part. you might start with fractal noise for the layer map, scale it up and sift through the noise types to find one that seems like that wave-like movement in the flock.
i had helped someone in the expressions forum with a school of fish expression that might work for you. you can check out the thread here. it’s essentially a follow the leader type expression where the ‘fish’ (or birds) followed a null around in an organic, school-like motion. the problem i think you will have with this, is that each bird will need to be a layer and you will need a lot of layers to create a flock like those, so it may be painfully slow to work with it. you might have to render out smaller flocks and composite them together to make the giant flock…
Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
In Apple Motion there are several emitter settings and behaviors designed to create some illusions of flocking but they aren’t organic and they’re not chaotic and I have idea how to make the little bastards do anything I want them to do. Man, I hate Motion. But if you know someone who enjoys it enough to make the particle system and replicators sing, take them to lunch and ask nicely for some help.
There is nothing like an hour or two with Motion to make you appreciate After Effects.
bogiesan
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“There is nothing like an hour or two with Motion to make you appreciate After Effects. ”
Amen to that. I’d rather gouge my eyes out with rusty spoons than keyframe in motion, or do anything at all inside motion really.
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Well, first you take a mommy bird, and then a daddy bird, and in about 10 year you should have a flock.
😉 Sorry couldn’t resist.
One thing I always forget to do is use the brainstorm function. Once you get particular to a point that you like, maybe throw a couple of the settings into brainstorm and preview a bunch of variations. It has worked for me in the past, and it hasn’t worked.
However, if you’re going for a extreme realism, I don’t think AE will cut it alone. Probably need to look into 3D apps.
Good luck and if you figure it out, post your final.
-Kevin
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Zaxwerks -
This comp is 95% the way there. It has a segment called random which helps to separate the birds a little, just lower the random and they become a tight fluidic pattern as in your youtube video.
https://www.trapcode.com/download/bbb.aep
from https://www.trapcode.com/products_particular.html
which has really nice light, water, fire projects/presets so you don’t have to wear yourself out figuring out expressions. -
thanx a lot for the answers. they seem really helpful. i didn’t had time to test everything today but will do at the weekend. i’m going to post the result here….
again, thanx a lot.
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