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3D scene with a plane in shot, can’t get vapour on the engines
I made a little 3D scene in After Effetcs and using a 3D model I found on the Internet, I want to add a little vapour trail leaving the engines or coming off the ends of the wings.
I’ve been trying to do it in Particular, but the particles aren’t showing up. I created a new composition and thought I’d try and use this, then just place it on the composition which has the plane etc. but when I put a camera into it, the particles disappeared again…and when the camera layer ended, the particles came back. Then I decided to turn the camera layer off to see what happens and the particles came back, so I thought I’d try and get the position done and see what happens, so i brought the null in of which had the position of the jet engine, then the particles once again disappeared…
If you want a brief idea of what I’m trying to add particles to, here’s a render I did – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXvfeQlwSx0
And that’s literally all I want; 3 seconds of a quick pan around the plane, just need something to make it look like it’s actually flying. And please don’t complain that it’s a bad idea to be using After Effects for this, I understand that, but I can’t afford something like C4D and will not pirate it. But tips on how to make the scene look better within After Effects are welcome.
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3 Replies
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It sounds like your emitter is not placed correctly in the scene.
For simplicity, if you’re using a point emitter, I’d probably replace it with a light emitter. Create a light named “Emitter 1”, make it invisible, position it at the emission point in your scene, animate (or parent) it as necessary, and set Particular’s emitter type to Light(s).
You can also use obscuration layers to help with the compositing.
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
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I’m with Walter that it sounds like the particles are positioned somewhere the camera can’t see it. Try moving the camera and/or its point of interest and see if you can catch a glimpse of them.
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Have you checked that you didn’t accidentally set the Particular layer to be 3D with the 3D Layer switch? I’ve done that before without thinking and had similar results to what you are experiencing. Also, as far as 3D programs go, Blender is free and a pretty darn good 3D program. I think you can also get a free 30 day fully functional demo of Cinema 4D at maxon.net.
To see tutorials, articles, tips, free stuff, and more visit my post-production blog at https://thekellzone.com
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