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How do I get Z space with particles?
I am trying to figure out a way to get particles move in and out of Z space, but for some reason is does not work.
I have a POINT light as my emitter (using trapcode particular), I then put in a solid as my particles. Watching it, it works fines, just like it should. So I put in my background and turn it into a 3D layer – look at my top view and make a path for the light to follow. It looks good – the light goes BEHIND the BG and then out in front – therefore I think it should disappear at some point BEHIND the BG and then come out – but it does not. It is always visible no matter what.
Also, since it is a light if the layer is VISIBLE, I cannot see the scene at all. I have to turn the LAYER OFF to see the scene (obviously the point light is lighting the scene and not strong enough so the layer needs to be turned off). But I still run into the problem with a camera, 3D layers and so forth, the light on a path that moves into Z space, but it will not disappear no matter what I do. What am I doing wrong?So it is a basic BG, a TOP view shows the light path in Z space moving in front and behind the background. Therefore back in CAMERA VIEW, the particles, during the run around the path, should appear and disappear depending whether they are behind or in front of the Z space 3D layer of the background, but it does not.
Any ideas?
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10 Replies
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I wish I could be more help but I don
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I thought of that too, but the tail will still exist, meaning when I turn up the opacity, part of the tail that is supposed to be behind the BG will suddenly show up. Thanks for that though, it was something that I did try, but it didn’t work.
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you are experiencing the difference between ae’s 3d space and a plugin’s 3d space, and they are actually not the the same space.
luckily you have particular, all you should need to do is set the bg layer as an obscuring layer in particular. you’ll find the obscuring layer settings in the visibility properties in particular, just choose the bg layer from the pulldown.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Thanks. I am trying to make the Obscuring layer a mask, but the results are not turning out right.
Here is what I did :
1) I duplicated the BG layer,
2) picked an object from the background
3) drew a mask around the object.I want this MASK to be my Obscuring, but it doesn’t seem to work. I was hoping this would be a better method because I could feather the edge of the mask for when the particle went behind it or in front to give a nice clean look.
Can you understand what I am getting at?
thanks
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i believe you would need to precomp a layer with a mask for the plugin to recognize the masked area…
here is a link to a thread where harry frank did a quick display of obscuring layer in particular.
is this kind of what you are looking for?
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
you may not be able to get that soft edge you are looking for. i tried tried it with a feathered mask, but was still getting a hard ‘clipping’ of the particles after they pased behind the layer.
if you are using a soft particle, you might try a little fast blur on the particular layer. allowing motion blur on the particles might help too.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
What should go in the precomp? Just the mask or the particle, emitter and the mask? Which combination?
Thanks
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just the duplicate of the bg that has the mask.
select that layer, then choose layer>pre-compose… from the precomp window that pops up, choose to ‘move all attributes’. you don’t need to open the precomp unless you need to make further changes to the duplicate bg layer or mask.
now, in the main comp you will need to make the bg/mask precomp layer a 3d layer (actually, you’ll probably get an error message saying you need to dot this). you will need to choose ‘none’ or another layer from the obscuring pulldown then reselect the correct bg/mask precomp.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW -
Ok, I finally got a chance to try it with a pre-comp and it doesn’t work. When the particular goes in front of the masked off area, you can’t see it – even though the particle in Z space moves in front of it – I think I am doing something wrong that is probably simple to fix :
I want a piece of the background to be used as an obscuring layer – and this piece of the background is cut out with a mask. I have precomped the bg, turned on the 3D layer and put the obscuring layer to the masked bg, but it doesn’t seem to work, even with a 3D camera
Any ideas?
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if you are still working on this, i’d like to outline the basic comp structure (i think i haven’t done a good job of this…)
main comp:
layer 1: particular solid
layer 2: masked background object precomp (3d enabled)
layer 3: backgound (not 3d enabled)set particular to use the masked bg object precomp as an obscuring layer. don’t reposition the masked background object precomp, you want it to line up with the original background.
now, if you have the emitter pass behind the obscuring layer, the particles should appear to be coming from behind the background object, but still appear in front of the background layer.
if particles are coming through the layer (and you don’t want that), you can set the physics model to ‘bounce’ and set the obscuring layer to also be the ‘floor’ layer and set the floor to layer alpha and collision event to ‘kill’.
Kevin Camp
Designer – KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW
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