How to create dust particles.

[Mike Clasby]

Folks talked about dust with Particular here:

https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=761053&archive=T

Believe it or not you can get pretty good dust with Simulation > Foam on a Solid Layer above your scene.
I used a 10×10 Dust particle – a mask on a white solid in a precomp (you could also use a psd dust particle with alpha here.), use that as the “Bubble Texture Layer”, when “Bubble Texture” is “User Defined”.

Foam is a little tricky to get the look you want, but I had these setting:

Producer
Production Rate 3 (set a Keyframe at about 3 sec, then a few frames down, drop the production Rate to 0) this prevents foam from continuously generating dust (it begins to look like a dust blower). so you make some dust, then cut it off and let it float.

Bubbles-
Size .05
Size Variance .55
Physics-
Initial Speed .Initial Direction +11 degrees
Wind speed 200
Wind Direction 90

Rendering
Blend Mode – Transparent
Bubble Texture _ User Defined
Bubble Texture Layer _ choose your dust particle layer (precomp if you use my masked solid like I did)
Reflection Strength – .8

You can even use a Flow Map (again a pre comped black and white if using masks to define the black white areas)

Random Seed – 8

I decreased the Opacity of the Solid Layer (where Foam Applied) to about 75% and used the Lighten Mode.

Like I said Foam is a little tricky but adjust to taste.

[Chris Smith]

Make the speed extremely small and go to the air settings and add some turbulence.

Also I know a lot of people do it practical. Set up a piece of Black card or cloth in a sunbeam. You will see really high contrast dust in the air. Shoot this with a camera and Screen transfer it in to your footage.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[George Shubin]

Yes, I thought of shooting it practical, but I want to have a camera move in the shot and I was hoping to have that 3D effect with the particles.

[Mike Clasby]

If you want to fly through the dust field look at this from Dan Ebberts:

Building a 3D Particle Generator
https://www.creativecow.net/show.php?page=/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen/index.html

Or click Dan’s head and scroll down, lots of other good un’s there.

Download the Project File.

I subbed in Dan’s image “Specs” for the snowflakes in the comp “snow”, not bad, but you’ll need to select a layer and hit “EE” to reveal the expressions that makeup Dan’s Particle Generator, then adjust the “Min and Max particle life”, also gravity, and wind speed.

Make your own dust particles, alt+drag them onto one of Dan’s, delete Dan’s old ones, then just Dup (ctrl D) as many times as you want dust particles. I love this tut, and for your uses it’s true 3D, you can fly through the dust field. Please wear a helmet and seat belt.

[Chris Smith]

Well, then stick to Particular. The plug-in can clearly do it well, ppl use it all the time. Did you play with the speed and air turbulence?

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[George Shubin]

Yes, I did. Thanks for your suggestions. While I’ve not pretty much got the motion of the particles the way I want it, I’m now faced with trying to make the particles look like they are backlit. Also the DOF doesn’t work on the AE camera with particular. Looks like there will be a lot of layering for me is in my near future.

George

[George Shubin]

Cool, I’m going to try this. I should be able to play a little better with depth of field using this solution. Particular doesn’t utilize the AE camera DOF. Thanks.
George

[Chris Smith]

Well, dust doesn’t really have too much geometry so there won’t really be enough shading for them to look back lit or front lit. But they do “glow” brightly very easily making us know that there is light on them. So instead of a “normal” transfer mode, use an ADD transfer mode on them so they have a good intensity over the BG layer.

The AE DOF won’t work on them because Particular particles are not in AE 3D space. They are a 2D illusion that matches to the AE camera. So the Particular layer as a whole responds to AE 3D space, but not individual particles.

But like you said, you can put multiple PArticular instances on multiple layers and put those in AE space with DOF.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Tom Daigon]

(In best Don Adams voice) Would you believe NAB discount price? $12,000 ….$17,000 mere chump change for most AE users ;P

[Tom Daigon]

Oooops, wrong forum.