making particular’s emitter follow a mask path??

[Mark Crenshaw]

I did this just yesterday…The following worked for me. Hope this is what you are wanting to do.

1. On the layer that holds your mask, Hit M for mask, twirl it down and select the “Mask Shape” parameter. Crtl+C on Win, or Cmd+C on Mac. This copies the mask vertices…you should see them all selected in the comp window.

2. Go to the layer that has the Particular plugin assigned and twirl down the effect into the “Emitter” and select the “Position XY” parameter. Ctrl+V on Win, or Cmd+V on Mac. This will paste the vertices’ positions as keyframes. All of the keyframes between the first and last will show as “roving” keyframes…if you want to change any one of them just right click it and turn off “Rove Across Time”

[Darby Edelen]

In the future you should consider creating a motion path for a Particular emitter instead of a mask. Masks are limited to 2 dimensions (X,Y) while a motion path on a 3D layer can move in 3 dimensions.

Consider creating a 3D Null layer and animating it in 3 dimensions. You can use the same pen tool to adjust the motion path once you’ve created it, the only difference being that you can adjust it in 3 dimensions. You then need to link the position of the emitter to the position of the Null with expressions.

An alternative is using a light as an emitter for particular, which requires no expressions to link the position.

Darby Edelen
Lead Designer
Left Coast Digital
Santa Cruz, CA