Motion Paths, Trapcode Particular, & 3D space, OH MY!

[Francisco Cueto]

almost there.

The second approach helped a lot, but i forgot to mention that i have to stick some elements inside this “tree”and the second method basically makes it really hard to render the particles that would go “behind”my element in a different layer since i can no longer use any of the Z tools inside particular.

any more ideas?

-F

[Kevin Camp]

[Francisco Cueto] “particles that would go “behind”my element in a different layer since i can no longer use any of the Z tools inside particular.”

when i first read your post, i thought of course it didn’t, i forgot to map the emitter’s z-pos to the null… but it turns out that you can’t derive z-pos with layer space transforms for a 2d layer (the particular layer) and if you make the particular layer 3d, you get the z-pos, but then it breaks the realism of the effect….

so, you’ll need another 3d null that you’ll use to get the 3d values, then pull those into particular…

first create a new null, make it 3d and zero the position values. enable expressions for its position and use the expression from before:

target = thisComp.layer(“Null 2”);
fromComp(target.toComp(target.anchorPoint));

now you can use the expression pickwhip to link the emitter xy to the position of the new null. so it might look like this:

temp = thisComp.layer(“Null 3”).transform.position;
[temp[0], temp[1]]

do the same for the emitter’s z, but change the end value from [0] to [2] to specify the z value. so it might look like this

thisComp.layer(“Null 3”).transform.position[2]

now you should be able to use the obscuration layer within particular (and other z space properties)…

Kevin Camp
Senior Designer
KCPQ, KMYQ & KRCW

[Joe Randazzo]

Another variant of the emitter question…

I have a path from illustrator that I’ve brought into AE as a masked layer. With Particular, how could I get that to reveal the text? I’ve been trying a bunch of different ways but cannot seem to get it correct.

Any advice?