No More Emitters?

[Joe Morgan]

Ditto,
Alan posted “scan some images for me” months ago so he could create
emitters because his scanner was broke.Understandable setback. That was Oct.17.
So yes,Where are the Emitters?
A lot of emitters are very much alike so I hope all this waiting means they will be worth the wait.Something new and impressive is overdue!
I got particle illusion 6 months ago.I thought I could look forward to new emitters. I’m not very good at creating my own.
I have been very patient so yes,
Whats going on with the emitters?

[Ed Hecht]

If I recall correctly, there was some announcement or email (or tweet) a while back from Alan saying that emitter libraries would only be released quarterly from now on…

[Paul Boland]

I remember that. But the last emitter release was August, we’re overdue some new ones. Where are the autumn and winter emitters? We use to get them every month, it was fantastic!, but since the company was bought out those free month emitter libraries have disappeared :(.

[Kurt Muller]

Gee, we’re spoilt, aren’t we! 🙂

[Joe Morgan]

Really Kurt,
You think people are spoiled because they want to know why they are no longer getting what they expected when they purchased this program? How about if they were to announce that no program updates will ever be offered again? Although announcing that would at least allow people to know where they stand! People tend to get fairly fast responses to simple questions posted on this forum and yet this question seems to be ignored. Can you honestly say that this is people acting spoiled?

[Alan Lorence]

Emitters are coming.

I typically don’t respond to “where are the emitters” type messages because I feel it’s pointless.

I have so many questions about emitter library releases, I’m not sure where to start…

Have we reached a saturation point on emitters? Are there too many to choose from already (there are well over 3000)? Are “more of the same” okay even if they’re improved versions of older emitters? How many of the monthly emitters do you actually use? Do you ever analyze them to see how they do what they do, so that you will be better at creating your own? Do you find every library to be useful? Are there specific effects that you think we need more of? How often do you go back through older libraries, just browsing to rediscover some of the amazing emitters that we’ve already created?

Instead of making emitters, would our time be better spent creating tutorials that show you how to use these emitters more effectively, tweak them to fit your projects, modify them to create new versions?

As I said, so many questions. There *is* another library coming soon, half of it based on the scans that people provided me with months ago, and half created by Tom. Probably next week sometime, as I have some editing to do and very little time to do it right now.

Alan.

………………..
Alan Lorence
Product Manager
GenArts, Inc.
http://www.genarts.com
http://www.wondertouch.com

[Alan Lorence]

Also, this is a *user* forum. I monitor it regularly, but if you have a problem with pI or a question about it that other users can’t answer your best bet is to email us at GenArts directly. Support at genarts dot com is always a good place to start.

Alan.

[Paul Boland]

Hi Alan.

The bad thing about text-based communication is that you can’t read the tone in which they were written, but reading your reply above you sound put out by my question. that was definitely not my intent.

You have to look at it from a Particle Illusions users point of view… We use to get monthly new emitters. After GenArts bought you, those libraries started to falter on their releases. Initially it was just a few montly releases here and there and then it became seasonal releases but the last release was August. As a long time user, all I wanted to know was what was happening?

I appreciate all you’ve said in your reply. 3000+ emitters! WOW!! It’s great to have them and I do appreciate all the time and effort you (Particle Illusions) put into making them. And yes, I do look at all the emitters and use them where needed.

But as a long time user all I wanted was an answer as to what was happening? From my perspective, we had monthly emitter releases and after Genarts bought the company those releases faltered with no feedback from the company as to what was happening. And that is all I was after.

If indeed the emitter libraries have reached saturation and you want to cut back the releases of new libraries to one a year or whatever, or even stop them, then all I want is to be informed. Give a company release and let us know what’s happening and that will take care of that.

You asked for suggestions on what would be a better use of your (Particle Illusions) time instead of releasing emitters into an already saturated library?

Well, speaking for myself, I like the idea of tutorials. I would be interested in learning how to create my own emitters. Also, a long time back there was news of Particle Illusions 4. Don’t get me wrong, I love Particle Illusions 3, LOVE IT!!, but if a new 4.0 version was released, I would upgrade.

So, I’ll close here. Thanks for the reply and I’m sorry if I put you out with my query, it was not my intension.

[Alan Lorence]

It’s a misconception that once GenArts bought wondertouch the emitter libraries faltered. Look back over the release list, and only one month was missed (Jan 2010) until 2012, when I decided that the libraries should be scaled back. One thing that nobody mentions is that only after the switch to GenArts did we get Tom Granberg to create emitters every month — before that I was typically making most of the emitters. With Tom the quality of the emitters went way up.

All of those questions I asked — I’ll probably send out a survey to pI customers to find out exactly what they want and expect of the emitters. It wasn’t so much your message that prompted me to respond like this, but it certainly helped me to get some of those questions down.

I’m not yet sure of what the emitter library release schedule will be for 2013, but we’re not giving up on releasing emitters. What we will be doing though is trying to find out exactly what people want from them.

Alan.

………………..
Alan Lorence
Product Manager
GenArts, Inc.
http://www.genarts.com
http://www.wondertouch.com

[Philip Knight]

Good points all around.

I think I used the word “spoiled” a few months ago in reference to how we were so used to getting our monthly goodies in a post to Alan 🙂 I’ve had PI for some years now–and at least in my case–I tend to specialize in certain emitters, develop them and consider the oogles of the rest more or less as nice-to-have spare parts. But then I use PI in a non-commercial (not a job) though serious manner where I don’t have clients requesting this or that effect.

As to the how-often release thing…

PI has been rather unique in this giving away new emitters for so long — how many other companies do that? I know of none. So I’ve been grateful for it and could live with quarterly or twice-a-year releases of quality emitters.

As to what to focus on, I’ve also mentioned in the past that having PI be 64-bit would be a big improvement for work-flow due to how 32-bit can only access so much RAM and no more. I’ve got 16 Gig of RAM of which PI can only use probably less than 2. Not efficient. That said…

64-bit capability may be far more daunting to pull off on a programming level then any user can realize for PI is complex.

But it would also be nice to have PI at least go to v.4 64-bit or not. Improve some of the GUI perhaps (tool icons sometimes require more than one click to activate, etc.), have it less prone to crashes (though that is usually due to it struggling with only-so-much-RAM).

Again, I tend to make rather complex or high “Number” effects so that may put more of a load on PI than most other users.

Tutorials would be nice though I only use them much like a dictionary — to figure something out. Most of the time I just learn-as-I-do.

Bottom line: I love PI and even if I never got new emitters, I’d be fine with it. I just wish it had more processing/RAM power-ability 🙂

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