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One step away from turning Particle Playground into RG’s Particular. Ok, sorta…
Ok, that was a little dramatic.
I have been able to play around and imports my own particles, and I have been able to fly through space and make it seems as if the particles are going back and forward in Z space by adjusting the scale with a PP mapper in Particle Playground.
So far, it’s very convincing. Just one problem. It works great when moving away from the camera. However, the new particles generate behind the old particles (I have velocity set to 0….I animate using the x y positions).
My thought was that I could set up an expression (if z now is larger than z a second ago, then lifespan 0) then make transparent so you don’t have a small particle up front (and yes, I know my javascript above wasn’t correct.)
One final note, yes, I know I can purchase particular. But this has been a little project of mine for about a month to push the capability of Particle Playground and “fake” 3d simulation. At this point, I dont want to give up. Ideas? New particles emit behind old particles and with a large one behind a small one, the illusion becomes apparent. May be impossible to fake, but I figured i’d throw it out there.
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3 Replies
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If what you want to do is to create particles that are smaller/bigger than what was created previously then a Full-on white Property Mapper is what you need. Ensure that this Property Mapper is pre-comped and is larger than the final comp’s rez (this last step prevents strange happenings along the edges of the Final Comp.
Once you have the Property Mapper in place and set it to affect Scale, keyframe the max value up/down to suit your needs. You’ll likely have to finesse the values with more than 2 keyframes – depending on how you’re flying through the particle space.
You should note that any change within the Property Mapper affects new as well as old particles. Hopefully, your fly-through routine doesn’t make this obvious, in a bad way.
If you want to control the particle sizes for both old and new particles, then the Layer Map property will provide a more robust solution but it’ll require that you animate your particle size correctly as well as the values for Older/Younger & Age Feather properties.
HTH
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer -
Roland,
Thanks for your response!!
A few things:
Thank you for the mention of making the precomp a larger size than the final comp. I was getting random particle generating along the edges, and I ended up scaling up the particle comp to hide it. I never considered what you mentioned, but it makes sense.As far as the rest, I am already there. I apologize. I should have been clearer in my post. Right now I have a null linked so that when it moves in x and y, it controls the position of the Particle playground emitter’s x and y. As far as the null’s Z, I have that linked to the scale in the mapper.
Please check out the link and picture below for my issues. The youtube link is what I have accomplished. and the image is what happens when I attempt to move in Z space toward the camera. Ideally, I would like to tell the system to put the new particles up front, but I am sure this is embedded into the effect, and there is no way to adjust that.
I also realized a flaw with my thinking. even if I were to use older/younger than to make the old particles disappear when I move “forward” in Z space, a new issue would arise. My thought was “hey, the old ones disappear, and new one generate in the back…so, perfect!!” but then I realized with the way i just presented that, anything generated while the Z is moving “toward the camera” would disappear.
But anyway, sorry about the length of this response. Again, I appreciate the input. I think I may have pushed PP to its limits with what 3D simulation (or imitation I should say)it can do. I can see any good way to fake forward movement. (unless you already answered me, and I misunderstood your response)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufatLIzYqM8
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Hi Dave, me thinks you’re right in that you’ve pushed PP to its limits. It’s a 2D particle system afterall. Best to look into Particular for such effects.
Cheers
RoRKIntensive AE & Mocha Training in Singapore and Malaysia
Adobe ACE/ACI (version 7) & Imagineer Systems Inc Approved Mocha Trainer
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