painting stars using ae

[Filip Vandueren]

You’re looking for a particle system to achieve that.
Now, it’s possible to set up your own particle system using 1 layer per star and a bunch of expressions (Dan Ebberts created a very good tutorial here at the cow)

But it’s usually easier to do it with a plugin.

if you have AE 6.5 with the CC effects, there are some simple ones included in the Simulation menu.

I suggest using “CC Particle Systems II” It has a “star” built in, set the gravity and velocity to a lower value (try 0.25)
Then animate the “Producer Position” Change the colors etc.

If you need some more power, i’m hearing a lot of good stuff about Trapcode’s “Particular” .

[Ckeyes]

Might also take a look at Particle Illusion. Looks of stuff like that right out of the box.

https://www.wondertouch.com/default.asp

Carl

[Figidigi]

Hi Filip Vandueren

(your name is allmost like a dutch name 🙂 )

Well I went to look for those plugins you described and they are really cool.
Unfortunately I do not own 6.5 but still version 6.

So I have to find another solution. Back to the tutorials you mentioned then.

I finally remembered a tutorial [flashmath1 – gotoandlearn.com) from lee brimelow, the one where he paints with flowers. That is kinda the idea. But that’s in flash. I tried that one and it works okay
except that the flowers or stars don’t stay on the screen, you only see them if you press the mousebutton. They don’t stay on the stage + I rather have done that in AE …

Well as you can see this is a hard one to break and my clients getting impatient 🙁
I hope I can still pull this one off….

thanks 4 your reply 🙂

figidigi

[Filip Vandueren]

Hello F,

Dan Ebbert’s tutorial is here:

https://www.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/page_wrapper.cgi?forumid=2&page=/articles/ebberts_dan/particle_gen/index.html

it’s written in 5.5 so no problem there.
It comes with a project file full of examples you can download, and even has some stars.

Do read the tutorial to help you understand what’s happening in the project, then you can just start from one of the “Moving Emitter” examples he provided.

It renders a bit slower than for example “Particular” I think, but hey: it’s free !

Long Live Dan 😉

PS: I’m Belgian, Flemish. So I speak Dutch 😎