Particle Playground – each particle different?

[Brian Charles]

The short answer is no — you can’t have a different Illustrator graphic for each particle.
However you can use an image sequence or video file or composition where each frame is a different graphic — so you could create a comp sequence of the images you want as particles.

Place this in another Comp and turn visibility off.

Create a Solid layer at Comp size, apply PPlayground and set the layer Map to your image sequence layer.

to control size, decay etc you’ll need a gradient layer (if you use RAMP remember to precompose). Use the persistent and ephmeral property mappers (set Use layer as map to your gradient) to control particle size as they pass over the gradient. Gradient layer should not be visible in Comp but you can leave it visible while you set up to see the effects of the gradient on your particles. Black = small White = big though tyou can set the values in Min and Max settings of the mapper.

You’ll need to experiment to achieve the result you’re looking for.

Have Fun.

[Ricardo Nichols]

Great, thanks so much, Brian, I’ll give it a shot.

Is the same generally true when using Foam? That you can apply it to a sequence?

[Ricardo Nichols]

Brian,

So, I did what you described. And I guess your initial response is the one I need to accept, right? That it’s just not possible? What you described for me to try essentially allows me to have them flicker back and forth between multiple illustrator graphics, but not alternate what kind of graphic gets spit out as a particle, correct?

Is there any other filter where I could achieve something like this?

Seems like it’d be a useful think for AE to be able to do.

Thanks in advance,
Rolyn

[Mike Clasby]

You could try Dan Ebberts tut, “Building a 3D Particle Generator”. Download the project file and open the comp “Fountain”. Select a layer and hit “E” on the keyboard. In the expression for position change the gravity to 0, and the Drag to 0. You might want to make the min and max launch angles be closer to each other if you don’t want a spray.

Anyway, you can replace the starflare.tga layers with your Illustrator layers by Alt Dragging your footage from the Project window onto a selected starflare.tga layer in the timeline window. Or, you can make a preset from the expressions and effect, then apply that to your layers.

Anyway Dan’s tut explains all, and the great part is that it’s 3D so you can do a camera fly-though.

You could tie the gravity and Drag to sliders to make quick changes.

[Roland R. kahlenberg]

Dan’s Particle Playground tutrial is great but it’ll fly over your head if your new to the plugin – it’s quite advanced stuff. For a newbie, take a look, instead, at my COW tutorial on Particle PLayland. It covers the use of different images for each particle.

As for changing the scale for a particle based on its lifespan, just use the Persistent property with a full-on white mapper and have the Affects property be such that scale increases with time. You can do this via expressions or simply keyframing the values.

I’m not at a comp now so hopefully there’s enough for you to get going or perhaps someone else can come in should you be tied up.

Cheers
RoRK
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