Particle-system – what to choose

[Stone Reader]

Trapcode seems to be the new “in” particle system right now, and a lot of people are saying it is the best partical generator for AE, but ParticleIllusion seems to have some devoted followers around here, which can be a big asset when you need help.

[Asaf Yeger]

I agree with stone reader.. we are using both of them depends on the job.

[Chris Smith]

Rough generalizations:

PI good for things like smoke, flames, steam. Good library of particle sprites to do that sort of stuff. Don’t care for it’s other presets that much.

Motion: Use particles basically just for creating a bunch of instances of an object, but Particular does this so much better.

Particular: Pretty hard to mess with. 3D space, incredible features. Nice AE integration.

If it were me, if it was smoke, dust, steam, flames, or pixie dust type things I’d bang it out quickly in PI. I’d use Particular for about everything else. I’d only use Motion’s if I was doing the whole comp in there and it was convenient.

my 02.

Chris Smith
https://www.sugarfilmproduction.com

[Erik Lindahl]

Thank you Chris!

I’ve been trying the demos of the apps and PI seems pretty “outstanding” when it comes to the smoke-effects. Particular seems to be able to do a pretty good jobb to but has a lot less presets to work with there sadly.

Might have to get both then. The AE integreation is very good to have!