Tight deadline! Problems with Particular Project

[Anders Hattne]

Don’t know about particular and getting that right, but couldn’t you get this shape done with Freeform?

http://www.ardillamedia.com

[Erik Waluska]

Zaxwerks Serpentine and 3D Warps plug-ins would probably work for this as well and they’re about half the price.

I have a free after effects filmstrip template on my site that would probably be useful as well.

Erik Waluska
EAWmedia

[Ridley Walker]

Would a simple “Follow the leader” animation suffice?

6603_followtheleader.aep.zip

The Layer labeled “Leader” has a slider control that adjusts the offset.

[Reuben Fink]

These are all really good suggestions. But I was hoping for a fix with Particular since several comps have already been setup already. They are basically done. I was hoping to just find some kind of fix with particular to adjust the offset like in the follow the leader example. BTW I did start the project with the follow the leader expression and it seemed like it would work but once I had to do it with over 40 images it slowed down to a crawl. It was very tedious to work with. Now I did mess with freeform for the first time today and I gotta say that might have been the route to go. Very straight forward. Though I feel if I can figure this out there are some advantages to the look and feel of doing it with particles. I’ll take a look at Zaxwerks. But in the meantime if anyone can figure out, maybe with an expression which is not my forte, how to change the offset with particular, that would rock.

Thanks for all the info.

OSX 10.8.4
Equipment: 2.8 ghz 8 core Intal Mac Pro 3,1 Early 2008, 20 gig of ram
Aps: CS6 Production Premium, FCP Suite, Avid Media Composer

[Ridley Walker]

[Reuben Fink] “Is there a way to change the spacing without changing the speed of the animation.”

What if you just reduce the size of the particles and then adjust the Z offset W under World Transform?

[Anders Hattne]

Freeform is included since CS5, and according to the stats, man in question has cs6.

http://www.ardillamedia.com

[Reuben Fink]

Sorry but Freeform is not included in CS6 or CC. They stopped bundling it in CS6. So purchase is the only option apparently.

https://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/05/freeform-and-after-effects-cs6.html

OSX 10.8.4
Equipment: 2.8 ghz 8 core Intal Mac Pro 3,1 Early 2008, 20 gig of ram
Aps: CS6 Production Premium, FCP Suite, Avid Media Composer

[Chris Bobotis]

Reuben is right. FreeForm V2 (only $99.00) replaces Digieffects FreeForm that was bundled with CS5. FreeForm V2 is up to 10 times faster and will open all files created with the bundled version. See: https://www.mettle.com/freeform-v2/

Cheers,
Chris
mettle.com

[Cassius Marques]

maybe this will come a little late but… If you want to double the space between the photos(that are actually particles) just cut in half the emission number!

[Reuben Fink]

Deadline is passed and it looks like freeform was the solution for now. But I’m so determined to find a solution using particular so here I am again following up. Cassius your suggestion would work if it didn’t matter what order the photos emitted. The problem is I have to stick with the emission number of 30 since that’s my frame rate, to keep all images in the proper order and to make sure I don’t have any duplicates. In the project you sent me you added this expression:

t=thisComp.layer(“Draw Path”).inPoint;
thisComp.layer(“Draw Path”).position.valueAtTime(t);

Which made the particles follow the leader. Is there anything else we could add to the expression to delay the trailing particles so they don’t all stack on top of each other? Basically create an offset for each particle that’s following?

If it’s impossible with an expression then I will drop this obsession ;).

OSX 10.8.4
Equipment: 2.8 ghz 8 core Intal Mac Pro 3,1 Early 2008, 20 gig of ram
Aps: CS6 Production Premium, FCP Suite, Avid Media Composer