Trapcode Particular: Layer Order Problem when trying to use Adjustment Layer and Obscuration Layer

[Jordan Quackenbush]

I’m not entirely sure what you want the top particles to look like since they’ll be interacting with your footage on some level; but I derped around in AE for a bit to come up with something for this. You can try precomping your top layer of Particular, put the BG in there, apply CC Glass on that precomp back in your main comp, and try playing with both mix modes and the “obsolete” effect Luma Key to get a look you want. If you had a screen/description of how you want the particles to look atop the footage, it’d be helpful.

Jordan Q
If I’m posting a question, it means I’ve Googled it for far too long and couldn’t find a solution/answer.

[Philipp Kaindl]

hi jordan,

thanks for your reply… to be honest, I don’t know yet exactly what look I want to give the particles (some kind of lead-water look), all I know is that fiddling with the settings in the plugin probably won’t be enough and that I will need adjustment layers to get what I’m aiming for.

thanks for your ideas, I will work with that and see what happens…

I guess if that doesn’t work I will precompose the particles and manually position and animate them partially in front and partially behind the footballers in 3D space…

it might take me a while to get it done, but I’ll post it once I’m getting somewhere.
thanks again,
_Philipp

[Jordan Quackenbush]

Good luck. Feel free to ask any more questions if you get into a bind!

You can also put CC Glass on the precomp without the precomp having the white layer. Change the glass’ mode to alpha or something else, and that gives an effect (tried it earlier but can’t remember which mode looked the best).

Jordan Q
If I’m posting a question, it means I’ve Googled it for far too long and couldn’t find a solution/answer.

[Michael Szalapski]

Precompose the particles layer. Use the Copy With Relative Property Links option to copy the players layer that you’re using to obscure the particles and the camera.

Then, you can add whatever effects you would like to the particles precomp without having to mess with adjustment layers or have it mess up your compositing workflow.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Philipp Kaindl]

I found a solution that works for me…
after realising that other effects work when directly applied to the trapcode particular layer, but the CC glass effect didn’t work…
I realised it’s because CC glass uses the bump map of the layer but it apparently still considers it to be a flat solid despite particular being applied… that’s why nothing happens, because it only “sees” the flat solid.
By precomposing the finished particular layer and turning it invisible I can use it as a bump map in the CC glass settings of the visible particular layer (see screenshot) and still obscure my “footballers” layer partially.

Maybe this was obvious to you and my question was poorly phrased… sorry, if that was the case.
Thanks in any case for your help, I will keep your other solutions in mind for other problems I may encounter 🙂

[Jordan Quackenbush]

Very cool, looks good! Thanks for sharing your solution – that’ll help those who come after you.

Jordan Q
If I’m posting a question, it means I’ve Googled it for far too long and couldn’t find a solution/answer.