What is the Work Flow Between Particle Illusion and AE?

[Evideom]

I think you would just render an uncompressed clip that you want to add PI to, make the changes with PI, then import the clip into AE when you are done. There are some other little things like channels that you will probably get stuck on in the beginning , but thats about it.

[Elvis Deane]

It’s really just a matter of bringing footage in as a background layer, from AE or another program, then rendering out a sequence of images with an alpha channel. Once that’s done, you can bring the sequence into AE, and composite it over the footage again, or just go straight out from pI to a video clip.

You can import position data from AE, and use that to drive the position of an emitter in pI, which is a more solid example of how the two work together. So if you’ve tracked something in AE, you can use that data to match an effect to something in your live action footage, without a lot of fuss.

Aharon covers a lot of this stuff on both his DVD and in a number of tutorials on the wondertouch site (under the Integration with Other Software heading)

—
Elvis Deane!
The particleIllusion FAQ
particleIllusion Resources and tutorial CD
Astounding Adventures

[Eric Goldstein]

Elvis and others,

Thanks for the info.

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Dakota Joe]

gosh darn it, i bet PI would make a simply marvelous AE plugin… ;o]

[Eric Goldstein]

Is PI the same software that is a plug in that comes with Combustion?

Eric

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Alan Lorence]

The particle system in Combustion is particleIllusion 2.0 — Discreet licensed it a few years back.

Note that it’s the same version of the engine as in particleIllusion SE. Pretty capable, but not nearly as powerful as particleIllusion 3.0.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Eric Goldstein]

Thanks Alan,

I remember working with it (or trying to work with it) in Combustion. The problem at that time was more the bugs in Combustion…

Is there any expectation that PI will become a plug in for AE in the near future?

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Alan Lorence]

Yes, in the next few months we’ll be releasing our AE plug-in version of particleIllusion, but it won’t have as much emitter editing capability as the standalone. You’ll be able to use all of the emitter libraries (over 1400 emitters and growing each month) and be able to change some of the most common parameters, but to make extensive edits (like to change the particle color gradients, or “over life” properties) you’ll need to use the standalone version.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Eric Goldstein]

Alan,

Thanks for the info.

Eric Goldstein
Giraffe Film Company
Los Angeles
eric@giraffefilm.com

[Dakota Joe]

I really need to work with PI now, even though I have been holding out for the AE plug. If I buy PI3 now, will I get a price break on the AE plugin when it comes out?