[Alan Lorence]

Nevermind — has been tested and released. See new thread.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

The challenges died years ago for a lack of interest, and the amount of time it took to do them. If somebody wants to take over the management of the challenges, I’ll provide a challenge, host the web pages, etc. but I don’t have the time for the rest.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

You saw that “melting away” example in the “3.0 sneak peek” reel in our gallery I think.

There are MANY ways that you can use emitters for transitions. Three of the first I can think of are:

1) use emitters as-is to transition (requires another app for compositing) — a line of fire, explosion, etc.

2) Use the alpha channel (in another app) for transitioning. Create an emitter that fills up the screen, wipes across it, etc.

3) Use emitters that use the “get color from layer” feature. Use a line emitter to “peel” the image away, an area emitter to “shatter” the image, etc. The key here is to “turn off” the background image after the emitter grabs its colors from it.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

Open the properties dialog for the library that contains both emitters. Then in the hierarchy of the properties dialog, drag the particle type from one emitter into the other emitter.

Note that the results may not be exactly what you expect, since the emitter properties (which act as a scale factor) are probably different for both emitters.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

Yes, that will be the workflow.

Alan.
wondertouch

[Alan Lorence]

Email wondertouch support.

Alan.
wondertouch

[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

[Alan Lorence]

This tutorial will help you:

https://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials/sparkles_from_scratch/sparkles.htm

Covers a lot of the topics you need to know.

Alan.
wondertouch

[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

[Alan Lorence]

You can do that with the library manager right now. Load the “blank” emitter library (or any library you want), then r-click in library window and “save as” and call it “favorites”. Then open the library manager, delete the emitters you don’t want in the favorites folder (you have to leave one though), then go through all of your libraries and add your favorites using the “Add” button.

I caution you against making any one library too large. It will hurt performance.

Alan.
wondertouch