[Elvis Deane]

I have a DVD coming out soon, which is meant to teach beginners about using pI from the ground up. It’s completed, but I don’t have an exact release date yet (still going through beta testing and other things).

There’s also an older CD of video tutorials in my signature below that are about creating various types of pyro emitters (fire, explosions, laser blasts)

There’s also an old video tutorial on my site about creating a water emitter. It was done 3 years ago when I knew a lot less, so not sure how good it is.

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

[Elvis Deane]

Do you mean the greenish paint smudge thing? I’ve only just seen it on the WB website, from the trailers there it seems like they have a few different types of lower third, but most with the same paint-motif.

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

[Elvis Deane]

I’m really not an expert on this area of pI, but after reading over the Memory Considerations part of the Help file (it’s in Tutorial 3 under the Change Shape Page portion), it seems that the ram used for shapes is your video card’s ram.

So if you have a background video playing in your scene as well, one thing you might try to see if it’ll speed things up is to check the box in the OpenGL tab of the Preferences that says Don’t use texture RAM for BG images. This (at least in my thinking) should stick any backgrounds on the regular ram, and free up some video ram for textures.

You may want to read over Memory Considerations, as it might spark some ideas on how to deal with your particular shape clip.

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

[Elvis Deane]

An emitter shape can be up to 2048×2048 in pI3 and you can assign each particle to start with a different frame (just check Random Start Frame), but here are some things to consider when making emitter shapes…

The larger the image/video’s size, the more memory it will eat up. If the video clip you want to use as a shape is 640×480, keep in mind that pI will most likely resize it down to 512×256 (emitter shapes have to be either 64×64, 128×128, 256×128, etc.)

If your project is going to be 640×480 and each particle will only take up a tiny portion of the stage, there’s probably no need to use shapes that are the size of the stage or larger. You’ll probably be able to get away with using 128×128 pixel shapes.

Each frame of a sequence has to be loaded in ram when it’s a shape. So if you have a two minute clip at 30fps, you’re eating up a lot of ram (which is probably what is making pI hang on you). You can skip every second frame when you import the clip as a shape, and that will ease the burden quite a bit.

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

[Elvis Deane]

Here’s an old post from Alan:
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In combustion 3 there is a button (“export”?) that exports the tracker data into an *.ascii file. You should be able to load that file directly into pI3 using the Import Position data function. Just select “text file” and select your .ascii file.

I can’t remember if you need the latest 3.0.1a of pI3 to do that or not.
——

You can give this a try with the demo version of pI3 and make sure that your tracking data comes through. Just right-click on an emitter in the hierarchy window, choose Import, and then grab that ascii file out of Combustion.

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

[Elvis Deane]

Yeah, you have to trace frame by frame. I generally position the points on one frame, movie 5 frames ahead, position them again, and so on. Then if that motion isn’t smooth enough, start filling in the in between frames.

Also, breaking the body down into smaller shapes (one blocker for the arm, one for the head, one for the body, etc) makes everything a lot easier to manage.

Blockers also can only be straight lines, so that can be a bit limiting and have you end up with a lot of points. There’s a freeware program called Wax that allows you to create masks with curves. I really can’t vouch for how good it is (only tried it a few times), but it might be worth looking into if Blockers aren’t working out for you.

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

[Elvis Deane]

There’s no way to do this that I can think of in a regular emitter, but if you create a super emitter out of that, where you have one particle type as your diamond shape and then another for the sparkle, it’s achievable.

Once you convert it to a super emitter, go into each of the particle types and check the Single Particle box. That will make each free emitter a coin and a sparkle. You can then reposition the sparkle by going into the Ref. Point controls and picking a new reference point. Now you can control the way the free emitters move by adjusting the f-Velocity and f-Weight graphs.

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

[Elvis Deane]

1- There’s a couple of ways to do this. You can use Blocker objects to trace around your person, which will hide any particles behind it.

If Blockers don’t work for you, you’ll need your background footage to have some sort of transparency information. If you’re bringing in footage from an animation program, then that would be an alpha channel. With live actors, you either need to create a mask in a compositing program by tracing the outline of the actor, or shoot them against a greenscreen, pull the key, and then import the resulting footage with an alpha channel into particleIllusion.

Have a look at the section on Layers and Transparency in tutorial 4 of the Help file. That covers how you can pull a quick key in pI.

2- Offset does this. Once you place an emitter on the stage, select Offset for the layer you placed the emitter on in the library window, and then pick a point in your background video to use as your reference, then animate it so that the green offset cross matches up with that point throughout the video. There’s a pretty good description of this in the Help file, as well as in this old post.

3- Try adjusting the Zoom graph rather than the size. Size controls how large each particle is, while Zoom controls the overall emitter.

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

[Elvis Deane]

You’ll need to render out of pI to a sequence of images with an alpha channel. PNG, TIF, or TGA are the most common options.

Aharon has a tutorial that covers this topic over here

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

[Elvis Deane]

Although there is a forum on the Creative Cow for job posts, this is probably the best location to post a pI specific job.

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