[Mike Park]

It really depends on what you are doing with the 3d shot. If you are compositing, you should probably output individual frames and then import them into afx as numbered stills. This will give you the highest quality and most versitile footage in my opinion. I output pngs from max with their alphas and import to afx. Works great for me. You can also output animation files such as avi, movs and mpgs to save space, but will run the risk of getting some artifacting from the compression. If you really want video footage from max, I recommend .mov with the animation codec as an intermediate format.

Note – this information is based on my experience and from reading other posts

Cheers

[Mike Park]

In that case, take what I posted above and turn the velocity of the particles to 0 as well as the gravity. Now you should get just the particles emitting around the path. I forgot to mention that if you want your particles to stay put for a while and to stop generating at the first corner, you are going to need to key frame the particles per second from what ever rate you need to fill you rectangle to 0 at the point when the emitter makes its way back to the point of origin.

As for the spinning, I cant find a rotate control in particle playground. Maybe I am overlooking something. But you can keyframe your rotation in your hidden snowflake layer and that should rotate all of the shapes in your rectangle. If you dont want all of the corners spinning syncronized, simply adjust the time offset (slightly) under the layer map rollout of the particle playground effect. Note, your layer needs to be longer than your comp or the snowflakes will begin to disappear. If you need to, just precomp your snowflake layer and make it significantly longer than your final comp.

I hope this answers your questions, but I would be happy to help out if you still need it.

Good luck.

[Mike Park]

If all you want to do is emit snowflakes around a rectangle, then after effects has this capability built in. Here is how.

1. Create a new comp your finished size and length.
2. Create a new solid layer – name it rectangle. this is the shape that the particles will be created around, so the dimensions are important.
3. Import your snowflake and place it in the comp as a new layer. Turn off its visibility.
4. Create another new solid layer and name it “particles.” Place the effect “Particle Playground” on this layer. Under the “Layer Map” rollout, choose your snowflake layer from the “use layer” dropdown. Adjust the size, velocity… accordingly.
5. Now, go back to your “rectangle” layer and select the “Mask Path” from the Mask rollout. Hit “Ctrl-C” to copy. Now, go to your Particle layer and hit the stopwatch on the position control of the particle playground effect. Next, position the time slider to the first frame you want the emitter to start moving on and then, with the position rollout highlighted, hit “Ctrl-V” to paste. Now, you should be able to scrub through your animation and see the emitter travelling along the rectangle path over a 2 second period. Obviously, you can adjust the key frames to make it however long you need.

What you have just done is simply transform the rectangle mask into a motion path and applied that data to the particle emitter’s position. By default, afx makes a 2 second animation around the complete path and makes the keyframes roving, that is, the two inside corner keyframes automatically space themselves to maintain smooth motion when you adjust either the first or last frame.

I hope this is what you needed.

Cheers and good luck

[Mike Park]

I am not sure what you are trying to do. Do you want to emit particles from a point travelling around the rectangle?

[Mike Park]

Thank you for the compliment. This effect could be produced in a true 3d program like maya or max using actual 3d particles. I fact, it would have been easier to do this entire shot, in my opinion, in 3d max using particles. However, it is fun to try to recreate the same look in afx. My only concern is the render times for afx once you get quite a few instances of the flares going at the end. You may have to render out a few at a time and then compose the footage back in using a screen or add transfer. I would like to finish the shot and may give it a go if I have some free time or other pressing need.

Good luck on your own project, and if you have any other questions or need any help, let me know. Also, I would love to see your finished project, so shoot me a link once you are done.

Cheers

[Mike Park]

you have the right idea with the cloud map, just the wrong implementation. create your cloud map and then drag it into your comp directly above the grid layer. change the track matte of your grid map to “Luma Matte” of the cloud layer. Then turn off the opacity of your cloud map. What is happening is that you are telling after effects to vary the opacity of the grid layer by the luminance value of the layer above it.

I hope this answers your question and good luck

[Mike Park]

Updated link to file

Moved stuff around in my mediafire directory

https://www.mediafire.com/?9x0jaw01my1

[Mike Park]

Sorry about that. I moved some stuff around in my media fire account and i guess i must have changed the setting. Here is an updated link. I would love some feedback.

Cheers,

Mike

https://www.mediafire.com/?9x0jaw01my1

[Mike Park]

One quick follow up, if you want to make more streaks, I suggest you precompose the layers which make up the entire particle streak effect, including the point light. Duplicate the precomp and then adjust the rotation null in the new precomp. Adjust the point light and the fallout particle source position and then drop it back into the main comp. Offset the time, and you have another streak ready made. Duplicate this process as many times as necessary to achieve the result you need.

PS, if you have any comments or constructive criticism, or know how to achieve this look in a different or more efficient way, by all means let me know. I appreciate you time.

[Mike Park]

Just for fun, I recreated the effect for you using Trapcode Particular and Trapcode lux. It is not perfect, but very close approximate for the effect. The only thing I would change, had I more time would be to change the flare. I used lux, but a customized Knoll light flare, as said above, would be better and offer more control.

Here is a link to the file

https://www.mediafire.com/?9x0jaw01my1

I hope this helps.

All of the particle layers are linked to the rotation of the null layer named “Particle Rotation” so to move the direction of the entire effect, just adjust the x and y rotation.