[Peter Klavins]

Thanks 🙂 That’s more along the lines of what I was looking for… however, the video I linked in my last post seems to have a completely different method, which I can’t seem to figure out. If I can’t figure it out then I’ll use Vishesh’s method, but I’d prefer something like what was in the video…

[Peter Klavins]

Thanks for the suggestion Vishesh, but that still doesn’t achieve what I’m going for; the different sizes of the text blocks (e.g. four words dissolving to form eight) still make it appear like the particles suddenly switch over in the middle of the transition. Essentially, I want a fixed number of particles to go through different shapes (i.e. text) with a smooth transition between them.
Also, I can’t access your example since I only have CS5.5 and it would appear you have CS6.

quick edit: I want something like this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=aWlaTc9xFb4 . Turns out it’s made with Particular…

[Peter Klavins]

Sorry… edit to my last post; it worked now, but the particles aren’t responding to the movements of the form layer. The form shape is moving from fractal noise, and what I’d want is the Particular particles to be ‘thrown off’ this shape as it moves, whereas now it’s just a static field of particles being produced over the space occupied by the shape, if that makes sense…

[Peter Klavins]

I tried that, moving the form settings to a precomposed comp, and after making the precomposed layer 3D it still won’t emit anything as far as I can see…

[Peter Klavins]

I assume I’d include a third null if I wanted to make it orbit in the z dimension as well?

Thing is, I’m trying to make this somewhat reacting to audio, so I wanted to vary the distance of the light from the origin (in this case the centre of the comp) based on some keyframes derived from audio. I can see that being much easier to do with a value like r… or is there an easy way I’m not seeing?

(The code below is what I currently have, and that makes it rotate nicely around the centre.)

x = Math.sin(time)*200 + 480;
[x, position[1], position[2]] ***first null***

y = Math.cos(time)*200+360;
temp = thisComp.layer("x rotator").transform.position[0];
[temp, y, position[2]] ***second null***

[Peter Klavins]

The thing is, I want to have the streak zoom around one image and 3 text layers… and text layers can’t be used so i’ve gotta precomp every one of them…

Is there any way to make more than 2 layers obscure the streak?

[Peter Klavins]

OK I did this effect in Trapcode Particular, but the thing is I want more than one layer to obscure the streak of light… can i just duplicate the ‘Obscure [Layer Name]’ layers and change the parent?

[Peter Klavins]

Erk… I forgot to mention this particle streak is made with CC Particle World… convex lens particle type, pretty much identical to Andrew Kramer’s tutorial…

I’ll have a look at trapcode’s Obstruction too tho…

So any way to do this with CC Particle World?

[Peter Klavins]

Umm… tutorial n. 21 on that page is one for gun muzzle flash lighting effects… and also I’ve already got my text layers in 3D mode. The only thing that I can do to affect which shows on top, the text or the particle, is to move the layers in the timeline, which of course won’t do for animation.

So, help still needed please…

[Peter Klavins]

So is there any realistic way of doing this with AE and Trapcode Particular or any other plugins, and blue/greenscreen footage of an actor?