Particle Illusion from Wondertouch?

[Robert Eldon]

Is this a good place to ask about Particle Illusion from Wondertouch?

Has anyone used this program and is it any good for movies?

Are there better (quality) programs for generating these kind of effects?

Thanks.

[oneinfiniteloop]

Trapcode Particular is good, but not near as expansive as Particle Illusion. I've heard good things about Particle Illusion though.

[Matt Grunau]

Originally Posted by oneinfiniteloop

Trapcode Particular is good, but not near as expansive as Particle Illusion. I've heard good things about Particle Illusion though.

Right on. I have used it since version 2 and version 3 is even better.

Particle Illusion is a great particle generator. Couple of drawbacks, it is only 2D, relys on OpenGL to run well, and you can only render the size of your work area.

That said, I have been extremely impressed with it. I use it quite a bit with Lightwave to create animated textures for objects. Rather than fuss around with moving procedural tectures on an object or particles, a coat a cone with the right animation from it and you have one bitchin fighter/missle exhaust. The amount of control is awsome as well, and the learning curve is very light. And once you get your head around it, working with particle systems from 3D apps fall right into place, since they all behave in similar ways. Size, Life, Number, Weight, Velocity, Spin, and even finer details like Size, weight, velicity over time as well.

There are usually about 20 different particle types in each library, sometimes almost 40, and there are dozens of libraries. Hundreds of emitters to play with.

THey have some of the most convincing particle based fire I have ever seen. In fact, version 2 was so good it was bought out and placed inside of Combustion, as that apps default particle generator.

Oh, did I mention you can make your own particle shapes in Photoshop?

Here's a little taste of what it can do. This is the Demo version, so you may see some watermarks. I tried to work around them for the test though. Everything you see is from the demo of Illusion 3, including the displacement map. And yes, it hurt. This project took about an hour and a half from conception to final sound design, including filming, CCing, visual element creating and implementation, and putting them all together.

Hudson, it's the Clone Spellcaster clip again. Bwahahaha.


2.4 megs, DivX .avi

http://www.paramm.com/clonespell.avi

[oneinfiniteloop]

How can you view that file with Quicktime, Rapier?

[Matt Grunau]

Originally Posted by oneinfiniteloop

How can you view that file with Quicktime, Rapier?

Sure, just get DivX for Mac. You should have that anyway, as popular as DivX is. I use it as work all the time.

http://www.divx.com/divx/mac/

See if you can get version 5. I havent tested version 6, so I can't attest to its quailty. 5 works fine though.

[Robert Eldon]

Hudson, it's the Clone Spellcaster clip again. Bwahahaha.


2.4 megs, DivX .avi

http://www.paramm.com/clonespell.avi

I tried to run this using WMV and it says that there is a codec missing? Any ideas?

[Matt Grunau]

Originally Posted by RobertE

I tried to run this using WMV and it says that there is a codec missing? Any ideas?

Yeah, you need the DivX codec:

http://www.divx.com/

[Brandon Rice]

Particle Illusion is an excellent tool. We've had it for about 2 years, and we've used it on countless projects.

[g0ldenb0y55]

Two thumbs up for PI! Great support staff!

[Robert Eldon]

Yeah, you need the DivX codec:

http://www.divx.com/

Got it. Thanks! Looks great. I really like the sound effects and the way that the sound seems further away in the long shot, then louder in the close up.