particle illusion emitters in AE7

poopnoodle

poopnoodle

Active member
hi there, i've been playing around with AE7, and i saw a tutorial that had an emitter from the particle illusion library in it, i was wondering if anyone knows how to use the particle illusion effects in after effects (with alpha channels), i've tried different exporting methods but to no avail.

thanks in advance for any tips you have,
-brad
 
I'm interested in this as well, in Vegas you just export and import as an image sequence in .png format, I don't know how to do it in AE.
 
I use the two extensively, and have no problems bringing material in from Illusion. What I do is export a full frame sized but highly compressed movie from AE and use it as the background In illusion. Then I make the animations I want In illusion, hide the background layer and export as .png ot .tga sequence. I rarely mess with alphas. You can generate alphas in video produced my Illusion, and can get some decent results in AE with them. I have had far better looks by using a free plugin by Knoll called Unmult:

http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/unmult.html

which goes into your plugins directory in AE. This strips the black out, and and works like a perfect keyer.

Most of what I render from Illusion is very light intesive stuff, so I simply render from Illusion and bring it into AE and set the blending mode to Screen or Add. That works well too. You can also export motion paths to Illusion from AE, which can help.


Importing into AE is a breeze. If your animation is just one file like an avi, just add it in. If it is a file sequence, open and click on the first file in the Illsuion sequence, check the "Image File Sequence" option, and you are ready.''

The unmult plugin is a godsend. Get it, use it, love it.

Try to avoid using alphas from Illusion if you can. Things get a little hinky and ofen the areas of your effect which are supposed to have a degree of transparancy dont. That's why I use blending modes in AE. That helps.

Post a low res version of what you are trying to use Illusion for, and we can look at it further.


EDIT: Some help:

http://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials/aharon/CNIA/cnia.html

http://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials/aharon/AE_to_PI/AE_to_PI_keyframes.htm

http://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials/CC_PI_AE7_Full_POD.mp4

http://www.wondertouch.com/tutorials/aharon/AE/Tut_AE_1.htm
 
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thanks matt,

that unmult plugin worked like a charm, i honestly enjoy some of the particle illusion plugins, but i'm not a huge fan of the interface, so getting them into AE is quite nice.

thanks,
-brad
 
Illusion's interface sucks. It just plain sucks. Getting keyframes exactly where you want them and adjusting their values is a pain. But, it can do some great stuff, especially generating moving tectures for 3D obects as well as creating Displacement Maps an compound blur use.

As much as I don't care for the interface, the fact they release a new library every month, and take into consideration user ideas, is a show of a good comapny. Most of my nitpicks are small ones. Some things, like fine tuning adjustments to emitter atributes is clunky but for what it offers, it's a good program.


Oh, and by the by, release 4 is supposed to have true z axis space. We could have a very compitant 3D particle only generator on our hands. That would be nice.
 
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