particleIllusion for After Effects FAQ

Why is there no new emitter library this month?
As many of you know, we've been releasing free emitter libraries for particleIllusion every month for the past several years. We will be continuing these periodic releases, providing all users of particleIllusion with fresh ideas and an ever-growing collection of presets, but we are reducing the frequency of library releases; you can expect a new high-quality emitter library roughly every quarter in 2012.

If you have any concerns, questions, or suggestions about emitter libraries please feel free to contact us

What versions of After Effects are supported?
particleIllusion v1.02 for After Effects works in CS3, CS4, CS5, and CS5.5. If you're using a version older than 1.02, get the update here.

When I activate I get a message saying "previously activated. License file refreshed." What am I doing wrong?
Nothing! This is a successful activation, and the message lets you know that you have already activated on this computer -- it did not count as another activation.

particleIllusion keeps crashing, and I'm getting a lot of "OpenGL" error messages in After Effects. Why?
You need to disable OpenGL in After Effects. Click the "Fast Previews" icon under the comp window and use a setting that does not use OpenGL. You may need to disable hardware acceleration of the panels under the "display" page of Preferences too.

I'm trying to use AE's multiprocessing feature and I'm having problems. What are the correct settings?
You may need to turn off multiprocessing when using particleIllusion. Uncheck the "Render Multiple Frames Simultaneously" option in the "Multiprocessing" page of Preferences.

I'm trying to load a project that I created in AE CS4 into CS5, and I'm getting a "stream error" message. What does this mean?
We've had a few reports of this "stream error" message when loading a CS4 project that contains particleIllusion into CS5. Please contact us so we can investigate your specific project.

All of your examples show adding particleIllusion to a solid layer. How do I make the layer transparent?
Two easy ways are to apply particleIllusion to either an adjustment layer or a shape layer. This may or may not work for you, as adding effects to these types of layers is sometimes a problem. A safer solution is to use a solid layer and the following steps:
Step 1- Apply particleIllusion.
Step 2 - From the effect menu select 'channel', 'channel combiner'
Step 3 - Set the 'from' to 'max RGB', set the 'to' to 'alpha'.
Step 4 - From the effect menu select 'channel', 'remove color mat'.