wondertouch is an award-winning software developer specializing in particle effects for the visual effects industry. Create an explosion effect and hundreds of other computer special effects with the industry standard particleIllusion.

What is particleIllusion, and what can I do with it?

particleIllusion is a standalone application that allows you to quickly and easily create amazing effects: smoke, fire, sparkles, motion graphics, an explosion effect, backgrounds, space effects, creatures, and abstract artistic effects -- literally hundreds of different types of effects.

particleIllusion 3.0 is our fully-featured professional version. It uses the latest version of our particle engine, and can create the largest number of effects, with amazing realism and complexity.

particleIllusion SE is the low-cost introductory version of particleIllusion. It uses an older version of our particle engine, but can still create a huge number of effects. particleIllusion's interface has been highly praised as easy to learn, work with, and master.

One of the great strengths of particleIllusion is the huge library of effects that is included. Over 1500 particle emitters ("effects") are currently available, with a new free library released every month, from an explosion effect to disintegrating humans.

More detail on the differences between particleIllusion 3.0 and particleIllusion SE

Since SE uses an older version of the particleIllusion effects engine (2.0), you can't do these 3.0 effects in SE:

• Influence particles after they are created (3.0 only).
• Super Emitters (3.0 only), which are emitters that create other emitters automatically, resulting in some very complex and realistic effects.
• Erase option, which causes particles to "paint" themselves onto the stage (3.0 only).
• SE is limited to a single layer, while 3.0 has support for multiple layers and transparency. Note that this does not mean that SE can use only a single emitter -- you can have as many emitters (effects) as you want on a single layer.
• particleIllusion 3.0 has additional color options, including the ability to have the particles get their colors from the background footage.
• 3.0 has 50% more emitters available for it (over 1500 as compared to over 950 for SE), and to better keep track of all of these emitters, 3.0 has a "Library Manager". With this feature you can easily move emitters (and particle types) between libraries. Left window shows the currently loaded library, middle list contains all of your libraries (from multiple paths), right window contains selected library from that list.
• 3.0 has an improved graph window (where you'll do a lot of your work) as well.
• 3.0 has the ability to use the alpha channel of an image (or sequence) as a "mask" to define where particles are created, which opens up a lot of new possibilities.

Interested in learning more? The following links are good starting points:

What is particleIllusion, and what can I do with it?
What are the differences between these products?
How are these products being used?