How to Use particleIllusion SE

Step 1: Load your Video or Images (optional)

Most users want to use particleIllusion to add effects to footage (movies or images), and you can simply do this in a couple of ways. The easiest is to double-click the empty layer thumbnail, then select your movie or image.

Step 2: Select the Particle Emitters and Add Them

Select a particle emitter (effect) by clicking on it in the library window and you'll see the emitter animated in the preview window. Then just click in the stage window to add the emitter to your project. If the emitter you want is not in the library window, there are several ways to load another of the dozens of libraries that are included with particleIllusion 3.0.

Step 3: Adjust Emitter Position (optional)

The emitter will be placed where you clicked in the stage, but you can easily reposition it by dragging it where you want it. You can keyframe its position to make it move over time, and you can even "draw" its movement as it plays.

Step 4: Adjust Emitter Parameters (optional)

There are so many (over 1500) emitters available so you'll probably be able to find an effect you like, but what if you want to "tweak" the effect a bit? Changes to the emitter are simple. Want more particles? Choose the "number" property in the hierarchy and then adjust its values in the graph window. Want the particles to move faster? Select "velocity" and increase its value. There are dozens of simple parameters (depending on the complexity of the emitter) for you to adjust this way, and you can make more "extreme" changes by opening the emitter properties dialog. Here you can make changes to the particle colors, and even the image used for the particles.

Step 5: Render

As you're perfecting your project, you can see the changes immediately in the stage window -- there is no waiting for a re-render. Hit the spacebar to play your project (usually in near real-time), and saving this output as a movie or image sequence is just a matter of hitting the "save output" button and selecting an output format. If you've loaded footage, you can turn it off and save an alpha channel for the particles for easy overlay in your video editing or compositing application (just choose a format that supports alpha channel and check the "save alpha" option).

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