Alright, as we mentioned in part 1, alpha channels aren’t always perfect, especially when dealing with blurry or soft-edged particles. When that happens, you will get hard edges in your images, or some other strange results.
However, some particles with soft edges will have an alpha channel that works perfectly. A lot of what determines this is if the particle is if it intense, and if it is full color. Smoke particles, in particular, are huge offenders when it comes to this, which is why we made the smoke in our AE comp the way we did. On the other hand, intense, gray-scale particle shapes do not generally have this problem – Unfortunately, there are many times you won’t be able to use particles like that. For the times that you can get away with using particles with those specs, we’ve made section 3 of this tutorial… (insert trumpet fanfare here)...
Let’s just jump into it, shall we?
1. In whatever folder you’ve been keeping your rendered particleIllusion image sequences, create a new folder called “Boom.”
2. In the “Bonus” folder of the tutorial files you downloaded, you will find the project file (IPF) called “Boom.” Open it in pIllusion. If you play back the animation, you will see an explosion take place in the upper right corner of your screen. This explosion will match up in space with the small planet in the upper right of our after effects project later.
2. As we have done earlier in the tutorial, render frames 1-140 as a Tiff sequence. As before, use the following settings:
- RGB
- Use Packbits compression
- Save Alpha
- Remove Black BG from RGB Channels
3. Next, open your saved After Effects project from the last section of this tutorial.
4. At this point, we need to import some files into AE, to add to the project. Go to “Import Multiple Files.”
5. Import the files called: “Planet_Mask.tif” and “Space_BG_No_P,” found in the bonus folder.
6. Import the “Boom” image sequence you created.
At this point, your layers in the AE project, should look like this:
1. Asteroids_Front
2. Rocket
3. Flame
4. Smoke_Mask
5. Smoke
6. Asteroids_Back
7. Space_BG
7. Next we need to insert our new footage into our composition – Set it up so that the order of your layers is now:
1. Asteroids_Front
2. Rocket
3. Flame
4. Smoke_Mask
5. Smoke
6. Asteroids_Back
7. Planet_Mask
8. Boom (DROP IN AT FRAME 21)
9. Space_BG_No_P
10. Space_BG
Things should look a little weird now, but after we make just a few adjustments, we’ll be good to go.
8. Select the “Boom” layer, and set it to use the layer above it (Planet_Mask) as a Luma Matte. If you scroll through the animation, your “Boom” particles will now fall behind the big planet in the foreground.
You’ll probably notice that our small planet in the upper right corner is gone. Let’s get it back, so we can destroy it:
9. Select the layer called “Space_BG_No_P” (layer 9), and then press “T” - this opens the Opacity (transparency) property of the layer.
10. At frame #26, add a keyframe to the opacity, and set it to “0” (ZERO).
11. At frame #27, add a keyframe to the opacity, and set it to “100.”
12. As we discussed earlier, RAM preview your animation or render it out.
Well, that’s it. You’ve learned just about everything you need to know to use particleIllusion effectively in After Effects. Of course there is always more to learn, and you will probably discover a few tips and tricks of your own along the way.
The main point of this tutorial was to show you several ways to use pIllusion footage in After Effects. Now that you’ve seen what it can do, we encourage you to experiment and find what works best for you. Feel free to share your ideas, and get pIllusion help at the particleIllusion forum found at Creative Cow: Creative Cow particleIllusion forum.
Most importantly, HAVE FUN!
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