Quick Tip – How To Get Better Control Without “Particular” Emitters

on Apr 13th 2012 with 30 comments
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This entry is part 2 of 14 in the The Complete Introduction to Particle Emitters Session
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We’re going to be implementing something new here in 2010 called Quick Tips. We often get tutorials pitches from users and they are good ideas, but not quite enough to fill a whole tutorial. These Quick Tip posts will allow us to gather and pass along more content from those who may only have a little something to share. It will also be perfect for any viewers who don’t have time to sit and watch a full tutorial.

Republished Tutorial

Every few weeks, we revisit some of our reader's favorite posts from throughout the history of the site. This tutorial was first published in January 2010.

Requirements

  • Nothing And that should feel good!

Overview

  • Core Training Value: You’ll learn how to attach AE’s built in particle emitter to a null for more control.
  • Difficulty: Intermediate

QuickTip

Download QuickTip .flv

File size 37MB

Adam Everett Miller is everettoptions on Videohive
 
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I am the editor of Aetuts+. I also run Hello Studios as my 9-5 job. I'd love any feedback about Aetuts+ so don't hesitate to drop me a line. ae@tutsplus.com  

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  • Madison reynolds

    great thinks

  • Giovanni

    Love this site but dl’ing the tuts can be a headache!! :(

    Browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome (bèta for Mac)

  • HerCar

    Thanks !!!

  • http://www.visualfxtuts.com Topher Welsh

    Seriously great tip dude… One of the things I really suck at in this world is math… so I am glad you did the hard part for me. hahaha

  • Nick

    Hallo Adam, thanks for the Tutorial but for some reason I don’t get it ! If I can cotroll the xyz of the producer in particle world why do I need to take the controls out of the effect and onto a null?? I don’t have much experience with particle effects, so please excuse if this is a dumb question. I just don’t get the “why” of this tip. Otherwise many thanks for your great work.
    Cheers

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      No, that’s a great question… If you’re only working with CC Particle World, then that’s fine, stay within it’s controllers. The reason I needed to give it “normal” AE controls is because was because I was working with a larger 3d environment and needed my emitter to moved with another layer (one that has “normal” controls). Running into that problem, I kinda stumbled upon this simple method and figured I’d share it.

  • Richard Williams

    Nice one, Adam! “You DON’T have to do the math. YEAH!!!

  • Matthias

    Hi!
    Sweet tipp!
    What screen captrue Programe you use?

    -Matthias

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      Camtasia Studio

  • http://www.youtube.com.br/ianhpiratao IANH – BR

    Requirements: Trapcode Particular, no ?

  • http://www.lovehatedesign.co.uk freed

    nice Adam

  • John Michalec

    Sick! I always thought this was possible for particle world but I’m terrible with expressions to have figured it out. Thanks!

  • André

    Thanks, Adam,
    great and very handy quicktip. Enjoyed listening and watching.
    André

  • http://www.vimeo.com/8988918 UmairVFX

    Hm this is the Cool idea buddy….

    Check this out buddy…

    http://www.vimeo.com/8988918

  • http://www.youtube.com/user/v4vfx ramesh

    great idea and a great tip .. thanks

  • hosebeast

    very nice… but you can do this without separating the xyz. link them directly to the transform values and add a subtraction of half the screen width and height to the x and y properties respectively. make sure to affect the expression before the multiplication/correction comes into play… this way you can control your particles with the 3 directional scrubber directly on screen. (even more control) … I saved mine as a preset too.

    • http://www.arvinbautista.com Arvin Bautista

      This and their method are both totally brand new news to me. Great stuff!

  • Graeme

    Awesome tip, great tutorial, short and sweet and to the point.

    We need more like this one!

  • g

    Very useful – thanks!

  • jho

    Hey, i’m quite the noob with AE and here’s a stupid question: what is that “expression” (e.g Express…ition X) thing you use to make the Null-layers X,Y and Z positions as parents of the emittors positions? Is some extra feature or a buyable add-on or what? My AE is the basic setup from the box, so is that something i need to install?

    • jho

      Got it. Sorry bother you :).

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      I applied the plug-in “Separate XYZ” to the null so that I could quickly have an editable value for each axis. To get to the expression area, you just alt/option click on the stopwatch next to each position value. Let me know if I didn’t answer your question accurately.

  • Susana

    Hello, thank you very much for this excellent tutorial.
    I do not know much English so I do not understand what the video says, I know how you got the key “expression position” (This track in 2.55).

    Thank you very much.

  • http://vftwins.com Tommy Vad Flaaten

    Awesome, it worked and it’s free! Thank you.

  • Will M

    How do you drag them, when i click on the position no drop down arrow shows up. Sorry if this is a stupid question.

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      Sorry, I don’t fully understand the questions… position of which part are you not getting a drop down arrow?

  • http://www.whitefly.tv Alessandro

    Hello, thank you very much for the tutorial, although the maths part doesn’t solve the problem very well. May I suggest you try this way instead. It’s less complicated and works better.
    Get a Null object and name it POINT.
    On the Particular World copy and paste these expressions to the X,Y and Z of the emitter:

    Expression CC Part World Position X
    x=thisComp.layer(“POINT”).transform.position[0]-thisComp.width/2;
    x/thisComp.width

    Expression CC Part World Position Y
    y=thisComp.layer(“POINT”).transform.position[1]-thisComp.height/2;
    y/thisComp.width

    Expression CC Part World Position Z
    z=thisComp.layer(“POINT”).transform.position[2];
    z/thisComp.width

    Now, This makes the emitter linked to the Null named POINT like Trapcode does with a light point and you can simply drag it around the comp and the emitter will follow like a well trained puppy.

    Hope it helps.

    • http://www.vimeo.com/everettoptions Adam Everett Miller
      Author

      Awesome… that’s one step further than I took it… great job! :)

      • Alessandro

        Thank you, this was a tip from Andrew Kramer

        http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorial/3d_stroke_effect/

        but I use it all the time until I’ll get this nice Trapcode, it is though a nice piece of expression that can be used for other stuff too.

        Take care, thank you for your tutorials.

        Ale

  • vieya

    Hi, I was wondering how exactly do you find the ratio? How would you decide what is the position x of the controller and position x of the solid to use in the ratio? Also what is the full code that you type? (the part that says position *) Thanks I really learned a lot from your video now I might be able to do this stuff without all the extra plugins.