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

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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.

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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Discussion 24 Comments

  1. Madison reynolds says:

    great thinks

  2. Giovanni says:

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

    Browsers: Firefox, Google Chrome (bèta for Mac)

  3. HerCar says:

    Thanks !!!

  4. Topher Welsh says:

    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

  5. Nick says:

    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

    • 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.

  6. Richard Williams says:

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

  7. Matthias says:

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

    -Matthias

  8. IANH - BR says:

    Requirements: Trapcode Particular, no ?

  9. John Michalec says:

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

  10. André says:

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

  11. UmairVFX says:

    Hm this is the Cool idea buddy….

    Check this out buddy…

    http://www.vimeo.com/8988918

  12. ramesh says:

    great idea and a great tip .. thanks

  13. hosebeast says:

    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.

  14. Graeme says:

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

    We need more like this one!

  15. g says:

    Very useful – thanks!

  16. jho says:

    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?

  17. Susana says:

    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.

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

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