Status

Available

Released

Jan 27th, 2011

Learn the little-known secrets of After Effects' Particle Playground plugin with special effects expert & Star macProVideo.com Trainer Richard Lainhart.

The Adobe After Effects Particle Playground plugin is a powerful environment for particle systems & other eye-catching special effects, but few After Effects users even know it's there! And what's more, many of those who do find its interface mysterious and intimidating. Yet Particle Playground is a wonderful environment for all kinds of effects (particularly text effects) that are difficult or impossible to achieve with other tools.

Our Particle Playground expert Richard Lainhart fills you in on the basics of how particle systems work, and how they differ from After Effects' standard keyframing techniques. Richard dives in at the deep end to show you how to create unique particle effects like snow and fountains, before taking you into Particle Playground's incredible particle text effects.

You'll learn cool techniques you can use in your productions, like the ever-popular revealing of a logo from a string of randomized letters, bouncing animated text off a wall with real physics properties, and blowing up selected letters in a line of moving text. You'll also learn how to use image sequences to create run cycles and animated particles. From there, Richard walks you step-by-step through creating the Matrix Code Effect, as featured in the popular Matrix films, and how to customize it for your own title sequences.

Particle systems can be confusing and difficult to understand, but once you complete this tutorial, you'll be well on your way to mastery of the Secrets of Particle Playground.

• After Effects CS5 101: Core After Effects CS5
• After Effects CS5 201: Motion Tracking and Stabilization
• After Effects CS5 203: Secrets of Particle Playground
• After Effects CS5 302: Cartoon Animation Basics
• After Effects CS5 303: More Cartoon Animation Basics

For a full list of the topics covered, see the Tutorial Outline
or click the button below to Preview this tutorial.

• Chapter 1: Introducing Particle Playground
• 1: Particle Systems Explained
• 00:58
  1. Introducing the Secrets of Particle Playground
• 04:06
  2. Keyframing vs. Procedural Animation
• 03:43
  3. How Particle Systems Work
• 04:47
  4. About Property Maps and Simulators
• 2: Particle Playground Basics
• 05:18
  5. Particle Playground Parameters
• 02:07
  6. Varying Particle Velocity
• 04:46
  7. Varying Particles Per Second
• 04:57
  8. Simulating a Fountain - Randomizing Direction
• 03:04
  9. Randomizing Velocity
• 3: Simulating Snow
• 05:31
  10. Setting the Initial Particle Snow Parameters
• 05:38
  11. Refining the Particle Snow Parameters
• 05:17
  12. Creating Stylized Snow with a Layer Map - Part 1
• 04:23
  13. Creating Stylized Snow with a Layer Map - Part 2
• 4: Working With Animated Layer Maps
• 04:35
  14. Setting Up a Photoshop Sequence as an Animated Laye...
• 03:51
  15. Applying the Animated Layer Map
• 02:16
  16. Setting Layer Map Time Offsets
• 04:15
  17. Relative and Absolute Layer Map Offset Types
• Chapter 2: Working with Particle Text and Property...
• 5: Particle Text
• 05:17
  18. Setting Up Cannon Text
• 04:06
  19. Adjusting Cannon Text Parameters
• 05:38
  20. Bouncing Cannon Text off a Wall
• 02:51
  21. Using Selection Texts
• 04:10
  22. Using Particle Exploder with Cannon Text
• 04:15
  23. Using Time Offsets with Particle Exploder
• 04:46
  24. Combining Wall with Particle Exploder
• 6: Working with Property Maps
• 03:46
  25. Property Map Concepts
• 04:29
  26. Creating a Simple Property Map
• 05:16
  27. Adjusting Property Maps Offsets
• 05:40
  28. Scrolling Characters with Property Maps
• 03:17
  29. Applying Multiple Property Map Channels
• 7: Introducing Grid Text
• 05:23
  30. Enabling Grid Text
• 02:20
  31. Creating Animation Presets
• 06:00
  32. Creating a Noise Map to Randomize Properties
• 06:25
  33. Randomizing Characters with the Noise Map
• Chapter 3: Creating the Matrix Code Effect
• 8: Introducing the Code Effect and Setting Up the Text ...
• 05:42
  34. Introducing the Matrix Code Effect
• 05:53
  35. Generating the Text Grid
• 9: 2 - Creating the Custom Property Map Elements
• 05:30
  36. Creating the Random Noise Map
• 03:26
  37. Creating the First Gradient Opacity Map
• 03:26
  38. Creating Additional Gradient Opacity Maps
• 10: Animating the Custom Property Map
• 06:55
  39. Animating the First Four Opacity Gradients
• 06:22
  40. Adding Additional Opacity Gradients - Part 1
• 05:03
  41. Adding Additional Opacity Gradients - Part 2
• 07:37
  42. Increasing Animation Density by Duplicating Element...
• 11: Assembling the Matrix Code Effect
• 03:31
  43. Setting Channels for the Master Property Map
• 07:32
  44. Applying the Custom Map to the Particle Playground ...
• 04:22
  45. Simulating the Code Effect with Standard Fonts

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