Adobe After Effects 7.0 Particle illusion 3.0. From the developer: particleIllusion is a standalone application that allows you to quickly and easily create amazing effects: explosions, smoke, fire, sparkles, motion graphics backgrounds, space effects, creatures, and abstract artistic effects - literally hundreds of different. The most popular versions of the program are 3.2, 3.0 and 2.0.
We spoke to both Wondertouch and GenArts about what this means to their over 10,000 users. Not only does this perfectly balance with GenArts current product line with almost no overlap, but Wondertouch is about to release particleIllusion for After Effects, the result of several years of work by founder and Wondertouch cornerstone, Alan Lorence. .In a key strategic move, GenArts have bought Wondertouch, makers of the particleIllusion software.
The snow can float or icily rain down, but a good particle effect will completely fool the viewer.This explains the performance of the program. Snow is a good example: one flake is a particle and the complete effect combines these into a snowy New England scene. Particle effects are special effects that work by animating small individual graphics into a larger effect.
In terms of technical approaches, having both graphical point-based particles and sprite-based particles makes Wondertouch so significant. Wondertouch have lifted this to a level where the results look almost like volumetric effects. For a sprite-based particle system, the quality of the sprites is the key. Notably the Fire and Pryo effects (Pyro 1 and 2) are extremely realistic but also well documented to allow users to modify the ‘presets’ for their own custom needs. Pro Emitters are a collection of 360 particleIllusion 3.0 emitters arranged into 12 themed libraries.
In the past Combustion used a licensed copy of Wondertouch’s particleIllusion SE, but there has not been an AE plugin version of the Wondertouch particles or Pro Emitters libraries. This is a major change for Wondertouch. On the near horizon is the release of particleIllusion for After Effects (particleIllusion AE). Plus many stock libraries are standard definition or simply not high enough resolution for the specific shot at hand.So successful are the preset Pro emitter libraries that studios are using them in episodic television and elsewhere in preference to working from scratch in a program such as Maya.The main Wondertouch products are standalone applications running on Windows and Mac.
It will also include the emitter search engine that is found in particleView. Regular pricing will be $299 but if you own particleIllusion 3.0 already, pIllusion AE will be $179.ParticleIllusion AE will allow you to load any of the over 2800 existing Particle Illusion 3.0 emitters in After Effects, including the Pro Emitters. “It will ship in the first half of December,” confirmed Lorence to fxguide directly. You dont need to do any work to get great explosions, fairy dust, or almost anything you can think of, you have them all ready for you – right out of the box.”The new plugin is fully compatible with CS4 from Adobe and is just entering Beta now for both Mac and Windows.
Particle Illusion 3.0 Effects Free Emitter Type
In a sense GenArts is buying not only the brand and existing customer base but also Lorence himself. Of course this is only true as Alan Lorence himself is locked in, as he is the backbone of not only the company but the technology. In this one move, GenArts gains a huge technological jigsaw piece to this portfolio of products and more importantly underlying technology. Particles are the basis of not only graphical elements, but fire, smoke, hair and ribbon style animations. ParticleIllusion ui on the macIf one looks at the deal from GenArts point of view, the technology of particles is a very strong strategic play. (almost everything that shows in the particleIllusion hierarchy window), so you’ll be able to do quite a bit of customization at both the top emitter level and the individual particle type level (and free emitter type level for super emitters).
The advantage of Wondertouch’s approach is that it is very fast, but it is limited in some respects. The sprite system allows for fire or for example a cartoon mouse to walk-cycle loop as a video sprite (Frank Gabriel) – but not a massive style ‘agent’ solution, or 3D hair etc. “One of the things that attracted us to Wondertouch was Alan, and one of Alan’s goals out of this was to get back to doing more development.”However Wondertouch does not get GenArts ‘all the way’ on particle technology, as Wondertouch is not a full-blown 3D particle system that would be used for something like Hair.
Lorence, while working alongside Impulse, was the primary software co-developer partner, and was central to all the coding and he has remained hands on ever since. He became president of Wondertouch after having bought out his partner in the particle technology from Illusion in July 2002 (Impulse – developers of Imagine 3D software). From the Pro libraryAlan Lorence has a long history developing embedded control and design in the vending machine, toy and gaming industry but he is trained formally in physics and electrical engineering. It is assumed GenArts will continue on this development trajectory with Lorence in the driving seat and it is hoped that as Lorence is now free from some of the non-technical business aspects of running Wondertouch – that this may even be accelerated. This is a major key technology for the group.
Already there is a free download of the first part of that strategy, the free particleView tool. Sturman led Microsoft’s technology development for dynamic in-game advertising, developing ad capabilities for PC, Xbox, Zune & iPhone platforms, and is a long time associate of Katherine Hays dating back to their days together pre-Microsoft at Massive, Inc.One aspect that Wondertouch had also flagged as a direction for future research is vastly improved search systems. David Sturman who recently joined GenArts as CTO from Microsoft. Lorence’s first love is computer graphics which is obvious from anyone who has played or worked with Wondertouch’s products.At GenArts Lorence will be working closely with Gary Oberbrunner, GenArts’ Chief Scientist and Dr.
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