Trapcode Particular 2 is now available for you. With the release of  Trapcode Particular 2 Red Giant Software also offers the Particular Preset Pack (vol 1) which is published by David Vinso.

I did have the opportunity to use the beta version of Particular 2 over some period of time and can really only recommend to update to this version. With Particular 2 you will be able to do even more magical and astonishing effects and your customers or friends may not believe what you create in post production with Particular 2.
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One of the new feature allows you to shade all particle types from multiple lights in After Effects. Spot, Point and Ambient lights are all supported with natural light falloff available for spot and point lights. The Video below shows a quick example. It did take only 5 min to set this up all together and render it.

With Particular 2, you no longer need your favorite 3D modeling/animation program to create virtual 3D textures or adjust lighting as text or objects tumble in 3D space. Particular 2 lets you do it all right inside After Effects (CS3 and CS4).

There are over 30 new features in  Trapcode Particular v2 can be found in detail here.

More on Trapcode Particular 2:

• Particular 2 Presentation + Tutorial (By Aharon Rabinowitz)
• Trapcode Particular v2 available soon
• Trapcode Tutorials

Trapcode Particular v2 will be available soon and comes with great new features to make your live easier when rendering and using particles in After Effects.

Trapcode Particular v2 comes with  interactive previews, bouncing particles, 3D camera integration, particles that emit particles, custom shapes, air resistance, gravity and turbulence controls, depth of field, and more! It’s the best way to generate your own star fields, asteroid belts, or meteor showers. With Particular 2, you no longer need your favorite 3D modeling/animation program to create virtual 3D textures or adjust lighting as text or objects tumble in 3D space. Particular 2 lets you do it all right inside After Effects.

Shaded Particles, Beautifully Lit
All particle types can be shaded from multiple lights in After Effects. Spot, Point and Ambient lights are all supported with natural light falloff available for spot and point lights. This feature is exclusive to Particular and found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.

Shadowlets, Enhanced Depth
Along with shaded particles, you also get particle volume self-shadowing. This feature creates a shadow from light sources to create a much greater sense of depth in a scene. This exclusive feature is found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.

New Particle: Streaklet
This new particle type is perfect for long exposure-style light effects as seen in the Apple iPod and Sprint commercials. This a Particular-exclusive feature found in no other After Effects particle plug-in.

Highest Quality 32-bpc Rendering
Floating point rendering (32 bits per channel) allows super-bright (luminant) particles. When motion blur is enabled, it will render with optically correct, extra bright results.

Backward Compatibility
Particular 2 can load projects made with Particular version 1.5. The new version will create nearly identical results, while giving you access to enhanced features. You can buy now with full confidence that your settings will work in the new version.

Be sure to check out Episode 19 of Red Giant TV on how to create your own Star Trek transporter effect with Trapcode Particular. Visit: Red Giant TV

Particular v2 Upgrade Details

Many users want to know the status of version 2 and the upgrade details.

• If you purchase the Particular 1.5 product today you will get the upgrade for free. You will be notified with a upgrade code when the Particular 2 ships.
• Users that purchased Particular BEFORE April 7th, 2009, will need to purchase an upgrade to version 2. The upgrade from Particular 1.0 or 1.5 costs $99.
• Red Giant Software is NOT taking pre-orders for Particular 2 at this time.
• Particular 2 is still in beta and we anticipate a July release but it may be later to deliver the speed and quality that users expect.

Some additional Particular V2 coverage

• fxguidetv #055 Watch High Bandwidth Episode | Watch Low Bandwidth Episode
• Episode 19 of Red Giant TV on how to create your own Star Trek transporter effect with Trapcode Particular

Detailed Overview about all New features Trapcode Particular v2 (patents pending)

Read the rest of this entry »

Andrew Kramer who is the key person behind the famous After Effects Video Tutorial site videocopilot.net released in the last few days two new After Effects Video tutorials. In 3D Offset you can learn how you can animate layers with intelligent shifting. In the second new After Effects Video Tutorial Speed Particles you learn how to create a dynamic particle system that emits based on the speed of a layer. Trapcode’s Particular is used in the Speed Particles tutorial. As all other plugins Trapcode offers we strongly recommend to look into Particular and the other Trapcode plugins, they make your live so much easier and allow you to generate effects you have been looking for.

Videocopilot.net offers even more After Effects Video Tutorials most of them are free to watch, if you do benefit from the great free after effects tutorials please don’t forget to check out the great products and DVDs videocopilot.net offers.

Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional – Upgrade Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional

Trapcode Horizon is a camera-aware color gradient and image mapping tool. It is a fairly straightforward utility plug-in. It is meant to be used on the bottom layer in a 3D comp. It generates a background that corresponds to the camera’s viewing direction.

To get yourself started with the Trapcode Horizon Tutorial

Trapcode Horizon can be used for example when a 3D camera move leaves the viewer confused; Trapcode Horizon can help generating a background that corresponds to the camera move and thus help the viewer understand what is actually going on. Or it can be used just for fun!

Trapcode Horizon is a great companion to the other 3D plugs from Trapcode, such as Particular and Form etc.

Supported Hosts: Adobe After Effects 7.0 and higher (Mac OSX/Windows)

Earlier news: Trapcode Horizon – After Effects plugin (updated)

Trapcode Horizon costs currently 99 USD: Buy Trapcode

Give your compositions what they’ve been missing with this unique mapping tool. The Trapcode Horizon plug-in is a camera-aware image mapping tool that ties your After Effects camera to a 3D world.

By applying images or gradients to the inside of a giant sphere, Horizon creates an infinite background. No matter where your camera is directed, the simple controls make photorealistic backgrounds or sky gradients a snap.

Features of Trapcode Horizon:

Coverage Controls

With controls for horizontal and vertical coverage of the sphere, you can determine how much of the virtual sphere to map—especially useful for using non-panoramic images or video.

Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional – Upgrade Adobe After Effects CS3 Professional

Controlled Zoom

Mapping in Horizon depends on the Field of View in After Effects, so you can create a zoom effect by animating the field of view of the After Effects camera.

Trapcode Horizon runs only in Adobe After Effects CS3, 7.

You can buy Horizon here

Update: Some early examples from the beta version: Example 1, Example 2, Example 3.

Trapcode did release three new short clips showing work two of their clients did produce.

The new clips are made by Barbecue Mediendesign GmbH and Crew Creative Advertising

Barbecue Mediendesign GmbH did create two great clips “Lexus” and “Lexus LFA” (car). Crew Creative Advertising created the trailer Life Before Her Eyes Trailer

Life Before Her Eyes Trailer (quote from trapcode)
Trapcode plugins have always been a staple product in Crew Creative’s motion graphics pipeline, so we were excited to get our hands on Form. With a mixture of Particular, Starglow, Form and 3d Stroke (driving the Form map layer), Lead Motion Graphics Designer, Adam Franklin, achieved the visual look and feel desired for this trailer.

All three clips show the powerful results you can achieve with the fine plugins from trapcode.

Trapcode Form has been released. It is a grid-based 3D particle system with a twist. It can be used to create fluid, organic patterns, complex geometric structures and swirling stringy animations etc and it can be used to visualize audio. Form works in AE 7 and later.

Trapcode Forms features:

• Uses AE’s comp camera
• Audio visualizer features
• Controls to easily make seamless loops
• Supports Depth of Field
• Fast rendering
• Works in 16bit and 8bit per channel color depths
• Handles non-square pixel aspect ratio correctly
• Built-in motion blur
• Available for Mac OSX (PPC+Intel) and Windows

You can read the online help and learn more about the presets that come with Trapcode Form.

More info, examples and video tutorials are available to you in the online help.

The price is USD 199 and owners of Trapcode Particular can get a USD 50 discount when purchasing Trapcode Form before Dec 15th, use this link.