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.
machine

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.

[See post to watch Flash video]

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 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)

Shading from Comp Lights
All particle types can be shaded from comp-lights. Spot, Point and Ambient lights are used. Light Fallo! is supported for spot and point lights. If the particle is not a polygon, only di!use shading is possible (Light Fallo! works so point lights look great).
New particle primitive: Textured Polygon
Non-camera facing particle, full 3D orientation. Supports shading from comp lights – uses all spot, point and ambient lights. Also supports re”ection map.
New particle primitive: Streaklet
Perfect for “long exposure-style light streaks” effects.
Auto orient particles based on motion
Particles can orient themselves to their motion, for example an arrow can point in the direction it moves.
Support for 32 bpc floating-point rendering
Float allows super-bright (luminant) particles – looks great with for example motion blur. Particular v2 has a complete “oat implementation so all colors, even the custom color gradient UI support 32 bpc “oat. A must-have if you use “oat compositing seriously.
Ortho rendering support
For 4-views etc, enables viewing a scene from many directions (front, top, left) at the same time. Very helpful when setting up complex 3D animations.
New Custom Particle Time Sampling mode: Current Frame – Freeze
Takes the frame at current time from the custom particle layer and holds it throughout the particle’s life.
Subframe sample emitter position
Useful when the emitter has to move really fast. Particular 1.5 always used linear interpolation between frames, with Particular 2.0 there is a choice of Linear, 10x Linear, 10x Smooth and Exact.

Transform World
Allows offsetting and rotating the whole enchilada. No more need to spin the camera around an animation to make it look like it’s rotating.

Shadowlet

Particle volume self-shadowing. Available for all particle types. Extremely useful to create more sense of depth in a scene.
Transfer Mode
Useful for stacking multiple instances of the effect on one layer, also useful for applying particles to footage or other e!ects.
Random Rotation
Useful for getting a more natural looking effect where all particles have unique orientation in space.
Random Rotation Speed
Useful for getting more natural rotation, different particles rotate with different speed. Random distribution control to Particle>Random Rotation Speed Enables “ne-tuning of the randomness of rotation speed.#Setting the parameter to 0.5 gives a gaussian distribution, and a value of 1.0 is an even distribution.
Random distribution control to Emitter>Random Velocity
Enables “ne-tuning of the randomness of emission velocity.
Adobe color picker
The Adobe color picker allows for better color selection that the system color picker.
Improved linear motion blur for Custom Particles
The linear motion blur did not really work in v1.5 for Custom Particles. The new linear motion blur is far better looking.
Moved all parameters out of Options into regular sliders
No more need to go into Options to “nd all parameters.
Backward compatible – loads Particular 1.5 projects
Particular 2.0 can load projects made in Particular 1.5 and convert to 2.0 projects. Doing this will display a warning. Note that the new renderer is not pixel-perfect with the old, so it is a good idea to save your new project with a new name, in case you for some reason need to go back to using the
old. Also, never mix Particular 1.5 and 2.0 in a render-farm.
Light Emitter: new default behavior
New default is to not use color from light, added Particle>Set Color “From Light Emitter” option to get the old behavior of using the color from the light.
Light Emitter: new option
New option to use “None” as Particles/sec modifer. Useful when light intensity etc are used for other things (such as actually lighting a scene).

Rotation Speed affected by Air Resistance
Particle rotation speed can now be affected by Air Resistance, not just position. This allows for more natural looking animations as the rotation speed slows down as the particle slows down.

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.

[See post to watch Flash video]

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

[See post to watch Flash video]

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 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.