One of the many uses for a particle system plug-in like Particular is the ability ‘visualize’ music through the formation of particles.  I’ve seen some amazing examples over the last few months and this is one of my experiments called Red Smoke.

Watch Sample Video

Download Project (CS4 & Particular 2 required)

About this Project:

After I extracted the keyframes from the audio amplitude, with this technique, I linked the particle birth and the velocity to the sound intensity with expressions. This made the bursts of particles shoot out farther for the louder notes and tighter for quiet parts.

The original comp was actually black with colorful particles (See sample) but I wanted to create something a bit more unique so I inverted the luminance and colorized part of it so it would be more dramatic Red on Black.

To get away from the sandy look of small particles I used a vector blur set to “Perpendicular” to blend it more naturally.

There are about a 2 million particles per frame so the render took about 4 hours but I lowered the rate while working to speed things up. I also offset the final audio a few frames to match the visual since the birth causes a slight delay.

Side Note: Harry Frank did a pretty in-depth tutorial at RGTV.

If you have any questions, post them!

Using the Audio Waveform plug-in I’ve built several comps with interesting looks, including  many with 3D space. I linked some of the waveform settings to a control layer to offset multiple copies.  You can swap out your own audio and make changes to the control layer.

If you want to make some more serious changes, delete all of the copies except for one. Then make changes to the settings and then duplicate it a dozen times or so.

Most of the concepts used to offset multiple copies can be found in this tutorial. You can also extract keyframes from audio with this animation tutorial. And, if you are new to audio in After Effects check this blog post too.

Watch Sample Video

Download AE Project (CS4)

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a free project file so here is one I’ve been messing with lately… It uses the CC Hair plug-in to create random moving fibers and then I used the Mirror plug-in to add a classic… well, mirror effect.

Download Project File CS4, just change the font to something you have.

View Sample Video

So I’m still getting over a little cold but I wanted to make something shiny so here is a project file that uses 3D looking text with a billion layers to create depth and shadows. Everything was created with After Effect and there are no Lights in the scene.

Watch Sample Video

Download CS4 Project File (I don’t have CS3 on my laptop)

What’s up! Anyone notice how sad particles look when they are played against slow piano music? Well here is a test I did using CC Particle World linked to a 3D NULL! I used several copies featuring different settings to serve as the smoke particles and the light debris.  I think CC Particle World has great potential to create amazing particles but it may take a little more work when compared to Particular.

Another cool tip: Once I completed the particle animation, I put the comp in a new comp and slowed it down 200% so the particle movement is slower and also more depressing in a happy good way!

Now close your eyes… and imagine what it would like with some Optical Flares!

Download Project File (CS3)

Watch Sample Video

I was playing around with Particular 2 and came up with this particle swirl using a couple of smoke images as particles. I love that Particular 2 reacts to the lighting as well as fake shading to make the particle seem more volumetric.

Here is what I did, in Particular 2 custom particles are called Sprites, so once you select this as your particle type, the texture slot becomes available to use my smoke video that is included with the project download.  I stretched the particle area and rotated the world transform to make it look like a twister. I added a couple of lights to give it coloring and a BG gradient.

Check out the screen shot for particle settings and my timeline. You may want to see this tutorial using Particular 1.5 to get started with the smoke element.

Download Project CS4
(Sorry but I sometimes forget to use CS3 so more people can open it but the smoke element is inside the Footage folder for you to experiment. )

Here are a few grunge projects based on the Ancient Titles tutorials for your using-pleasure. I’ve also included 3 high-resolution textures and discovered a great free font called: Humanst521!

Download Project AE CS3

Sample Pic

NOTE: To view blog posts that contain project files or free downloads, just click on the “Project Files” tab at the top.

You might also check out this free project from an earlier post.

When opportunity knocks, it helps to have a camera.  OK, so this replica Oval Office may not be the real thing but it is a cool backdrop for something…

To fair, I have no idea what anyone is going to do with this but it just seemed cool to have a 180-degree view inside the home of the greatest US president.

Sample Video HD
Download AE Project and Images (CS3 .aep & jpgs)

I combined several pictures into a panoramic using the panoramic script from AeScripts.com, which is an After Effects script marketplace, where you might finds things you didn’t even know you needed.

Feel free to use for your projects but please refer to our License for usage.

BTW:
I don’t post often but some people have wondered about our twitter page.