Eclectic 02   ::pe TG::

The Eclectic 02 library by Tom Granberg contains 7 "Debris" emitters, 11 "breaking glass" emitters, 4 "Cloud" emitters, 3 "Aurora" emitters, and 5 "frosts" emitters. Tom is the master of particleIllusion realism, and these emitters show it -- some of the "falling debris" emitters especially.

The main thing to know about Tom is that he makes complex emitters. They often use large animated particle shapes, have several particle types (sometimes 6 or more), and can create a large number of particles. Therefore, performance may be an issue with some emitters. The results are worth the slowdown though.

Dirt 01

The effect of something skidding across the dirt, with dirt and debris flying up and a lingering dust cloud.

A line emitter, so the longer the line, the greater the number of particles added -- so keep the line quite short, or you'll need to scale the emitter "number" property graph.

This emitter stops creating particles after about 50 frames, and has a lot of animation in the emitter "number" property (that's the property that "shuts off" particle creation typically). Making the effect last longer isn't too difficult though -- you can just add a new data point to the emitter "number" graph after frame 50, and slide it up to 150 or so -- whatever value looks good to you. You can also add some "random" data keys to replicate the animation of the first 50 frames, but it may not be needed.

Dirt 02

A continuous effect that might result from a car driving over a dusty field -- sticks and debris are thrown into the air, along with a lot of dust.

With any complex emitter that uses several particle types (this one uses 5), you can simply create variations of the emitter by turning off one or more particle types. In this case, if you don't want the flying sticks (for example), you can just turn off (by clicking the particle type "star" icon in the hierarchy) or delete (in the emitter properties dialog) the "sticks" particle type. I will often turn the particle type off first, then when I'm sure that I don't want it, I'll delete it.

Falling Debris 01

Sticks and small rocks fall, creating dust trails as they go.

This emitter is most effective when used with deflectors to provide something for the debris to hit.

For a subtle variation, try decreasing the "visibility" property of the "Dust Cloud" particle type.

Falling Debris 02

Sticks and larger rocks fall, leaving a dust trail with pronounced "hilights", giving the dust clouds more "definition".

This and the previous emitter are super emitters that have some particle types that use the "Attach to emitter" option -- this results in some slightly weird behavior when the free emitters (which are not visible remember) hit the deflectors. The particles that this free emitter created will also "hit" the deflector, even though they may have not yet reached the deflector. When a lot of debris is falling, this isn't too noticeable, but it can be an issue.

This can usually be fixed by sliding the "Attached to emitter" slider further to the right.

Falling Debris 03

A falling avalanche of dust.

This emitter looks like dust that would fall from the roof of a cave after an impact, without any rocks. It doesn't work well with deflectors.

This emitter can also be used as a "falling water" or "falling snow" (as off a roof) effect.

Falling Debris 04

Another falling avalanche of dust, with various chunks of debris.

Similar to the previous emitter, this one does not work well with deflectors. The "Debris I" particle type creates the sticks, so you can change the particle shape to a rock shape such as "CHUNKY2" for small rocks, or "rock_01" for big boulders. You can always change the "size" of this particle type too, and use the particle type color gradients to change the color of the dust.

Floor Hit Complex

An impact on the ground causes dust and debris to fly up and fall.

A reminder about line emitters: the longer the line you create, the more you'll need to decrease the emitter "number" property -- scale the graph's y-values by r-clicking the graph and selecting "scale".

This emitter can be used as a "water spray" effect by deleting the "Trickle III", "Debrie I", "initial hit sticks", and "sticks" particle types, then changing the emitter "number" graph so it doesn't step down to 0. The easiest way to do this is to r-click the graph, select "reset", then drag the first data point to the value you want.

Glass Hit Complex

What dropping a large sheet of glass onto the ground might look like: a sharp impact and glass shards flying upward then falling.

To speed up the effect, try increasing the emitter "weight" value -- but doing so may require you to increase the emitter "velocity" too to make the glass shards fly up far enough. You may also want to decrease the particle type "life" for some of the glass shard particle types, especially if you put a deflector under this emitter to simulate the ground. The glass particles will appear to "roll" on the deflector if they live too long.

Glass Hit Simple 01

A variation of breaking glass -- perhaps when a drinking glass is dropped onto the floor?

This emitter may look better with motion blur turned on (all of the other "falling glass" emitters too), but it's not essential.

You may want to decrease the emitter "bounce" value when using a deflector, and also decrease the "Glass Bits" particle type "life" to prevent "sliding" along the deflector.

Glass Hit Simple 02

Another "glass hitting the floor" variation with a different initial "hit" than the previous emitter.

To speed this effect up, decrease the emitter "life" property value, and you may want to increase "velocity" and "weight" as well.

Note that this emitter doesn't scale up very well, as it is intended to be used small.

Glass Break Simple 01

Hit a safety glass with a hammer, and this is the sort of effect you might get: web-like cracks in the glass, with some glass dust and bits of falling glass.

This looks like a "slow motion" effect, since the impact and falling glass happens relatively slowly. You can speed things up by decreasing the "life" for the "Glass dust" particle type, and increasing the "weight" for both "Glass bits I" and "Glass bits II" to make them fall faster.

Glass Break Simple 02

A variation of the previous emitter that adds large central cracks radiating outward.

You can speed it up as described for the previous emitter.

Decreasing the "visibility" of the "Crack II" particle type (which provides the most prominent central cracking) to 80% or so softens the cracks, giving it a little more realism.

Glass Break Complex

Another glass "cracking" variation.

Since this one is in line emitter format, you can change the "density" of the cracks (the number of particles) by creating a shorter or longer line.

This is another good candidate for speeding up: decrease the emitter "life", increase emitter "velocity" and "weight", and turn on motion blur.

Glass Gunshot Simple 01

The same type of glass cracking effect, but with a bullet hole.

Speed this one up in the same way as the previous emitter.

Glass Gunshot Simple 02

Another "bullet hole in glass" emitter, but this one has a more complex initial hit, and the glass falls faster.

What's nice about these last few emitters is that you can use multiple copies of them in a project, and each one will be slightly different. Offset each one by a few frames (add one, move a couple of frames forward, add another, etc.) in a random positional pattern to create a cool gunshot "spray" across the stage.

Glass ShotGun Complex

Breaking glass with multiple bullet holes at one time.

I can't verify that this is what glass looks like when hit by a shotgun (it's probably more like a really large hole), but it's multiple bullet holes -- that's the key.

It hasn't been mentioned specifically with these glass emitters yet, but since they use quite a few particle types to create the effect, you can always turn off or delete the particle types that you don't want. For instance if you like the bullet hole pattern of this emitter, but don't want the falling glass bits, turn off (or delete) the "Glass bits I", "Glass bits II", and (possibly) "Glass dust" particle types.

Glass Hit Side

The "bullet through glass" effect from a different perspective: the side.

A very nice emitter, but can use a few tweaks to increase the realism (or to just make a variation). The large glass bits don't move enough in my opinion, so first increase the "spin variation" for the "initial hit" particle type (which is the large glass bits) to make some of them spin more. Next, increase the particle type "velocity" too, and you'll start noticing that some of the large bits shoot out pretty fast, but then slow down abruptly. Fix this by smoothing out the "velocity over life" graph so it's a gradual slope downward. You may want to decrease the "velocity" a little after doing this, depending on how much you increased it initially. That gives the large bits more realistic motion in my opinion.

Glass Cracks Spread

Branching cracks spread over a large area in about 50 frames, and glass bits fall from the cracks.

The cracks appear to spread out from a central point -- if you want the cracks to appear more "spread out" to begin with, change the emitter to an area emitter. (R-click the emitter on the stage and "make area"). Then adjust the width and height of the emitter to get the effect you want. Note that if you make the rectangle too large, you may need to increase the "f-number" values somewhat to compensate.

Drifting Clouds

A mixture of light and darker well-defined clouds grow and slowly move to the right.

This looks more like sunlit clouds, including what looks like self-shadowing, than anything else I've seen for particleIllusion. Looks like it could make a good time-lapse clouds effect.

It may be obvious, but to start with some clouds (instead of them growing from nothing) set the "preload" value (in the emitter properties dialog) to 90 (or more, depending on what you're looking for). You can make the cloudbank larger by increasing the emitter "width", but I wouldn't recommend increasing the "height" too much, as it loses visual effectiveness. If you do increase "width" or "height", you'll need to decrease emitter "number" too, because area emitters (like circle, ellipse, and line emitters) add more particles based on the area (or circumference, or line length).

This effect is difficult to slow down because it doesn't look the same, but you need to scale the following emitter properties by these amounts: "life" - 200%, "number" - 50%, "velocity" - 50%, "motion randomness" - 50% (or lower), "weight" - set it to 0%.

Sandstorm 01

A variation of the clouds emitter that is faster moving and longer lived.

Moves left to right, but you can aim it in any direction using the emitter "emission angle" property value (the same goes for the previous emitter).

Sandstorm 02

A variation of the previous emitter, that is meant to be a wall of sandstorm clouds coming straight toward you.

When this one runs for a while, some of the particles seem to create a "ball of smoke". If this is a problem (may only be an issue when the emitter is stationary for long periods) you can look at the "smoke clouds" particle type -- the second data point of the "velocity over life" graph should be moved very slightly up (so it is not zero). Also, the second data point in the "size over life" graph should be moved down slightly to reduce the maximum size of the particles. These 2 changes should remove the "balling" problem.

Clouds of Menace

Extreme storm clouds: dark, menacing clouds full of lightning flashes and sheets of rain.

This very complex emitter will kill your project's performance -- you should have seen it before I optimized it.

There are ways to improve performance, although it may change the look of the emitter. As with any emitter, to get better performance you need to reduce the nummber of particles. There are 2 ways to do this: reduce the "number" property so fewer particles are created, or reduce the "life" property so the particles that are created don't live as long (so there are fewer particles being calculated and drawn at every frame). Try reducing both of these if you are having performance issues.

You can also turn off or delete particle types to improve performance, which will also result in nice variations of this emitter -- no lightning, no cloud flashes, etc.

Aurora Alaska

A "simple" blueish Aurora effect.

Takes a while to generate something visible, but a very nice aurora emitter. You may want to set the "preload" value to 200 or so to get it moving sooner.

This is a line emitter, and it is most effective if you animate the line endpoint positions over time -- overwise there is a visible "line" where the emitters all become visible. Of course, this may be the way that it really looks -- I've never seen the Northern Lights before.

Aurora Nordic

A slightly more colorful Aurora effect.

A nice variation (don't know if it's more realistic) is to change the "streak 2" particle type shape to the "basic blur" particle shape. This immediately makes the purple areas more visible, and adds more visual "motion" to the emitter.

Aurora LSD

A more "extreme" Aurora effect, with fiery "trails" and colors that seem to "smear" together.

There are many simple things you can do to change the way the "trails" move, the easiest being check the "in" and "out" options so free emitters are created along both sides of the line; change the line emitter to a circle or area emitter; or change the emitter "motion randomness" property value.

Slow Frost Trail

A trail of "frost" slowly fades in.

This emitter is meant to be moved around slowly to create a "trail" of particles. If you need the emitter to move faster, you can increase the emitter "number" property to maintain the correct particle "density".

You can also make the particles become visible faster by decreasing the "life" value, although this will decrease the amount of time that the particles stay around after becoming visible.

Frost Trail

A faster-forming frost trail, with a different look.

Use a copy of the previous emitter with this one for a denser frost effect. You can export the position data for the first emitter, then import it for the second emitter to ensure they both follow the same path. (R-click the first emitter in the hierarchy and select "export - postion data", then choose "After Effects via the clipboard". R-click the second emitter in the hierarchy and select "import - position data".)

Frost Complex

A slightly shimmering, barely moving area of frost.

Unlike the previous frost emitters, this emitter is meant to be left in one position.

You will probably want to increase the "width" and "height" of this area emitter to fill more of the stage. If you do, you may need to decrease the emitter "number" a bit to reduce the particle density.

Frost Grow

A crystalline frosty pattern grows from a central point then stabilizes.

To make the frost cover a larger area and not be so concentrated at the center point, change this emitter into a cicle emitter (r-click on the emitter in the stage and "make circle") and give it a large radius that almost touches the edges of the stage.

To make the frost fade in more slowly, increase the "life" (the "life" property directly under "f-zoom over life" in the hierarchy) -- decrease it to make it fade in more quickly.

Frost Sparkle Fairytale

A completely different frost pattern that sparkles.

This emitter produces a frost pattern that is "softer", with less crystals visible. If you want to create a variation that shows more crystals like the previous emitters, open the emitter properties dialog, select the "frost" particle type in the hierarchy and click the "add particle type" button to add a copy of this particle type. Then select the "change shape" page and change to the "frost_spikey" shape and click the "make active" button. Check the "random start frame" option for this particle type too. You can also check the "intense" option for this particle type and see if that's something you like.