This video is part 2 of our Assemble Iron Man masterclass. We're going to be using the
Particle Simulator to add thrusters, smoke, and sparks. Now normally, if you were using
Express and trying to follow this tutorial, you'd have to purchase the 3D: Particles pack.
But with the release of version 9.1, which is free, and you can download that in the
description we're giving Express users the ability to try out all of the effects inside
the software. The only limitation is a watermark if you try to export. To celebrate this awesome
update, we're giving 50% off to the first 20 people to purchase the 3D: Particles pack.
You can find the voucher code for that in the description. Be sure to subscribe and
hit the bell icon to get more offers like these in the future. With that, let's get
into the tutorial.
We know we're going to have particle simulations in this scene. Before I add that effect to
the timeline, there are 2 things I have to set up: the ground plane, and the points that
the particles will follow. Let's start with the plane- create one from the New Layer panel.
I'll name it Deflector Ground. Drop on the Grid effect. This makes it easier to see what
angle it's at. Come into the Controls panel and drop down the Transform properties. Set
the X Rotation to 90 degrees. Lower the Position of the plane until it matches the ground.
The X Rotation doesn't have to stay at 90- in this case, 87 works better because of the
angle of the hill. I'll set the Y Rotation to 2.5 to match the slant. Hide this plane
from view by clicking the eye.
Now we need two points in the positions of Oli's boots. This is so that we can attach
the particles to those points. You could also parent light flares or any other extra effects
you add in later. I'll name mine Left Boot and Right Boot. Leave them 2D and move the
Position of each to be on top of his cardboard shoes. Highlight both and parent them to the
Flying Oli layer from before.
At this point we can begin on the particle simulations. We'll start with the bright sparks
coming from the boots. Drag the Particle Simulator into the timeline. Drop down the Emitter controls,
then Shape. Attach this one to the Left Boot layer. Without doing anything else, you should
see some particles left behind. Change the Trajectory to Cone to have them move in one
direction. Adjust the Z Rotation so that they're pointing downwards.
Add a new Deflector by pressing the plus icon to the right of the word. Drop down the settings
and under Shape, change it to Layer. Select the Deflector Ground plane in the Source Layer.
Checkmark Infinite Plane.
For sparks, these particles are moving pretty slowly. Let's search for Speed and raise that
to around 500. Increase the Speed Variation as well to have them move differently. You
should now see some of the particles appear to bounce off the ground. Now search for Life.
Lower that to . 5 and set the variation to the same.
In the Appearance section, set the Texture Source to built-in and select a texture that
fits your scene. For Assemble we used Sparks Streak. Checkmark Align to Motion, and set
the Blend to Add. They're currently too big, so search for Scale and lower that. To compensate,
let's raise the Particles Per Second property. This number will depend on your scene.
Come up to the Lifetime panel. If you don't see it, click this 3x3 grid and checkmark
Lifetime. Scroll down until you see Scale and select that. This line represents the
scale of each particle over its lifetime. I'll click this preset which adds two points.
Select the left marker and set the Scale to 0%. This means that the sparks will start
smaller than we can see. But over time, they'll grow to the full 100%, which we set earlier
in the Movement dropdown.
To add a fiery red color, drop the Color Vibrance effect directly to the particle layer. The
default setting works pretty well, but you can change various attributes like color,
Exposure, and the amount of Vibrance applied.
The great thing about particle simulations is that once you get the first one all set
up and customized, you can usually duplicate it, change a few things, and go from there
rather than starting over.
So to make a bigger jet of fire coming from Oli's boots, I'll duplicate the Emitter in
the particle simulation layer. Drop down the settings and change the texture source to
one of the Fire Ferocities. In the Movement settings, scale them up and decrease the life
until they just come off the boots. There isn't much of an effect because we also had
the Life in the Movement Variation controls adjusted. Set that back to 0.
Now you can make a copy of this simulation for the other boot. In the Shape settings,
attach it to the Right Boot. Search for Seed, and change that number to get a different
simulation of the particles.
We've got the sparks, so now we can move on to the smoke. Again I'll duplicate one of
the spark simulations. Change the Seed once more and remove the Color Vibrance effect.
Down in the texture settings, choose Missile Smoke. These particles still have the same
settings as the sparks, so they're too small. Search for Scale and increase that. Uncheck
Align to Motion.
The Lifetime settings that we had for the sparks don't make sense for the smoke- 0 is
too small and makes it look like particles. I'll come back up to the Lifetime panel, go
down to Scale, and select the left preset to put the values back to equal. Let's add
another Lifetime attribute. Go back up to the top and choose Alpha. Change the Type
to Gradient and click on both the left and right side of the color bar to make two black
points. This means that the particles will start transparent, fade to more opaque, then
fade out again. If you want the particles to fade in quicker, add a white point in the
left center.
The Life is currently too short, the Speed is too high, and the Scale is too small. I'll
use the search bar up top to quickly find these settings- you can insert more than one
attribute by putting a space between them. Adjust them to fit your scene.
Now search for texture angle. In the Appearance Variation settings, set the angle to 1 times
over so that the particles are all aligned differently. Raise the Texture Angle per Second
to make them rotate over time.
I'll search for color and make the smoke a darker gray. Once you get the smoke looking
how you like, repeat the steps from earlier to put it on the other side. Duplicate the
layer, and in the Shape properties change the Point to the other one. Remember to turn
on motion blur for all of your particle simulations.
In the final version, Josh used a few elements from ActionVFX. This included some smoke and
small fires under Oli and an aerial explosion for the building. We've got a tutorial on
how to extract stock footage like this from black and white backgrounds. We also have
a guest episode from Rody and Luke of ActionVFX themselves if you want more information.
If you missed part 1 of this tutorial, click the card onscreen. Thanks for watching and
I'll see you all in the next video.