- Hello and welcome.
My name is John Dickinson for Boris FX
and in the next four tutorials,
in the Learn Particle Illusion series,
I'm gonna bring you up to speed
with all of the new features
that were included in Particle Illusion 2021 and 2021.5.
And we'll start in this tutorial
by taking a look at the new user interface enhancements.
(lively music) (logo whooshing)
Searching for presets using the library view
has been made even easier with the library list at the top
and the presets included in the selected library
at the bottom.
So if we cycle through these different libraries,
you can see the list of presets changes based
on which one's selected.
And if we do a search,
for example, glitter,
that'll show only the libraries
that contain presets with that particular search criteria.
The new nodes view provides a faster
and more convenient way
to work with emitters and particle controls.
When we add an emitter to the scene,
you can see it adds nodes over here in the nodes view
with the emitter node being selected by default
and that displays the emitter controls
in the controls panel.
If we select a particle node,
that displays the particle controls.
So this is a much faster way to work with the controls.
In previous versions, you sometimes end up
with really long lists of parameters
if you had more than one emitter or particle in your scene
and that made it very difficult to zero in
on the parameter you were looking for.
Even with multiple emitters and particles
in this scene, it's still super easy to zero in
on the exact particle or emitter
that you wanna work with.
Notice also that particle nodes display the color
and the shape of the particle.
You can reposition nodes in the nodes view
by clicking and dragging
and holding down the Alt key
or Option on the Mac,
you can move both the emitter and its particles.
Use the zoom slider to zoom in and out.
And if things get messed up,
just use the reset button to reset the layer.
To remove a node, simple select it and press Delete.
Forces and deflectors also appear as nodes,
making them much easier to work with,
especially if you've got more than one.
And lastly, clicking in the node view itself
deselects all the nodes
and reveals the camera controls
if your scene's set to 3D.
If it's set to 2D, then you won't see these controls.
The last few versions of Particle Illusion
have seen some additional features and enhancements
added to the stage
and with 3D introduced in Particle Illusion 2021,
we have two new buttons up here at the top.
The first is the Toggle 3D button
where you can toggle between 2D
and 3D projects and this is on 3D by default.
And next to that is the stage view camera dropdown
where you can choose from various 3D views,
which are gonna assist you
in setting up your particle simulations
when you're working in 3D.
But definitely check out tutorial 20
where I focus more specifically on the 3D features.
Another new button includes this handy presets toggle
where you can toggle the display of the emitter library.
Plus with the updated particle calculation caching
comes a new cache indicator on the timeline.
Once frames are cached, you can more easily interact with
and play back your simulations.
Other refinements include a new position
for the render button,
which was previously positioned up here at the top
and the current time and duration,
which used to be positioned up here on the right
has now moved down to either side
of the playback controls with the current time on the left
and the total duration on the right.
And lastly, the auto key icon
has been replaced by text
and the previous add and next keyframe icons
have all been simplified.
And lastly, the graph view
has also received some new functionality,
making it easier than ever to work with.
The first is the new slider,
which allows you to zoom in and out horizontally.
Next to that on the right
is the auto zoom graph hide button.
You can see that's on by default.
So if we change the size of this window,
you can see the graph will automatically zoom.
If we turn that off,
and change the window height again,
you can see how the graph slides down with the window.
To bring that back into view,
just hit the zoom graph height button.
And if we zoom right in and move the window right down,
we can hit the new reset graph button
to once again fit the entire range of the graph
into the view.
And one more thing to mention,
which is gonna make your animations much easier
to modify is the ability to hold down the Alt
or Option key, click on a keyframe
and convert it from linear to Bezier.
Click again to convert it back to linear.
Okay, so go ahead now
and get yourself acquainted with those new features.
Then join me in the next tutorial
where we'll dive
into the new 3D features in Particle Illusion.
You can download Particle Illusion standalone for free
including thousands of free particle emitter presets
at borisfx.com where you can also learn more
about the plugin version of Particle Illusion
with extra features,
including built-in Mocha motion tracking,
After Effects Lite, 3D layer tracking
and emitters on text and masks.