Magic Wand : Make some Magic with Particle Playground
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Notes
- For more organic looking magic sparkles, try this!
- If you are an AE 4.0 user, you can follow along and complete the project, but the project files will not open unless you have AE 5.0 or later.
- Trapcode Particular also makes amazing sparkles and came out after this tutorial was written. Try a demo today!
I've been intrigued with the whole idea of a magic wand ever since I read "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone". Since I'm just a Muggle, I'll probably never earn a wand for myself, so I've built one in After Effects. This tutorial uses Particle Playground.
Instructions
Getting the pieces together
- First, let's create the wand. You can create it in Photoshop or Illustrator, but for ease of distributing this tutorial, I've created mine as a comp in AE called "Wand". My wand is 7x115 and aqua. I've added a ramp to give it a bit of depth. Just a tip, create your wand vertically, so this tutorial will work properly for you.
- Second, create the sparkle. This sparkle will emanate out of the end of your wand. Again, I've created mine in an AE comp, but you may create yours in whatever program you wish. Mine is 8x8 circle in a 13x13 comp with the edges feathered. The comp is 2 seconds long, just as my final animation will be. I've added a ramp from yellow to white, and I've also added keyframes for opacity.
Okay... now you have your 2 pieces. On to the hard part!
- First, we'll make the wand move. We want to make it appear that someone in an invisibility cloak is waving it around. Create a new comp called "Wand Waving", and drag your wand into the comp. Mine is just 2 seconds long.
- Move your anchor point to about 20% from the bottom of your wand. This is where the invisible hand will be holding the wand. You could position the anchor point at the bottom, but this position looks more realistic, like you're choking up on a baseball bat.
- Create a motion path for your wand and place keyframes. Ease your frames and make it look like the wand is being waved all over the place. You might also add some rotation keyframes. I opted not to use auto-orient rotation, but you may use it if you wish. I've also turned on motion blur for the wand layer.
- Drag your "sparkle" into your "Wand Waving" comp. Turn the visibility off for the layer.
- Create a new solid called "PP". Make it the full size of your comp (if your comp is 720x540, make your solid 720x540. The color doesn't matter.
- Apply
"PP" to the layer. I've used the following settings (get ready for loads
of data!) If a setting isn't mentioned, then don't worry about it.
Cannon: Barrel Radius = 0
Particles Per Second = 91
Direction = 0
Direction Random Spread = 116
Velocity = 72
Velocity Random Spread = 0
Particle Radius = 2
Make sure the Layer map has your "Sparkle" layer selected.
Gravity
Force = 0
Force Random = 0
Everything else... leave it as it is. - There are several ways to do the next step, you could motion track or use motion math, but I opted for a simpler solution. In the Particle Playground Cannon, there is a setting for position. I simply took the cross-hair and lined it up to the tip of the wand at several places along the timeline, setting a keyframe for each. If it slipped away, I simply added another keyframe. I had under 20 keyframes, so it wasn't anything rigorous.
- For a finishing touch, I added a bit of glow to the sparkles in the "PP" layer.