Boris FX Particle Illusion Pro -

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Fast and Easy 3D Particle Application

Particle Illusion Pro is a powerful particle generator that gives users instant access to 3D particles. Quickly create photorealistic particle effects to use for motion graphics, visual effects, titles, and lower thirds. Available as a fully functional standalone application and as a plugin part of the Continuum suite of effects.

Bring your animations to life with Particle Illusion

Fluid Dynamics

Fluid Dynamics allows you to transform any existing emitter into a complex animation that flows and swirls just like in the real world — or create your own custom animation. Includes 20+ new presets designed by the pros.

Work in 3D

Work with emitters, forces, and deflectors in 3D using the integrated camera to navigate through generated particle fields using position, pan, and orbit camera modes. Includes depth of field and motion blur.

Forces and Deflectors

Force objects enable the addition of force fields for complex, realistic particle movement, ranging from chaotic swirls to controlled flows, and even fluid dynamics. Deflector objects simplify the simulation of particles interacting with logos or other graphics, making them bounce or interact seamlessly.

Lines and Turbulence

Connect your particles together with lines! Join particles to parent emitters, birth position, or even to other particles to create fresh new geometric mograph looks.
Turbulence varies the position and size of particles through auto-evolving, organic noise fields. Think subtle wave-like motion, wild particle scatters, or anything in between.

Easy Preset-Driven Workflow

Particle Illusion comes with thousands of preset emitters (via a separate free installer). An integrated search makes it easy to zero in on the effect you’re looking for, and the live preview lets you click and drag to see how it will move. Use as-is or adjust the position, shape, life, number size, etc. by scrubbing values in the control panel. Create new presets too by saving any adjusted emitter back into your custom emitter library.

Node-based Navigation

Particle Illusion lets you create extremely complex effects, but the Node View makes it easier than ever to work with and customize them. Simply select an emitter or particle node and see the corresponding parameters display in the Controls View.

What’s New In Particle Illusion Pro?

Position Path Presets

Add motion to your emitters with ease, choosing from a variety of useful, editable position paths. These can also be applied to any other position parameter, including the camera.

Enhanced Position Data Workflow

Several new features allow you to retime the emitter’s motion, easily rotate, scale, and translate the path, even equalize the timing for more consistent speed as it moves.

Parameter Search

No need to visually hunt for that one parameter in a long list – parameter search will show only the ones you’re looking for, or can highlight them in place instead.

Particle Blending Modes

Previous versions of Particle Illusion let you only choose between regular and “intense” particles (additive). Now you can choose from a variety of blending modes including Screen, Multiply, Overlay, Soft Light, Difference, and more.

Improved Quality

Inherited velocity gives smoother results, Sprites that use “keep aligned to motion” work in all cases including fluids, and 3D lines which we added in 2024 are higher quality. You can also boost opacity values, cranking up the brightness of sparks and other hot particles.

Other Usability Enhancements

Resultant gradients show exactly how the color and alpha gradients will combine for your particles, “Replace Emitter” function makes swapping emitters into your project a breeze, position and angle data is now shown in the graph view, and many more – all make using Particle Illusion easier than ever.

Particle Illusion Pro Standalone vs Plugin

	Standalone Applicaiton	Plugin inside Continuum
Work in 3D
Fluid Dynamics
Forces and Deflectors
Lines and Turbulence
Easy Preset-Driven Workflow
Node-based Navigation
Export w/Alpha
Import data from Mocha / SynthEyes*
Render on Source Video*
Track with Integrated Mocha
Animate with Beat Reactor
AE Camera Integration
Host Particle Parameters
Intergrated Glow
Advanced Compositing Options
*Disabled in Trial Mode

OS Requirements:

macOSX 10.15, 11.x, 12.x, 13.x, 14.x (up to OS version at time of release)
Note that Continuum ML filters require Monterey 12.0 or higher
Windows: Windows 10 and 11

Hardware:

Recommended Hardware:

Processor: Apple M-series or Intel processors
Memory (RAM): 8 GB minimum, 16+ GB preferred
Disk: High-speed disk array or SSD storage
Graphics Card: Most modern graphics cards from AMD, NVIDIA and Intel are supported. Click here for a full listing

Licensing options:

Node-locked, Subscription or floating license.
For floating and render license options, please contact us.

Supported Host Applications:

ADOBE :
- After Effects and Premiere Pro CC 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 (up to versions released at time of Continuum release)
AVID :
- Media Composer 2020.x, 2021.x, 2022.x, 2023.x, 2024.x (up to versions released at time of Continuum release)
OFX :
- DaVinci Resolve Studio and DaVinci Resolve 17.x, 18.x, 19.x
- Vegas 20, 21
- Nuke 13, 14, 15
- (up to versions released at time of Continuum release)

Particle Illusion Pro (Standalone) 2024.5 (v17.5.0)

Particle Illusion Features

Position Paths
- Position Path Presets
- Transform position path (scale, rotate, or translate the entire path)
- Scale Animation Timing – scale timing of single animated parameter, whole object, or entire project
- Position data shown in graphs
- Equalize Path Timing – uniform speed across animated position
- Export Position Data
Particle Blend Modes
Improved Usability
- New 2024.5 Emitter Library
- Replace Emitter – swap in new emitters while retaining position animation
- Parameter Search
- Add new “Stop Emission when Motion Ends” feature
- Resultant Gradient shown when editing color or alpha gradient including in particle Over Life graph
- Gradient background preview modes (checkerboard, black, none)
- Greatly improved responsiveness when dragging in Stage or graph
- Auto-rewind button in playback toolbar.
- Preview “Record” feature. When activated, click and drag to record preview path.
- Node sprite tooltips (click and hold on the sprite in the node)
- Particle Sprite Preview window has new preview display mode option (checkerboard, black, none) with control over checkerboard opacity
- Affected by Fluids now supports a higher max range for stronger interaction effects
- Graph view – now showing position and angle data, Playback toolbar next key arrow now turns red when next key is out of bounds, extensive UI enhancements
- Add tooltip to out of bounds next keyframe (right arrow) button in float params. Displays the frame/time of the first out of bounds key so you know what to change duration to.
- Faster undo/redo responsiveness when adjusting emitter boundary box widgets in stage
- Remove limit on Undo stack size
- Increase Number maximum from 3000 to 9000.
- Numerous UI tweaks
Improved Quality
- 3D line antialiasing
- Keep Aligned to Motion now more accurate
- Inherited Velocity results in more even distribution of particles
- Opacity boost: can now boost the Opacity param higher than 100 to boost the brightness of particles.

Other Fixes and Polish:

General stability improvements
Graph “auto zoom” not being disabled for Over Life graphs
Gradient editor refresh issue when adjusting some sliders
Inability to reach last emitter in emitter library with down arrow
Issues when duplicating a force that has fluids enabled
File -> Revert not working after saving a file, only after loading a file
Render button is not visible when PI’s UI window is resized.
Further improvements to inherited velocity accuracy – fix particle clumping for some emitter situations
Fix shape emitters creating overly large inherited velocities
Changing project duration should not empty cache
Ellipse emitters preview as circle when added to library
Can’t type a pixel aspect ratio of 1.5 in Project Settings Dialog, as it immediately goes to 1.00.
Cut option not working – now works for emitters, forces, deflectors
Zoom % button in Preview window is not displayed at default setting
When switching views (“Top” to “Render View” for instance) any selected position key was incorrectly deselected.
Selecting deflector line point in stage should select the point in the controls view
When object center point is selected in stage, Position parameter should be selected
Single particles in a super emitter do not die when the free emitter does
Adding emitter via mouse in PI gets offset by emitter offset tracked data or layer offset
Importing position data can create invalid values for first key when importing from some AE formats
Parameter values don’t update under some conditions when using graph view
Remove unused Mip Mapping preference
Prefs pane reopens to whichever pane was visible when last used

Particle Illusion Pro (Standalone) 2024 (v17.0.4):

Incorrect watermarking when rendering without a license

Particle Illusion Pro (Standalone) 2024 (v17.0.3)

(Summary of major changes since Particle Illusion Standalone 2023.5):

Particle Illusion Features

PI Pro Tracker Data Import – Import of Mocha or Synth Eyes 2D tracker data files for Emitter or Camera tracking – only in licensed version.
PI Pro Video Import – Import background video in standard formats directly into the PI UI – only in licensed version.
Generative AI sprite creation via Stability AI
Particle lines can be true 3D objects
Inherited Velocity control
Extensive improvements to the sprite image import UI/controls (Alpha from Luma, Highlight Black, Remove Background, Scale Darks options, etc.)
Preview pane now renders with 3D perspective for more accurate preview of library emitters
Scale Project feature – upscale everything uniformly
Turbulence Field Zoom parameter
UI Scale Factor – allow easy sizing of all UI elements
Faster rendering when using Particle Masking to drive emission
Parameter Emphasis – double click to highlight a param for recommended use in projects and emitter libraries.
Improve UX with “Single” particles. Hide any parameters that do not apply when “Single Particle” is checked.
Force Node graph icon shows when fluid dynamics is enabled
Particles node graph icon shows when “Single” particle is enabled
Improved dialog support for standard accelerator keys such as Esc/Enter
Improved support for accelerator key shortcuts in menus
Numerous UI enhancements
Particle Illusion 2024 Emitter Library

Full Release Notes

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particle illusion blow away dust tutorial

Blow Away Your Layer with Particle Illusion

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2024.5 Boris FX Particle Illusion Pro

Downloads

Boris FX Particle Illusion Pro

You may download a free Demo after logging in.

Fast and Easy 3D Particle Application