There are quite a number of tools available to create cool looking particle effects. There’s the inbuilt CC Particle World effect in After Effects. There’s Trapcode Particular from Red Giant. And then there’s Particle Illusion from Boris FX. I have talked about it before in my beginner tutorial for how to use Particle Illusion.
I am really wasted my hours looking for the crack of the Particle Illusion 3.0.1a. (Reply to #3) #4. 1 Jul 2011 Find Serial Number notice: Particle Illusion serial number, Particle Illusion all version keygen, Particle Illusion activation key, crack - may give false results or no 23 May 2015 Particle Illusion is the powerful, fastest and easiest ways. ParticleIllusion is a standalone application that allows you to quickly and easily create amazing effects: explosions, smoke, fire, sparkles, motion graphics backgrounds, space effects, creatures.
While the plugin version of Particle Illusion costs money, the standalone version is completely free. And it has most of the features of the paid version!
The only features you do not get with the standalone application are:
Aug 05, 2021 Updated 2 February 2021: Boris FX has released Particle Illusion 2021, a new version of the free standalone edition of the software. As in the commercial edition, which was updated last year, the main change is the option to emit particles in 3D as well as 2D. Jul 23, 2019 Particle Illusion Premium Filter. Renowned Particle Illusion (formerly particleIllusion) gets a total overhaul in Continuum 2019. Redesigned from the ground up as a 64-bit application, Particle Illusion gives editors and artists access to an easy-to-use, powerful, high-end particle and motion graphics generator. Introduced with Boris Continuum 2019, Particle Illusion is a sprite (image) based particle effect system that is preset driven, easy to use, and powerful. A 64-bit update of the original particleIllusion from the early 2000’s, a new UI, reorganized libraries, and thousands of curated presets bring exciting particle effects to artists.
- Run as an effect within your host application. Supports After Effects, Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, Media Composer and more.
- Compositing your particles directly onto the footage. For that, Particle Illusion needs to run within a host application.
- Integrated Mocha Tracker. This allows you to track moving objects and have emitters follow their movement.
- Integrated masking using Mocha and the PixelChooser. This allows you to control where your particles are visible.
- Reading Particle Colour and Alpha from the underlying video source. This can be useful to do things like disintegration effects.
- Audio Driven Particles using the Beat Reactor. This allows you to have particles react to music or sound.
- Integrated Particle Glow. You can achieve this with separate Glow effects, but having this inbuilt can make things a bit easier.
- Email & Phone Technical Support.
However, despite the above limitations, the FREE standalone version is a fantastic tool to create great looking particle effects.
In this tutorial I will show you how to get it and how to use it.
The recent 2021 release also adds the following features that I will be showing in the video:
- New particle emitters
- New turbulence to affect particle position and size
- New lines features to connect particles and create funky motion graphics effects
- 3D particles, cameras and views. Particle Illusion now supports a full 3D scene for your particle effects!
If you are considering getting the Premium filter for Particle Illusion, be sure to use my code surfacedstudio at checkout to get 15% OFF the final price!
Time Stamps
- 00:00 What is Particle Illusion?
- 02:28 How to Download the Standalone Application for FREE
- 02:58 The User Interface
- 03:36 New 2021 Emitters
- 05:00 How to Create Custom Particle Effects
- 08:28 How to use Turbulence
- 11:03 How to use Lines to Connect Particles
- 13:06 3D Particles, Cameras and Views
- 15:14 How to Export Particle Effects
Originally posted on 18 June 2020. Scroll down for news of the Particle Illusion 2021.5 update.
Boris FX has released a free standalone version of Particle Illusion, the GPU-accelerated 2D particle generator that forms part of its Continuum suite of effects plugins.
Particle Illusion Tutorial
The standalone edition, which can be used with any compositing application, including After Effects, Fusion and Nuke, lacks Mocha planar tracking, but is otherwise a pretty fully featured product.
In addition, Boris FX has made the commercial edition – previously only available as part of Continuum or its Particles unit – available as a dedicated $295 Continuum premium filter.
Generate 2D particle systems and render them with motion blur at resolutions up to 8K
One of the first After Effects particle plugins for motion graphics or VFX work, Particle Illusion was later bought by GenArts, itself then acquired by Boris FX in 2016.
In 2018, Boris FX announced that it was ‘rebooting’ the product under the leadership of orignal developer Alan Lorence, with the new GPU-accelerated version being released as part of Continuum 2019.
Particle Illusion 3.0 Emitters Libraries
The new standalone edition makes that toolset available free to users of any compositing application.
It includes most of the key features of the paid version, supporting unlimited particles and particle emitters, the layer system, forces and deflectors, and integrated particle motion blur.
The software is capable of rendering particles at resolutions up to 8K.
So what can’t you do in the free edition?
Unlike the commercial version, it isn’t possible to import a background video layer into the standalone edition of Particle Illusion in order to develop and composite a particle system in context.
Instead, users will need to render particles in a format like ProRes 4444 with an alpha channel, in order to combine them with the source footage in their compositing software.
In addition, the standalone edition lacks the integrated tracking capabilities provided in the commercial version by Boris FX’s Mocha planar tracking technology.
However, Boris FX hints that both limitations may be removed in future: Mocha integration is not “yet” supported, while the lack of integrated compositing “may change in future as we develop Particle Illusion”.
Other than that, the free version lacks integrated particle glow, and doesn’t come with active product support, but it looks to be a pretty powerful application in its own right.
Updated 2 February 2021: Boris FX has released Particle Illusion 2021, a new version of the free standalone edition of the software.
As in the commercial edition, which was updated last year, the main change is the option to emit particles in 3D as well as 2D. Existing 2D particle systems can be converted to 3D with a single click.
Other changes include the option to connect particles with lines to create motion graphics effects, and turbulence controls for particle motion.
Updated 4 August 2021: Boris FX has released Particle Illusion 2021.5.
The update extends the 3D capabilities of the free edition, adding new 3D particle emitter shapes, forces and deflectors, and support for 3D cameras and views.
The software also gets a new Node View, making it possible to view both the node tree for a particle effect and the parameter values for each node, shown at the start of the video above.
Pricing and system requirements
Particle Illusion 2021.5 is available free for Windows 8+ and macOS 10.14+.
The commercial edition is available as a $295 Continuum premium filter for After Effects, DaVinci Resolve and Fusion, Media Composer, Nuke, Premiere Pro and Vegas Pro.
It is also available as part of Continuum itself, which costs from $695 to $1,995 according to the host applications; or via the $399 Continuum Particles Unit.
Download GPU-accelerated 2D particle generator Particle Illusion for free from Boris FX’s website
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