- Animators used to standard animation programs have to give up control in a program like After Effects to get the "magic" of the effects. While in normal animation you want to be able to control every movement and every object in every frame you create, in After Effects you are setting up a series of conditions using "Generators" that control things like weight, velocity or size. Then you simply set After Effects in motion, and it creates the particular movements of each particle based on the settings you picked.
- A good way to begin understanding particles in After Effects is to carry out a particular project, such as creating the illusion that a flock of birds is flying through a scene. First, open After Effects and make a new composition by going to the "Project" panel and selecting the "NTSC DV" preset. Make it 10 or 15 seconds long. Now import an image you want to use as background for your project and place it in the "Timeline." Right-click in the "Layer" panel and select "New," then "Solid." Name this new layer "Birds." Make sure that the "Solid" layer is selected. Now select "Effect," then "Simulation" and click "Particle Playground."
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You should now see the "Effects" panel displayed. It has various "Particle Playground" controls. For the purpose of this article, use the default effect, which is called "Cannon." If you want to practice with one of the other effects, you will want to turn off "Cannon" first. You need your birds to fly from one side to the other. To get them to do this, rotate the "Particle Generator" 90 degrees and reduce "Gravity" to about 6. Now raise the "Barrel" radius to about 75 (this will spread the "flock" out a bit more).
Now create a bird animation in Poser and import it into After Effects as an AVI with an alpha channel as a layer. Then click on the bird layer, use the "Layer Map" property and select the "Birds" layer. And there you have it. As you scrub through the timeline, your bird particles will move across.
