Blowing Flowers : Adobe After Effects Tutorial

Blowing Flowers

A CreativeCOW After Effects Video Tutorial

Eran Stern
Israel

© 2009 Eran Stern and Creativecow.net. All rights reserved.

Article Focus:
In this video tutorial, CreativeCOW leader, Eran Stern demonstrates how to create flower trails using Trapcode Particular in this special holiday episode. You'll also work with the light emitter and use 3D layer to obscure particles.

And be sure to check out the Cow Master Series DVD,
Motion Design with Adobe After Effects by Eran Stern
Powerful techniques to kickstart your work. Over 5 hours!

NEW!! Eran Stern is the co-host of the Creative Cow AE podcast and author of some of the web's most popular AE tutorials. In this 5-hour DVD, he'll help you explore the true depths of After Effects. Combining his unique sense of humor and serious AE chops, Eran will teach you how to bring a project from concept to completion.

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Comments

Re: Blowing Flowers
by David Patterson

Another great tutorial, Eran! Thanks so much.

I have Particular v2, which does not have the "custom" option for assigning the layered PSD file to the particle type. I have a 5 layer PDF that I assigned as a "textured polygon" for the particle type. This almost works, but the top 2 layers seem to dominate what becomes animated. The lower 3 layers are barely visible and seem to be "stuck together". All 5 layers have transparent backgrounds. I have tried many different settings in Particular, but I am unable to get all 5 layers to randomly show up. Any suggestions?

cheers,
Dave

Light too!
by Kelly Burns

Hi Eran,

Thanks for the great tutorial. I really like your style.
I see that your flowers follow the light path, but I also see (and LOVE) a light itself glowing nicely along that path as it moves - I think it really helps the overall look. I looked around but couldn't get it to work that way for me (I'm kind of new to this also). Any idea what I'm doing wrong...?
Thanks again - excellent stuff.
Kelly

project files
by david danilowicz

hello Eran,
i fairly new to the AE world and i'm loving it thanks to you and creative cow. i wanted to add this affect to an video ad i am doing for COPD. (chronic obstruction pulmonary disease). i like the camera and path settings. i could not find the project files. are they available?

many thanks.

Without particular
by Raphael Klein

Hi Eran
I am working for a TV station in austria and we can not spend much money into plugins, like particular.
Is it possible to make the flowers follow the light with the build in particle effects?

I don't think its related to
by Eran Stern

I don't think its related to the demo version, I'm guessing you are using version 2 of Particular so if I remember correctly, in this version, its called "sprite" instead of "custom".

Particle type
by steve martin

Hi Eran, love your tutorials and sense of humor! When I select Particle Type, I don't see Custom listed in the drop down menu. Is this because I'm using a demo version of Particular?
Thanks again for all your great work,
Steve.

Project File
by Hameed Haseem

Hello Eran,
Thank you for the great tutorial. You told that you can download the project file. However I couldn't find the project file. Please let me know where can I download it. Have a great time.

can't see the particles when paired with the light
by dewan edwards

Hi Eran, not sure what I am doing wrong. When I pair the emitter to the light it doesn't follow the path like in your tutorial. I can see the emitter added to the solid. But once I make the change nothing, any ideas what I am doing wrong. Thanks for all the tutorials. Cow is the best

Parent the camera to the light
by Eran Stern

Parent the camera to the light - it should do the trick

Need help on this part of the tutorial
by tuan dang

How do i create the path of the light and have the camera follows it around? Thanks!

Your flower video blown away and taken in a movie trailer :)
by Mohamed Hafeez

Hello Eran,

How do you feel about this? Your tutorial here blindly taken and used for a movie trailer. I saw it and I screamed, hey, this was Eran's stuff. ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGoF6HUCZQc&feature=related

at 0:31

Talk about popularity :)

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