About Particle Systems

From explosions and laser blasts in outer space to smoke, fire, and water, computer graphic animation depends on particle systems to impress viewers. In combustion, you use the Particles operator to make such animations creatively come to life.

The Particles operator creates particles on 2D layers giving the illusion of 3D without the time and effort required by some 3D programs.

Initially, you can use the dozens of particle emitters supplied in the libraries, but soon you will want to modify them and then create your own from scratch.

You can add the particles to layers in a composite, to footage in a branch, or to simple solid frames.

For example, if you need to create a clip of a 3D rocket ship launching and traveling to outer space, you could start by creating and animating a model using 3D modeling software. However, you would then notice there is no billowing smoke cloud as the space ship hurtles into space.

You might spend hours in the modeling program trying to make billowing white clouds of rocket blasts with fire and explosions. Instead, load the rendered scene without effects into combustion and add the Particles operator. Then select the White Billowing Smoke emitter from the library, click the end of the rocket (where you want the smoke to come from), and create a few keyframes to position the emitter. Click Play and the rocket takes off. You can even track the emitter to the rocket using the Tracker.