If you’ve been a reader of MFM for any period of time, you know we’ve looked at a number of particle emitter software packages, from Trapcode’s Particular to FXHome’s EffectsLab Pro. Many low-budget filmmakers, however, had never heard of a program called “particleIllusion”. This is because most low-budget filmmakers don’t have access to something like Discreet’s Combustion, which uses wondertouch’s particleIllusion as its particle generator. I became aware of them through this year’s NAB and decided to do some research into them.
Despite the fact that particleIllusion actually has a microbudget-friendly price point, it’s been used in some of the most high-powered television shows and feature films released. I would guess that is perhaps the reason why there are so few reviews in existence for this great package. After all, if low-budget filmmakers realized they could purchase the same software that creates many of Hollywood’s effects, then they might quickly realize that they at least have the potential to usurp those effects. After all, we as microbudget filmmakers are rarely under the time constraints of Hollywood effects houses, which means that we can spend more time creating effects that are truly unique and innovative.
Spectacular, high-end effects can be achieved with particleIllusion, like this wormhole. (particleIllusion was used to create a huge number of the effects in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise).
So, what makes this package so impressive? Well, unlike Particular or VisionLab Studio, particleIllusion allows you to have far more control over the particles and effects you create. I don’t just mean control of things like gravity, color, or number of particles, as the other particle generators on the market tend to have those, as well. Rather, particleIllusion steps it up a few notches by allowing the definition of particles to change to things like masks, lines, and pictures. This means that, in addition to creating smoke, fire, and magic, you can create “24”-style numbered backgrounds, a sheet of ice that randomly cracks in different places for a movie that takes place in the winter, or blood splatters that hit the screen for credits on a slasher movie. On top of that, you can set up Super Emitters, which spew out emitters that in turn emit particles. This can be an effective way to create chaotic fires that fling out sputtering embers across the smoky sky or explosions that blast out multiple types of fragments and fire.
The layout of particleIllusion allows you to map the position of your emitter across the timeline (bottom) while keeping track of all emitter properties (left) and scrolling through the loaded emitter library (right).
Ease of Use
The basic ease of use of particleIllusion is pretty simple. Scroll through the included library of emitters, ones that you’ve downloaded, or ones that you’ve purchased, and load them into particleIllusion; where you can preview each one of them to your heart’s content. If you would like to have a search capability, you can use particleIllusion’s particleView program, which lets you preview all the emitters for a Particular library in full screen, and hit the “S” button, which opens up a very powerful search feature. While you can also scroll through different particle presets in particleView, the search feature was the only reason I used particleView (as the GUI is much more user friendly in particleIllusion itself). As the search feature is so useful, I wish they had added that into the main particleIllusion program, rather than having it lumped into a side-program. Hopefully PI 3.5 will incorporate this. [Editor's Note: According to wondertouch's president, Alan Lorence, this feature is planned for pI 3.5.]
