When we decided to review particleIllusion 3, the extremely creative software from wondertouch (with its truly fascinating pedigree in a number of films and television shows), we decided that an article on some of the creative uses of particleIllusion 3 for film, TV, and webcasting would be very worthwhile. To help our readers get a feel for how particleIllusion3 can be used in a filmmaking workflow, we decided to interview two filmmakers who use it a lot: Elvis Deane and David Basulto.
With that said, we will start first with Elvis Deane.
JH: Elvis, to begin with, why don't you tell our readers a little about yourself and your work?
ED: I studied television and animation in college during the late 90’s. Over the last few years, I've been writing and producing my own short films, both animated and live action. I try to cover whatever interests me at any given time; stories for kids, psychological horror, comedy, experimental. Outside of trying to come up with compelling story ideas, I really love spending time figuring out ways I can turn a no-budget production into something that looks expensive.
Torched human effects test, using particleIllusion to generate flames around the actor.
JH: What is the current project you're working on and what are some of the technical challenges you've found with it?
ED: I've been experimenting with how to recreate some of the effects from big budget superhero productions, with nothing more software-wise than After Effects and particleIllusion. At first this was just for fun, but I have plans to use everything I learn in my next short film.
The main challenge has been to come up with techniques that are fast and easy to do. The big budget superhero movies have 3D digital doubles, tons of animators, and researchers and programmers working on new technology. When you're the only person on your post-production team, you need to take advantage of every shortcut you can find, but still get visuals that will wow a general audience.
Trying to work out a Human Torch type effect has been something I've tried probably a dozen times over the years, and until now haven't come close. The breakthrough came when I started shooting green screen footage and layering lots of [PI’s] particle generated flames over and behind the actor.
JH: That sounds very cool. So, what prompted you to bring particleIllusion into your workflow and in what ways has it changed how you work?
ED: I was working on an animated short on a really junky old computer, back in 2000. The 3D software I was using had a very complicated particle system, it would take me hours to set up and create explosion effects, even longer to render them. Then I stumbled across the demo version of the initial release of particleIllusion, and creating a better-looking explosion took one mouse click. I needed a tank to fire a shell and was able to modify a smoke emitter into the effect I needed very quickly.
All of these were little effects that would really only be on screen for a few seconds, but would take hours and hours to create and render if I used 3D software. Not long after that, I was able to make my own custom effects in particleIllusion, save them as a preset, and modify them anytime I needed something new.
A scene from "Reste la Même", using particleIllusion to create displacement and weight maps to drive texture transitions on 3D geometry.
JH: What are some tips or tricks that you have discovered as you've used particleIllusion that might be useful to our readers?
ED: It's a more diverse tool than just something to whip up explosions and smoke effects with. There's a lot you can do with it artistically to create title sequences, on-screen displays for computers sitting in the background of a scene, and subtle things like adding a bit of smoke and haze to a shot.
I had some shots in a short film where I needed the wallpaper to be torn away and replaced with another pattern. So I created an animation, in particleIllusion, of a mass of white particles filling up the entire black screen, sort of like vines growing out of the center of the Stage. Then I used that as a matte in my 3D package to blend between
two different textures on the wall object. The “Don't Erase” feature, which doesn't redraw every frame, giving you a smudged effect, is particularly good for this. The same “Don't Erase” effect could be used to create a transition effect or to create rips in a layer of foreground video to reveal names in a title sequence.
