Pyro Pack

The Pyro Pack was made in 2004 for Particular 1.0 / AE6 but will also work in v2 (after an automatic conversion). It contains a bunch of different pyro-related presets such as explosions and fireworks.

View reel (10MB quicktime) :: view docs :: download PyroPack (docs included)

Tutorial: Accurate Reflections in AE by Quba

Quba has made this tutorial on how to create accurate reflections in AE. It is surprisingly simple! And it works for the camera-aware Trapcode plugs such as Particular, Lux and 3D Stroke. Check it out here:
http://qubahq.com/2010/06/tutorial-100-accurate-reflections/

3D stereocam set-up in AE by Jochem Drost

Download AE project file

Watch test video here

History: Particular and the birth of Form

Here are two "historic" AE project files that I originally created and posted to the AE-list in 2005.

Download the first one - the black and white: particular4df.aep
Download the second one - the colorful (below): particular4df_mcol.aep

These two AEP's were incredibly appreciated. The colorful one was over time downloaded more than 20000 times from Trapcode People. There was only one problem - people didn't understand how they worked. And admittedly it was a bit complicated having to use the rather exotic Layer Emitter and Layer Grid Emitter. 

I thought about it for a while and decided to try and make a new plug-in to make these types of effects more accessible - I called it "Flux". We did some previews and it became clear that "Flux" sounded too similar to the already existing "Lux" (specially over the phone!) so we decided to rename it. I choose the name "Form" because I think it described the functionality and I've always liked the Form/Emptiness duality that creates everything in this world. During development Form evolved so it can do much more than these types of effects.

Smoketrail

A spherical map of the sky (from Dosch Design) is mapped using Trapcode Horizon to the background in this comp. Trapcode Particular was used for the smoketrail.

Download AE 7.0 AEP - smoketrail.aep

This example is covered in the Horizon tutorial at around time 8:30

Trapcode Horizon and Particular. Some pretty advanced expressions to guide the smoketrail and the trailing camera. Note that since the camera is moving quite a lot, the spherical map has to depict something at infinite distance for it to look right. Two different cameras are used, one that follows the smoketrail in flight:

And another camera that stays on the ground simulating a hand-held view of the smoketrail. Note that this is the exact same animation - it is the same comp - but with second camera: