Animation Special FX With Particle Illusion

Steve K

Carrara is my tool of choice for animations for many reasons, one being fast renders (I enter the 48 Hour Film Contest). But for special effects, I find Particle Illusion to be faster and more flexible. One drawback is that PI is a 2D overlay type app, so it can be challenging to get a 3D appearance. E.g. having flames across the frame but behind a foreground object in a video. I knew for some time that there was a way, but for some reason thought it was complicated.

Its not. A "Blocker" allows outlining any area of the frame to prohibit the effect in that area. Better, the use of Layers allows a second effect, e.g. "flame 2", to go in front of the blocker, i.e. across the entire frame. So more or less a 3D effect, and renders in close to real time.

:coolsmile:

I finally just played with it, not so complicated. There are tuts on YouTube.

FWIW.