Trapcode particular

Forum|Forum|1 year ago
April 1, 2025
3 replies
655 views

Hi, I'm hoping someone can solve this issue I'm having.

Example scene attached but here is a breakdown: I have a circle shape (3D layer) with a wiggle expression on the x and y position. It's parented to my camera which is animated tracking forward through z-space.

Parented to this is a null which I am emmitiing from. The emitter is a point based emitter emiiting continously with zero particle velocity, effectively emitting a single stream of particles producing a 3d stroke effect over time.

The trouble I'm having is the line is broken, kinda like a dashed stroke. Nothing I do seems to fix it. If i pause on a frame where the "dashes" are visible and adjust the random seed or emitter count 9or any attrbute for that matter) then they disappear but as soon as I playback they reappear elsewhere.

Any ideas or suggestions welcome.

Particle_stroke_test.zip

sskaz

Inspiring

I think what’s happening is your particles per second is dipping too low. I opened your project and I don’t understand why you have a wiggle() on the Emitter > Particles/Second. If you want to create a “3D Stroke” effect in Particular, remove the wiggle, change Emitter > Emitter Behavior from “Continuous” to “From Emitter Speed”. Then adjust Particles/Sec as needed, but don’t worry about animating it—the “From Emitter Speed” behavior will automatically adapt the amount of particles to keep the line looking solid, instead of breaking apart into individual particles.

Unless I’m mistaken and you want to use the wiggle for something else in your project.

* If you have an older version of Particular that doesn’t have this newer Emitter Behavior option, then you need to crank the Particles/Sec value high enough to fill the gaps during high speeds.

J

JayDoubleUAuthor

Participant

Thanks for the advice too.

I added the wiggle expression in an attempt to solve the broken line effect.

I've removed the wiggle and changed the emiiter behaviour to "from emitter speed" but still getting a broken line, regardless of the number of particles/second.

The only thing that helps is if I make the particle size much larger (big enough to fill the gaps). Not the look I was going for though.

sskaz

Inspiring

Well, this is super weird. I see it still breaks up in your original comp with my suggestion. I reset a bunch of Particular’s settings, but everything just shifts when the break up occurs.

I rebuilt your setup from scratch—twice—at different comp sizes and it’s working for me. Attached.

I’m gonna chalk it up to a very specific combination of settings that was making Particular act weird.

Particle_stroke_test_v2.zip

B

benw11

Participating Frequently

Try enabling "Continuously Rasterize" for your shape layer and check motion blur settings for both the emitter and comp. Also, make sure your wiggle expression doesn’t cause sudden jumps that might break the stream. Hope this helps!