how to make particle path smoother

[ville_6175]

Hi! I've been trying to manipulate a particle path by dragging the red circle on the video preview to edit the position value of the particle to make a smooth motion path. However, it makes very jagged lines and doesn't get that smooth transition between two positions. Instead, it makes a hard angle and two straight lines. Does anyone know how to make these smoother? Is it something to do with Bezier? Anything helps, thanks!

 It's this red thing I'm moving and making the path with but it doesn't make it smooth. Anybody know why or hot to fix it?

[ShiveringCactus]

I'd create a null object, and use the pickwhip to link CC Particle Systems II's position to the position on the null object.  You can then animate this and have all the curves and smooth motion you want.

[ville_6175 · Accepted solution]

That sounds really helpful! The only thing is I want to create particle strokes in a tracked 3d project and with this I haven't got the null object and the particle emitter to stick to the video, they often have the same position value (when I've linked them together) but when I link them to the track null it just doesn't work. The particle emitter goes out of the video window. I remember that I used to be able to manipulate the particle position and still get that smooth path that I'm after. Great tip though, Thanks!

[ShiveringCactus]

Ah right, so the coordinates are throw off by the parenting resetting the coordinates.

Super simple to fix:

• On the effect's position, hold ALT and click on the stopwatch
• Then use the pickwhip to link to the track null's position
• Add +
• then pickwhip the null's position

thisComp.layer("Track NULL").transform.position+thisComp.layer("Null 1").transform.position

[ville_6175]

Ohh will give this a try, thank you man!