Trapcode Particular does not react to After Effects' camera

[Yiannis72]

Hello friends,

I have encountered a strange issue with the new (most recent) version of Trapcode Suite. The Trapcode Particular particles don't react to the camera. This wasn't happening with the previous version. Does anybody of you know why is this happening? Do I do something wrong?

I am attaching a YouTube Link of an explanatory video I've made about this issue, so you can see for yourselves.

Trapcode Particular Camera Issue - YouTube

Best,

Yiannis.

[Mylenium]

Could be that they've changed the internal camera handling. In this case you may need to create an explicit camera layer. Otherwise those could be issues with their hardware-accelerated rendering, to which the usual drill of updating and checking your graphics drivers might be the answer.

Mylenium

[Rick Gerard]

I don't see any change in the behavior. This is from 2 minutes ago. Add particular, add a camera with a short lens so it will be very close to the emitter, edit the camera's zoom value see if the particles react to the camera. They do.

If you get no reaction then something is wrong with your workflow or your effect is not up to date or some preference got corrupted.

[Yiannis72]

I don't understand...

- I updated my GeForce GTI 1060 6Gb Graphics Card. It was just one version behind.

- I completely uninstalled all Trapcode Suites. I had Suite 15, 14, 13,5 and an even older one.

- I re-installed the latest Trapcode Suite 15.

- I resat all the Graphics card settings.

- I followed Rick's example and still nothing happens. The particles do not react to any camera adjustment. I used a very wide lens, I tweaked the zoom and only the 3d background layer reacts.

Very strange... I will try to install the previous version again. I would like, though, to have the latest Suite's fluid simulations.

Anyway... I will ask help from Red Giant (if they can help...).

Thank you all for the tips, though!!

[Yiannis72]

And this happens to all the plugins of the Trapcode Suite 15. The same problem I have with Trapcode Form and Trapcode Mir and the list goes on...

[imeilfx]

Ok the last information is important - so we can say that it is not Particular fault.
To be honnest I'm shooting in the dark beacuse I never had that issue and I never heard about it from anyone on forums but:
- check if Particular uses GPUor CPU (in render settings

- change Project settings in AE

File->Project settings->video rendering and effects->Mercury software only

- if you are using newest AE update - try to instal earlier version and try there

[Yiannis72]

I have already done all these. I tried both with Mercury GBU Acceleration on and off. I changed the GPU in the preview preferences, as well. And finally I switched the Particular GPU and CPU rendering settings. Nothing happens. Everything is "dead"...

[imeilfx]

So if you also try other AE version also and still nothing and Particular and AE that you have is in original legal versions - that have to be (especially if as you say - other trapcode plugins have that issue also in all versions (15, 14, 13,5)) something in hardware or hardware drivers - probably GPU.

[Rick Gerard]

What version of the Trapcode plug-ins are you using?

I have seen no reported bugs.

The next stop for me would be to uninstall all of the Trapcode Suite using the Reg Giant Link app and re-install.

[Yiannis72]

I found it... It is so silly!!!!!!!!!    It's like when some girls call the technician to fix the TV and they have forgotten to plug it for power... But it is a question I have, though. Why can't it be done my way. When I trim the layer with Particular on, the camera does not work. If I don't trim it, the camera works. I always trim the layer in order not to wait for the effect to build up....

This is the Video Link: Trapcode Particular Camera Issue 2 - YouTube

Why is this happening?

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

That actually makes a little bit of sense to me. particular is based on time and you have moved the layer so far back in time that the camera is seeing what happened a few seconds earlier instead of what is happening now. If you set keyframes for the emitter at 10 seconds and then slid the timeline so the keyframes were at  - two minutes you would never see the change. I think that is what is happening to the camera move.

The normal workflow to pre-run the emitter is to open up the emitter extras and set the emitter pre-run to 100%. The details are in the User Guide.

Emission Extras> Pre Run

This control is used to pre-run the system so that particles can be visible at the first frame. The pre-run value is a percentage value where 0% is no pre-run. At a value of 0, the simulation essentially starts at the first frame where no particles have been emitted. A value of 100 translates to a 100% completion of the emission of particles on the first frame. At 100%, all particles that should be emitted at the first frame will appear based on Emitter controls like Velocity and the particle life.

[Yiannis72]

You are right Rick. I never used the pre-run setting. I don't know why... But I'll start using it from now on, so I am not falling to such issues.

Thanks!

[imeilfx]

I use Particular and I don't know about any changes in camera handling (for me camera worked and works as it should with particular ver 4.0) so I recomend you to the second part of what Mylenium sais - check and update your GPU drivers and let us know it that helped.