To Use Particle Playground (Pro Only) - Adobe AFTER EFFECTS 7.0 Manual

Start by creating a stream or plane of particles, or by exploding an existing layer into particles. Once you have a layer
of particles, you can control their properties, such as speed, size, and color. However, the possibilities available in
Particle Playground go beyond the obvious. For example, you can replace the default dot particles with the footage
from an existing layer and create an entire snowstorm from a single snowflake layer. You can also use text characters
as particles. For example, you can shoot words across the screen, or you can create a sea of text in which a few letters
change color, revealing a message.
Note: Because of the complexity of Particle Playground, you may experience long computation, preview, and render
times.

To use Particle Playground (Pro only)

Select the layer on which you want particles to exist, or create a new solid layer.
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2 Choose Effect > Simulation > Particle Playground. The layer becomes an invisible layer in which only the particles
are visible. Animating the layer in the Timeline panel animates the entire layer of particles.
Set up a particle generator to determine how particles are created. You can shoot a stream of particles from the
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Cannon, generate a flat plane full of particles from the Grid, or use the Layer Exploder to create particles from an
existing layer. If you've already created particles, you can apply the Particle Exploder to explode them into more new
particles.
Select your particles. By default, Particle Playground creates dot particles. You can replace the dots with footage
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from a layer already in the composition or with text characters you specify.
Note: If you want to use footage from a layer as particles, see "Replacing default particles with layers using Layer Map
(Pro only)" on page 504. If you want to use text as particles, see "To replace default Cannon particles with text (Pro
only)" on page 505.
5 Specify the overall behavior of some or all particles. Use Gravity to pull particles in a specified direction, Repel to
push particles apart from or toward one another, or Wall to contain or exclude particles from a certain area.
Use an image to specify the behavior of individual particles. You can modify controls that change particle motion,
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such as speed and force, and controls that change particle appearance, such as color, opacity, and size.
For more information, see "About Property Mappers and Particle Playground (Pro only)" on page 508.
A
B
C
D
Particle Playground controls
A. Use to generate particles. B. Use to specify footage from a layer in place of each default dot particle. C. Use to influence overall particle
behavior. D. Use to influence particle properties. E. Use to set options, including those for substituting text characters in place of dots.
E
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User Guide