If you're not familiar with particle emitters, get familiar. Motion graphic artists use them to create that extra bit of polish that makes an animation stand out. The marketplace for particle emitters is pretty broad, with two companies standing in the front: Trapcode and Wondertouch. While Particular from Trapcode has some nice features, ParticleIllusion from Wondertouch is a full-featured application with an endless supply of emitter libraries. We got our grubby little hands on ParticleIllusion, and were fairly pleased with one gripe. Read on for the full review.

The folks at Wondertouch were gracious enough to provide a copy of the software for us to look at, and so far, I think the software is intuitive, broad and produces great results, with a few key caveats.

At $400, some users may cringe at the thought of paying that much for a plugin, but if you're producing higher end videos, a particle emitter plugin is a necessity. $400 gets you the standalone software and access to an absolutely HUGE library of effects. ParticleIllusion's greatest strength is it's massive library. Every month the folks at Wondertouch release a new library of effects for free, and for the most part they're pretty great. If you need to create a lot of abstract backgrounds, explosions or other particle related effects, once a month you'll get a shot in the arm of fresh content that will help any production stay fresh.

The effects may be fresh, but the UI is standard fare. The right window is a preview of effects, and the main window is your current "stage," and of the left, there's a standard layer pane. Digging a little deeper, the UI definitely has some strange quirks. According to the manual, your main "stage" has to, "be large enough to fit the dimensions of the project you intend to work on, at least when saving output. For example, if you are working on a 640x480 project, the stage window must be at least 640x480, or you will not be able to save your output full-size. "

Using their OpenGL trickery, it makes sense, since they need to save an actual frame of viewed buffer (OpenGL tends to not render objects that aren't currently being viewed.) Don't worry though, it's not taking an actual screenshot... as in you won't have to chroma/luma key your renders, it'll give you a great alpha channel out.

Getting emitters to behave the way you like is pretty easy. Most of the interaction with the main window is drag and drop, or single clicks. No need for complex math from the user, unless the user plans on creating an effect from scratch. One thing that could use some work is keyframing. I find it difficult to erase the starting keyframe (ok, impossible) if I accidentally created a keyframe later on in the composition. Now that After Effects has a competent curves editor, moving ParticleIllusion to After Effects would eliminate some of these UI hurdles.

UI aside, creating complex particle emissions is easy. Starting with one of their presets and adding it to a composition is literally two clicks. Customizing it is simple, and adding interaction points like deflectors and masking out the effects is really simple, albeit for the aforementioned accidental keyframing. Every time you add or adjust a point, a user needs to constantly be thinking of where they are at on the timeline. Creating accidental keyframes is easy to do, and less easy to fix.

The main disadvantage in my mind, though, is the lack of an After Effects plugin. It's cumbersome to open yet another app to get these effects exactly how I need. I've got to load in the video, mask out the parts I don't want, and then create my explosion effect, whereas with Particular, I don't have to leave After Effects and can see how all my composting will be affected.

I'm not saying this software isn't worth the $400 pricetag, but users need to keep in mind it can obfuscate their workflow, whereas a plugin like Particular fits in your After Effects comp nicely. Wondertouch says they're working on an After Effects plugin, but it's not going to see a release till sometime in 2007. If I were spending $400 at this exact moment, it'd be hard for me to recommend the $400 ParticleIllusion over the $300 Particular, since I'm primarily an After Effects artist. If you're looking for some software to use with your NLE and add some broad effects, I'd heartily recommend ParticleIllusion.

On the flip side of the plugin coin, the software is not resource intensive AT ALL. It produces great results using OpenGL, an OpenGL friendly video card and a mediocre system. For an idea on how resource friendly this program is, I'm on a higher end system:

PowerMac G5 with dual 1.8 G5s, 4GB of RAM, RAID array and a GeForce 6800GT video card.

Their minimum requirements are:

Minimum System Specs:
- PowerPC G4 or G5 (possibly G3)
- 800 MHz processor or faster (will work with slower, but results vary)

- 256 MB RAM
- Display with 1024 x 768 resolution
- Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher

- Graphics card with basic OpenGL support

Recommended system:
2.0 GHz G5
1 GB RAM
Display with 1440x900 resolution or higher
Mac OS X 10.2.8 or higher

and if you're on a PC, you've got to have:

Minimum System Specs:
- Windows 98 / ME / NT 4 / 2000 / XP
- Intel compatible processor at 500 MHz or faster
- Video card with OpenGL support; 1024x768 minimum resolution; 24 or 32
bits per pixel

Minimum system:
Pentium 3 - 500 MHz,
128 MB RAM
NVidia GeForce 2 (32 MB) @ 1024x768, 32 bpp

Recommended system:
Pentium 4 - 2.0 GHz
512 MB RAM
NVidia GeForce 4, 64 MB, 1280x1024, 32 bpp

So realistically, any system produced within the last five years can run ParticleIllusion. That is a definite advantage for low-end video producers who may not have a kicking system, or if they ran After Effects and a myriad of plugins, their system would slow to a crawl.

All-in-all, the software is pretty strong, but with some glaring omissions. The low footprint makes it ideal for motion graphic artists without a killer system, but the higher budgetary footprint probably puts it out of reach of those users. The effects are simple to create, and with such a broad library the $400 pricetag doesn't seem as daunting, especially if you use the software to create a variety of backgrounds. Like I said though, I'll be eagerly anticipating the After Effects plugin version of this software, but it'd be hard for me to purchase it right now. Regardless of your system or budget, head to Wondertouch's site and grab the free demo.