The Circular Distortion Effect

preview

Hey guys what's up? In this tutorial I'd like to show you how to create this abstract looking animation with Trapcode Particular.We're going to use some great features in Particular such as the layer emitter to create the organic circle animation. After that we're going to use some default plugins to achieve a more organic and vivid look.


Final Video Preview


Tutorial Details


Requirements

The following assets were used during the production of this tutorial.


Step 1

Create a new composition by clicking Menu->Composition->New Composition. Name it Logo and change the resolution to 1280x720 and set the duration to 8 seconds.If you have a powerfull pc then you can crank up the settings to full HD and you can also raise the frame rate to 60 frames/second.


Step 2

Put your Text, Image or Logo in the Logo composition.


Step 3

Create a new composition by clicking Menu->Composition->New Composition. Name it Main and change the resolution to 1280x720 and set the duration to 8 seconds.


Step 4

Open the Main composition and create a new solid by clicking Menu->Layer->New->Solid. Change the resolution to 1280x720 and name it Background. The color is not important!


Step 5

Select the Background layer and after that go to Effect->Generate->Ramp and change the ramp shape to linear ramp. Let's change the start color to #410F80 and the end color to #031019.


Step 6

Create a new composition by clicking Menu->Composition->New Composition. Name it Emitter and change the resolution to 1280x720 and set the duration to 8 seconds.


Step 7

Open the Emitter composition and let's create a new solid by clicking Menu->Layer->New->Solid. Change the resolution to 1280x720 and name it Emitter. Change the color to #FFFFFF.The name is really important!


Step 8

Select the Emitter layer and after that go to Effect->Generate->Circle and change the following settings.I have to create a circle animation so go to the first frame and click on the Radius stopwatch and set the value to -61. After that go to 8 seconds on the timeline and change the Radius value to 905.


Step 9

Select the Emitter layer and after that go to Effect->Generate->4-Color Gradient and change the following settings. Set the color 1 and color 2 values to #D826A8 and the color 3 and color 4 to #00C0FF I've renamed the effect to "change the colors" and I also add a Fast Blur effect to create a smooth edges.Don't worry about the yellow icons it's shows us that the plugin is not supporting the current 32bpc settings. You won't see any visual difference or artifact errors but we're using this to enhance the glow effect on the particular simulation.


Step 10

Let's drag and drop the Emitter and the Logo composition in the Main composition and turn off the Emitter composition.


Step 11

Create a new solid by clicking Menu->Layer->New->Solid. Change the resolution to 1280x720 and name it Particular. Change the color to black!


Step 12

Let's go to Effect->Trapcode->Particular and set the following values under the Emitter tab.We're going to use the Emitter composition as a Layer Emitter so if you modify the circular shape in the Emitter composition then you can achieve a different looking effect. For example if you delete the circle effect and just create a rectangle mask on the Emitter layer and animate it from left to right then you can create an abstract moving line effect.It's up to you!


Step 13

Let's change the Particle properties as well.


Step 14

Here's my Air settings! Change the Affect size and Affect Position under the Turbulence field tab if you want to achieve a more distorted effect.


Step 15

Let's add some glow effect! Go to Effect->Stylize->Glow and apply the following settings.


Step 16

You can enhance the glow effect by increasing the project's color depth. You can do that by alt+ left click on the bpc text.


Step 17

Let's create a new adjustment layer by clicking Menu->Layer->New->Adjustment Layer. Change the resolution to 1280x720 and name it distortion.


Step 18

Let's select the distortion layer and go to Effect->Distort->Turbulent Displace and let's change the following properties. Let's alt+ left click on the evolution stopwatch and type in time*150. After that go to the first frame of the animation and click on the Amount stopwatch and change the value to 230.After that go to 8 seconds and change this value to 0.


Step 19

Let's select the Logo composition and after that just select the ellipse tool to create an elliptical mask on the Logo.Hit the m key twice to reveal the mask properties and go to the first frame of the animation and scale down the mask. After that click on the Mask path stopwatch and go to 4 seconds and scale up the mask.


Step 21

If you wanna create a more precise mask then you can do a ring mask for example.To do that you have to duplicate the mask on the distortion layer and you have to change it to subtract and you have to change the Mask Expansion as well.What it does is the inner part of the ring mask shape is will be effected by the distortion effect and the outside are won't.Because of this your logo, picture or text won't be distorted the whole time. There will be a circular transition effect between the normal logo and the distorted one.


Final Image

So this is it guys! I hope you enjoyed the tutorial!Play with the settings, change the colors and have fun. See you next time!