00:00In this tutorial, I'll show you how to create a particle animation in After Effects without
00:04using any plugins.
00:06If you want to download Project File, link is in description below.
00:10Let's get started.
00:15First, create a new composition and name it Master.
00:22Now, drag your logo, write text or whatever you want to apply the effect to onto the timeline.
00:31Right-click on the layer, select Pre-compose and give it any name you want.
00:36I'm going to name Mine Logo Text Comp.
00:40Make sure, move all attributes into the new composition is selected, then click OK.
00:47Next, go to Layer, select New, then choose Solid to create a new solid layer.
00:56With the solid selected, go to the Effects and Presets panel and search for Gradient Ramp.
01:03Apply it to the solid layer.
01:05The reason we're creating this gradient is that the Shatter effect uses it as a map to
01:10determine which parts of the layer break first and how the animation progresses across the
01:16composition.
01:17Place the start of ramp point in the middle of the right edge and the end of ramp point
01:21in the middle of the left edge.
01:24Then change the ramp shape to Radial Ramp.
01:27Using a radial gradient creates a smoother, more natural spread for the particle effect.
01:34Instead of the shattering happening in a straight line, the gradient creates a softer transition
01:39across the layer, giving us better control over how the particles break apart.
01:44Once the gradient is set up, we can hide the solid layer because we only need it as a control
01:50layer for the Shatter effect.
01:52Next go back to Effects and Presets, search for Shatter, and apply it to the pre-composed
01:58layer we created earlier.
01:59In Effect Controls, change view to rendered so we can see the effect.
02:04Now if I play the animation, you can see that our text is being shattered.
02:07Let's customize the effect, open the shape settings.
02:11Here we can change the pattern.
02:13By default, it's set to brick but there are several different patterns available.
02:18I'm going to select glass.
02:20You can choose anyone among them, whatever you want.
02:23Next we have repetitions.
02:25This controls the number of particles in our effect.
02:28I'm going to increase this to the maximum value, which is 200.
02:32Next we have extrusion depth.
02:34As you can see, the particles have some depth.
02:37If you don't want any depth, simply set this value to zero.
02:45We'll skip the force settings for now and move on to the gradient.
02:49Make sure the playhead is at the beginning of the layer.
02:52Create a keyframe for Shatter Threshold and set it to zero percent.
02:56Then move a few seconds forward and change Shatter Threshold to one hundred percent.
03:01Now set the gradient layer to the solid layer we created earlier and make sure effects and
03:07masks is selected.
03:10Let's preview the animation.
03:12As you can see, the layer is now breaking apart into particles.
03:17Now let's adjust a few settings under Physics.
03:20You can increase the rotation speed slightly.
03:23Next we have Turbulent Motion.
03:25You can experiment with these settings depending on the look you want.
03:29For this example, I'm going to use X and Z and leave the rest as they are.
03:33Set Randomness to point two and Viscosity to point two.
03:37Set Gravity to one and change the gravity direction to zero.
03:41This will make the particles move upward.
03:45Now open the lighting settings.
03:47I'm going to increase the ambient light so we don't have strong lighting affecting our
03:51particles.
03:52Here's a quick preview of the animation.
03:55But if you want an actual disintegration effect, we need to work with the force fields.
04:00To push the particles evenly toward one side, select the force one position indicator and
04:06place it in the middle of the right edge of the composition.
04:09We also need to increase the radius to 1.3 so it covers the entire composition and nothing
04:16gets cut off.
04:17We can also control the speed using the strength property.
04:21If I increase the strength, you can see that the particles move away much faster.
04:25I'm going to set it to around two.
04:30And there we have our particle animation.
04:38Also under the Physics settings, we have the Randomness option.
04:42If I increase the value of randomness, you can see that the particles start flying in
04:46different directions.
04:47On the other hand, if I set randomness closer to zero, the particles stay more organized and
04:53move together.
04:53For this animation, I'm going to keep the value at 0.2 as I think it gives a nice balance
05:00between natural movement and an organized disintegration effect.
05:04So now we have our particle disintegration effect.
05:07The best thing about this effect is that you can use anything inside the logo text composition.
05:14For example, hide the logo and with type 2, write the text.
05:20Now, when we go back to the master composition, you can see that the same disintegration effect
05:26is applied to text.
05:28Now, let's create a color changing effect like the one shown in the example.
05:33First, select the text layer and duplicate it.
05:36Select the bottom copy and apply the fill effect.
05:40Choose whatever color you want.
05:44Now select the top layer and apply an effect called Linear Wipe.
05:49You can find it in the Effects and Presets panel.
05:51Drag it onto the top layer.
05:53Now we can control the transition using transition completion.
05:57Set the initial value to 0% and add a keyframe.
06:01Move the playhead to around 3 seconds and set transition completion to 100%.
06:08Now you can see that the color changes as the animation progresses.
06:13We can also increase the feather slightly to make the transition smoother.
06:18Now when we go back to our main composition, you can see that as the particles disintegrate,
06:24they also change color.
06:28If you want the particles to move from left to right, simply change the position of Force
06:331 and place it around the middle of the left side.
06:36Now the particles will move from left to right.
06:38This is how you can change the direction of the disintegration effect.
06:42And that's how you can create this really cool particle disintegration effect in After Effects,
06:49completely without any third party plugin.
06:52I hope you learned something useful from this tutorial.
06:56If you did, make sure to like the video, subscribe to the channel, and share it.
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