I tried all this past week and couldn't figure this one out:

I'm trying to do a particle effect where a set number of glowing particles fly around the screen leaving glowing trails that fade out over time. I'm still learning Motion and have gone through the Apple Pro Training Series of books, but still haven't figured out if its possible to do in Motion.

Can anyone tell me how this is done in Motion or After Effects?

A quick workaround for After Effects might be to make the particles without motion blur and then duplicate the layer 4-5 times beneath it at different opacities with motion blur on, each offset in the timeline.

I'll try a little test and see if it works.


-j

It looked stupid.

So instead I tried a similar idea with the Write-On plugin, which I believe is standard equipment. It automatically keeps a constant length as it follows the particle around and by making a few layers at 25% opacity (and adjusting the stroke length) it gives it a bit of a 'fading out' look. It draws a pretty hard line so I put some gaussian blur on it. If it was moving quickly I think you could get away with it.

The funny thing is that I can copy the 'Position' keyframes from the particle layer and paste them to the Write-On position but it keeps drifting around.

Here's my rough go: trail.mov (www.globo-chem.net/~jay/trail.mov)


-j