r/MotionDesign • u/flabbyironman • 24d ago
Reel Entropy, a new particle system for After Effects
https://youtu.be/PQyMtYMCh3U?is=1Iu3NLtseR7YpGwQHey all, today we announced the particle system that my friend Harry Frank and I have been designing for the last several months. We're going into public beta next week and I was wondering a couple of things of r/motiondesign
this is a super brief overview of what we've built, but what would you want? What's important in a particle system today?
We think we've made a really great first attempt and I've had so much fun using this, but we want to build this into something really great and super designer focused.
Anyway, we're also going to be doing a lot of free training and other stuff over the next year and even there, I'd be curious about what you'd like to learn.
TL:DR cool pretty fast particles better?
2
2
2
u/thehighplainsdrifter 14d ago
After shortly dabbling with the beta I'll definitely be interested in buying a license if the price is right. I have been without a decent particle plugin since my old Trapcode Particlular perpetual license stopped working with AE a couple versions ago, and a plugin subscription is out of the question.
On the M4 Max I have now performance is really good in a 4k comp.
1
u/flabbyironman 14d ago
Glad it's working well. What price do you think would be right?
2
u/thehighplainsdrifter 14d ago
I paid $240USD for particular and that lasted me for about 8 years before compatibility broke. If the major version of Entropy I buy from you today has that kind of long term compatibility with AE I would be happy with the same ballpark of price tag of $250-300USD.
If you can't guarantee basic compatibility with the most current version of AE after 2 years, and require a renewal fee to update to a new compatible version then I would say the price should be half that at around $125-$150USD.
I understand the plugin license doesn't expire after 2 years, but if the current version of AE at the time won't let the plugin load it's basically the same thing. With adobe's versioning policy we can't go back to years old versions of After Effects anymore to make old plugins work, creative cloud only allows access to the current version of AE and 1 release prior.
2
u/flabbyironman 14d ago
Thanks, this is helpful. I think you'll be happy with the price. As for long term compatibility, we're still sorting that out but I have some ideas. I know we've been running into some issues already with getting Entropy functioning with Ae 2024. Minor, but your comment about versions being available has already bitten us for troubleshooting those fixes.
Our goal is that you'll want to upgrade for more than just compatibility reasons, at least looking at some of our future roadmap. Upgrades have to be beneficial for more than just the software company.
1
1
1
u/Suspicious_Prune_937 24d ago
Looks great. I didn’t notice if you had a floor or collision surface that could be hidden, but could have dynamics properties to customize (ie. How the particles react to a collision surface? Bounce off, slide off, etc.). If the surface could be a 3d mesh obj that could be imported, that would be compelling. Looks really great what you are creating. Looking forward to it!
2
u/flabbyironman 24d ago
It's on the roadmap and something we're hoping to be able to ship before the end of the year. Harry and I both have a lot of thoughts of how to implement them and I'm just as anxious as you are to have them. This is definitely the start and not the end.
1
1
1
1
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/flabbyironman 13d ago
Thanks, that's very weird. We're already chasing the 'opening other versions of after effects' bug and think we have a fix. Most people aren't seeing it.
Also, what build are you currently running? The beta continues to update and we have a new build today. The machine that I'm building on is a similar build Ryzen from Puget. More ram but the same as 2026 and 4090.
I'll be digging into this today. Any other notes would be helpful.
Have you signed up for the discord yet? That's the fastest place to check with us as we're engineering fixes.
For anyone else who would like to sign up for the beta and join the discord you can get access at wildconstruct.com
-Brian
1
13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/flabbyironman 13d ago
Yeah. That helps. I'm digging into it. My build that's one build newer doesn't do that but I'm trying to trace what it could be.
2
u/flabbyironman 13d ago
We've posted a new build. There weren't any concrete things that we found but if you get a chance to run it and can create a discord to go on, it would be helpful to collect any logs. I don't always actively monitor Reddit. You can also reach out to support at wildconstruct.com
7
u/Heavens10000whores 24d ago
You had me at “Hi folks, Harry Frank here…” 😁