Meshes can now be created as quads or triangles, and there are four new Fractal Distortion options for displacing a mesh surface, plus options to set the minimum and maximum displacement. Trapcode Mir, Red Giant’s plugin for generating 3D surfaces and terrains inside After Effects, also gets an update, adding the option to spiralise the mesh. Trapcode Mir 2.0: new mesh distortion and texturing options In addition, the render limit for particle systems has been increased from 20 to 30 million particles. There are also new circular and square particle types, plus an Aspect Ratio control for particles. Other new features in Particular 2.5 include Over Life graphs for fine control of particle size and opacity over time, and a new explode behaviour intended to let users create explosion effects without setting keyframes. It can also load the software’s existing sprite images, over 100 of which have been added in the update. It isn’t a full node-based visual programming system, but it lets you create new effects by combining adjustable ‘blocks’, and comes with over 130 presets geared to common effects like flames, smoke and explosions. Particle effects tool Particular gets Effects Builder: a new tool for creating custom effects. Trapcode Particular 2.5: new Effects Builder system and presets It’s capable of quite a range of effects, from thread and ribbon-like forms, to lattices and 3D structures.Īs well as paths, you can generate geometry from mask shapes and the motion of 3D lights and the results can be rendered using image-based lighting and ambient occlusion, with GPU acceleration. Top of the features list is Trapcode Tao (above), a new tool for generating procedural 3D geometry along a path.

Trapcode Tao: create customisable path-based geometry Red Giant has released Trapcode Suite 13, a major update to its set of motion graphics and VFX tools for After Effects, introducing a new plugin, Trapcode Tao, and overhauling existing tools Particular, Shine and Mir.

Trapcode suite 13