Using Presets
Trapcode Particular installs its own Animation Presets. (These are called Favorites in earlier versions of After Effects.) A preset contains all of the control values, keyframes and expressions for Trapcode Particular that create a specific effect. You can look at a preset as a pre-made particle animation. All presets that ship with the product are collected in the Preset Gallery.
In version 2, the presets are designed for use with two frame sizes for SD and HD. The SD presets are setup for NTSC or PAL D1 frame size at frame rates of 24, 25 or 30 fps. If your settings differ a lot from these, you may need to make adjustments in settings such as Particle Size, Velocity, and Motion Blur's Shutter Angle. For the HD presets, we recommend a frame size 1920 x 1080 at 24, 25, or 30 fps. Note that you will want to increase the Particle size and Velocity in the HD comps if you want to fill the frame.

Before you apply a preset

Presets are always applied with reference to the current frame. Particular presets should always be applied at the first frame of the layer. Before selecting a preset, it is important to make sure that the Time Marker is at the beginning of the work area, like this:

Before selecting a preset, set the Time Marker to the first frame of the Timeline.

Selecting a preset

To select a preset, use the Animation Presets pop-up menu above the Effect controls. When a preset is selected, its effect will automatically appear in the Composition Window. Its control settings will show in the Effects menu and in the Timeline. See the included presets in the Preset Gallery.

The full list of shipped Particular presets.

Clearing the preset

There are two ways to clear the preset. Both methods will do a full reset of all Particular controls. One method is to click the Reset button in the Effects palette.

The other method is to choose the preset 't2_0-Fullreset', which is the first preset shown in the Animation Presets list. This preset will set the Particular controls to true defaults as if the plug-in had just been applied to a layer.

Saving your own presets

You can also save your own presets by selecting 'Save Selection as Animation Preset...' at the bottom of the menu. This is a standard After Effects function.

The presets that ship with the product are named with a prefix 't2_' for Trapcode. In order to avoid confusion, please do not use that prefix for your own presets. Version 1.5 Note: Presets that shipped with Particular 1.5 started with a 't'. Those presets are all included in Particular 2.0, along with a few new ones.

At left, the Save Selection function. At right, two custom presets saved by us, without a 't2' prefix.