Particle Illusion Standalone 2023 (16.0.3) - Release Notes

What’s New in Particle Illusion Standalone 2023 (Summary of major changes since Particle Illusion Standalone 2022.5):

Particle Illusion Feature Enhancements

• New 2023 Emitter Library
• Performance - many combined performance improvements for big boosts in both interactive update and rendering speeds
• Revised user interface with cleaner layout and better grouping of parameters in the control panel
• New Fluid Swirling Frequency for enhanced stylistic control of fluid motion
• New Affected by Fluids control allows fluid forces to be skipped on some emitters
• New Force Feather controls gradual falloff in the strength of a Force object around its edges
• New Emit From 3D Normals for alternate 3D Model emission style
• Numerous UI Refinements Including
  • Param De-emphasis - params that currently have no effect are drawn grayed out (based on other properties of the setup including in other nodes)
  • Alpha Gradient now directly accessible next to color gradient in node view
  • Scale Particle Number - control whether line emitters/mask emitters automatically scale up the number of particles vs leaving the particle count unchanged
  • Stage Tooltips now work even in 3D view
  • Numerous usability enhancements to Shape import/edit dialog
  • Creates backup of saved file/library if saving would change the project version
  • Motion Blur UI improvements
  • Increase Viscosity, Frame Delay, and Number of Points parameter max values.
  • Resizing the custom GUI maintains relative position and scale between window panes
  • Many miscellaneous UI tweaks and polish

Other Fixes and Polish:

• Particle Illusion - Fixed Affect Fluid control in free emitter
• Particle Illusion - Improved support for several C4D and OBJ emitter files
• Particle Illusion - Fix “over life” graphs animation detection
• Particle Illusion - “Threshold Angle” not working as expected for “Vertices” emission.
• Particle Illusion - “Attached” particles should stick to 3D model when model scale changes.
• Particle Illusion - Position turbulence with free emitters is not applied to first frame of free emitter’s life
• Particle Illusion - Presets/projects with 3D Models made on Mac don’t render in host on Win and vice versa
• Particle Illusion - Improved graph view bezier handles
• Particle Illusion - Some particles appear “stuck” at fluids boundary when leaving force area
• Particle Illusion - Renamed saved emitter loads up with original name not the new one
• Particle Illusion - Particles do not scale with 3D model and always emit from the original size of the model
• Particle Illusion - Improve error handling for unsupported library versions.
• Particle Illusion - General stability fixes
• Particle Illusion - Fix double clicking to adding emitters on Windows
• Particle Illusion - When in List View, favoriting an emitter does not turn its name gold
• Particle Illusion - Alt-click to add emitter to stage works
• Particle Illusion - Cursor now changes to “+” when Alt is pressed in Emitter Library views to indicate click will add emitter to stage.
• Particle Illusion - UI refresh issues
• Particle Illusion - Stability issues with certain 3D Model files when Emit From is set to Vertices.
• Particle Illusion - Super Emitters ignore “affected by force” parameter
• Particle Illusion - Improved diagnostic logging
• Particle Illusion - Ctrl+T needs to be pressed twice before thumbnail updates occur on Windows
• Particle Illusion - Fix sporadic crashing on launch with certain hardware configurations
• Particle Illusion - Selecting a line emitter point widget shows motion path
• Particle Illusion - Redo of a parameter change in graph doesn’t return to original value
• Particle Illusion - Undo of a parameter change causes graph view to clear
• Particle Illusion - Line emitter points are not accurate when emitter rotates in 3D
• Particle Illusion - Frame outline draws on top of HUD elements
• Particle Illusion - Some emitters have wrong Y value of some emitters
• Particle Illusion - New HUD line width preference and other HUD drawing improvements
• Particle Illusion - Fix “Original Shape” option showing texture in Shape Editor when frame changed
• Particle Illusion - Fix Motion Blur from indicator in Stage menu
• Particle Illusion - Shape Editor usage enhancements (Only scrub shape image preview with mouse wheel when multiple frames exist)
• Particle Illusion - Deleting an emitter from a library incorrectly removes shapes/images if they’re no longer used. Also improve library emitter delete message.
• Particle Illusion - Particles that are “aligned to motion” do not preview correctly
• Particle Illusion - Fluids projects show different results in some cases on subsequent renders
• Particle Illusion - Force Edge Softness results are sometimes slightly incorrect
• Particle Illusion - Add preference for whether or not to show Library Loading error messages on launch
• Particle Illusion - Tooltip drawing refinements and fixes

Particle Illusion Standalone 2023 (v16.0.3) was released on 1/24/2023.

Particle Illusion Standalone 2023 (v16.0.3) supports the following platforms:

• macOSX 10.14, 10.15, 11.x, 12.x, 13.x (up to OS version at time of release). Particle Illusion 2023 is a “universal” application and runs natively on either Intel or arm64 Apple Silicon hardware.
• Windows 10 x64, Windows 11:

Training:

Numerous resources are available for helping you get the most out of Particle Illusion.

• Detailed help documentation is available on the Boris FX website: Particle Illusion Documentation
• BorisTV video tutorials cover a huge range of topics from initial introductions, to deep training Webinar Replays, to in-depth looks at specific techniques. It contains an extensive series of videos on all aspects of Particle Illusion.

Particle Illusion Standalone 2023 (v16.0.3) - Compatibility Notes:

While in general your previously saved projects should render identically in the newer version, bug fixes and quality improvements can sometimes change the look of older projects. While every effort is made to ensure project compatibility, the following notable areas may see some change to the look of previously saved projects.

• Particle Illusion 3D environment enhancements and bug fixes may cause some projects to render with individual particle differences, although the overall look and feel should generally remain the same.

Particle Illusion Standalone 2022 (v16.0.3) - Known Issues and Limitations:

• CO-8221 - Particle Illusion - Broken particles occasionally falling through deflector
• CO-9436 - Particle Illusion - Preserve Color" black particles sometimes drawn offset (2D mode)