Wednesday, October 31st, 2018 Posted by Jim Thacker

Red Giant adds new fluids engine to Trapcode Suite 15


Red Giant has released Trapcode Suite 15, the latest version of its suite of motion graphics and VFX plugins for After Effects, adding a new fluid physics engine to the Particular 4 and Form 4 plugins.

Terrain generation plugin Mir 3 adds new presets for surface shading styles, and support for OBJ import.

Particular 4 and Form 4: new Dynamic Fluids engine for gaseous fluid effects
The major addition to Trapcode Suite 15 is the new Dynamic Fluids physics engine, shown in the eyecatching teaser above created by leading movie UI design firm Territory Studio.

The engine, which “allows particles to behave as if they are moving through real fluids”, has been added to 3D particle system Particular and particle grid tool Form.

From the online documentation, it looks to be designed to create simpler, more stylised effects than dedicated gaseous fluid simulation tools like FumeFX or TurbulenceFD.

Users can choose between three preset behaviours – buoyancy and swirl, a vortex ring, and a vortex tube – with settings to control the timing, orientation, scale and randomness of the forces.

Particle systems driven by the new fluids engine can also interact with one another: the demo shows two particle streams meeting head on and forming a turbulent boundary.

Both plugins get a range of new presets to show off the new fluids features. The Designer system – used in both tools to create custom effects by ordering readymade preset ‘blocks’ – has also been updated.



Mir 3: new surface presets and support for OBJ import
Terrain generator Mir also gets an update, with version 3 adding a set of new surface presets ranging from display styles like wireframe and smooth shaded, to materials like chrome, plastic and satin.

Mir can also now import 3D models in OBJ format, with the plugin shipping with a library of 60 models.

The other eight plugins in the suite don’t receive updates this time round.

Pricing and availability
Trapcode Suite 15 is available for After Effects CC 2014 and above on Windows and Mac OS X. You can check the exact versions supported by each individual plugin on this page on Red Giant’s website.

New licences of Trapcode Suite cost $999; individual plugins cost from $99 to $399.

Read a full list of new features in Trapcode Suite 15 on Red Giant’s blog