GenArts, makers of Sapphire, have just announced that they have purchased wondertouch, makers of the particleillusion plugin. Initially both products will remain distinct and separate, but with the lead programmer becoming a GenArts employee, that’s likely to change.
“We are really excited about taking the core particles engine technology and seeing what we can do by combining that with the great technology and resources that we have at GenArts to build great next-generation products,” says Bannerman. “We’re hoping those next-gen products will serve a broader audience that will include both Alan’s customers and the current GenArts customers.”
When asked how GenArts feels about one of their main competitors, Trapcode Particular, they had an interesting response:
“Obviously, our customers highly value that type of functionality,” says Bannerman. “Yet one of the things they’ve consistently struggled with is the fact that Trapcode Particular is only really available as an After Effects plug-in. For customers that don’t have After Effects in their pipeline or don’t need After Effects in their pipeline, they have very limited choices: they can insert After Effects into the process and move out of something like a Flame, or even an Avid, and then back again, but they lose a lot of efficiency that way. Or they could just hand it over to the 3D guys and let them figure our how to do it in Maya, which is also really complicated. You almost have to be a programmer to figure out how to do particles in Maya.
via Studio Daily Blog » Why wondertouch Particles Matter to GenArts.
Particle Illusion for After Effects users can get great particle emitter libraries from CGPlanet. http://www.cgplanet.net