Advanced Particle Plug-In for Adobe After Effects

Goal: Create a powerful and unique particle plug-in for Adobe After Effects. The plug-in should be fast, interactive & highly-optimized, supporting much of the necessary functionality of competing plug-ins, but also with unique features not previously available. Milestone 1 - Develop a highly-optimized particle simulation system with Deterministic Closed-Form Physics & Pre-Computation for some advanced features. Add Forces solver and interpolation of particle properties based on user defined rules. There will be both Stateless and State-Dependent Solvers for the Physic. Accurate sub-frame emission, path emission (edge / interior), emitter shapes, RNG, 3D Math, etc... - Basic particle shapes, including particle layer selection and textured-polygon. - Spawning Child Particle Clusters based on User-Defined Spawn Conditions and Logic. Spawning particles on the edge of basic shapes or paths (or within a distance of the edge) - After Effects Camera Integration (ideally with depth of field). - Motion Blur capable. - Depth sorting. - Particle gradient interpolation (user selectable up to 10). - Aspect ratio independence. - “Gravity Fields” including (but not limited to) “Gravity Fields” for Primitive shapes like Spheres, Ovals, Rectangles, After Effects Paths and Noise Functions / Textures with Force Direction, Repel/Attract switch, Parameters for Divergence/Intensity. Implemented with Signed-Distance Fields (SDFs). - Flocking / Boids. (Was moved here as it’s relatively easy to do and can be added after the base features are there) - Plugin must be developed in a manner that can be taken over and clearly understood. Additionally, cross-platform compatible functions must be used as this will also be compiled for Mac. Milestone 2 - OpenCL Optimization for the Physics Solver. ( This would be done after the core is there not as a final optimization, but as a framework for future optimization too when starting to work on more advanced features it will be easier to have a framework for OpenCL optimization. After giving it some thought I think that Multi-Threading would be useless in this case the problem of simulating thousands of particles is a task best fit for GPU not CPU.) - Add collision with planes and shapes but *not* 3D meshes. Make use of Space Partitioning Data Structures to speed collision checks and Gravity Force accumulation. - Add all the remaining features / parameters currently in the existing particle system. Additional forces, 3D mesh import and emission, path constraint forces, turbulence (3D Perlin Noise), vortices, vector fields, vortex street, etc. - Multiple particle layer selections with percentage (likelihood to appear). - Ray Marched Lit Particle Volume with Self-Shadowing using OpenCL (OpenGL would just overcomplicate things. Since we would already be using OpenCL for optimizing the physics it would make sense to use it for ray marching through the particle volumes too, it’s also more flexible for this use case because of the OpenCL kernel language...) - Interface work for custom gradient color parameter. Requirements - Plugin development will be a collaborative project, with testing and reviews from employer. - Freelancer is expected to take constructive suggestions from employer, who is well-experienced in the field of creative production with graphics. The ability to consider minor changes and / or revisions is important. - The features listed here are not final. Employer and freelancer have agreed additional features may also be introduced, at their discretion. - At the completion of milestone 1, the plug-in should be fully usable, despite having a limited feature list. - Freelancer agrees to see project through to the very end. - Employer agrees to include freelancer's name in software website credits.