Illusion is a particle effects system and compositing tool with a difference: it's fast, easy, and fun.
Illusion is easy to use because you work in 2D -- its WYSIWYG display shows you what is going on at all stages of your work. Adding an effect can be as simple as selecting the effect you want from one of Illusion's emitter libraries and placing it on the stage. Most of the emitter's properties are available from the main workspace -- change the setting and see the results in realtime. The properties dialog for the emitter allows access to ALL properties of the effect, and still provides a realtime preview.
Just because you work in 2D doesn't mean that you are limited to 2D effects. Illusion supports multiple layers and other functions that allow you to integrate its effects into a 3D environment. Illusion will create alpha channel images (in file formats that support it) for easy compositing in other applications.
Illusion is very fast. No more waiting for your 3D renderer to calculate those billowing clouds of smoke you want. Illusion can add the same effect in a fraction of the time. The key to Illusion's speed is its use of images to simulate a larger number of particles with a single particle. This drastically reduces the calculation time, rendering time -- in short it just speeds up everything. This use of images for particles also gives you incredible creative power. Use an image of a banana and create an animation of a banana avalanche. Create an explosion using your company logo, or a picture of your face. You can even use an AVI or series of images to create animated particles.
A 3D graphics card with OpenGL support is highly recommended but not required.
To Install: Unzip to an empty folder and run SETUP.EXE
