Try again ... Exploding Ball Full of Balls

Question

I'll try to explain again what I'm trying to do.
Image having a basketball that has been cut in half. Fill both side with an equal number of three different colored ping pong balls (or golf balls - this is to give an idea of size). Now lay an M80 on the top of one half in the center and put the two halves together (so that the M80 is in the center of the basketball and buried within the ping pong balls). Then detonate the M80 and picture how the ping pong balls would fly out in every direction. THAT's what I'm trying to do with AE. Is it possible? I'm using CS3 with stock effects.
I think it can be accomplished one ball at a time using motion paths, but I would think there HAS TO be a way to do it with particles or some other way. Does anyone have any suggestions?
As usual, thank you!
Lloyd

Answer 1

CC Particle world is as close as you're going to get. You'll need to create a custom particle. Mine is a 40 X 40 pixel comp with 3 frames and 3 circles with grain applied to give the particle texture. They kind of look like Trix cereal.
The second step is to add the particle layer to your comp at about frame 3, add a solid for CC particle world and set up the particle like effect using a custom particle like this:
Now just adjust the physics to get the kind of explosion you want.
The trick is to pick up the explosion on about frame 6 so that the particles are in motion when the wrapper comes off. All it takes now is some layering with your wrapper that is going to contain these balls. You put front layers in above, back layers below, and you've got as good as it's going to get with standard particles.
Here's some things to think about. CC Particle World particles don't react with each other. IOW, they won't bounce off each other. They will react with a floor. You could create several instances of the explosion and set several floors to get some interactivity with the wrapper layers.
By far the best way to do this kind of thing is in a 3D application. Blender would do the job nicely and you can export camera moves to AE. The second best would be with Trapcode Particular. Whatever way you decide to go this is not a simple effect with just a couple of layers. It involves lots of manipulation, mattes, blend modes and some critical thinking.
The explsoion looks something like this: