• Adobe After Effects Expressions

  Floating Effect Help!!! URGENT!

  Posted by Fahrenheit on June 29, 2006 at 4:28 am

  Hey peeps,
  I’ll make this short and sweet.
  I’ve got a project dateline due this Sat (01/07, 3pm) and I’m having trouble with a small portion of the seq. I need a digitized flyer (half A4) to sort of float in mid-air just like how a feather floats or falling paper. How do I accomplish this in AE65 Pro? Oh, I’m using a P4-1.8GHZ/384MB SDRAM PC with only Trapcode plugs. Sorry I can’t afford any other cooler plugins, so I can only work with the built-in effects. 🙁

  Thanks in advance!
  Ravi R.
  Picture Perfect Productions Co.

  Mike Clasby replied 19 years, 10 months ago 3 Members · 2 Replies
• 2 Replies

• 

  Steve Roberts

  June 29, 2006 at 3:34 pm

  If you want it to appear to be floating, you’re trying to match a real physical phenomenon. Sometimes this conflicts with the needs of the project … 🙂

  Well, for any effect, you need to have an image of it in your mind. Hmm … for a piece of paper to float, it would have to be horizontal, gently riding the air, swinging back and forth at varying speeds. If it were vertical, it would just drop … at least until it became horizontal again, at which time it would slow down and float again, maybe back upward.

  If your piece of paper were flat to the viewer, it would appear vertical unless the background was a floor, or an aerial view of the ground to imply the camera is looking down. If not, and the paper appeared to be hanging vertically, and you added a wiggle expression or animated its position manually (gentle motion), it would look as if it were hanging soemwhere and blowing in the wind, I suppose. I’m guessing that this may be the problem.

  If you had to make the thing flat to camera, I’d introduce it horizontally (mostly) and swingling gently back and forth, not too regularly, then rotate the camera up to read the paper and reveal the ground below. Then I’d bring the camera back down and let the paper float out of frame.

  If I had to compromise and show the paper flat to camera all the time, I’d give the paper a little swing back and forth (manually keyframed, or with a wiggle expression) and show rising clouds in the background to imply falling.

  Hope that helps …
• 

  Mike Clasby

  June 29, 2006 at 4:29 pm

  This from Dan Ebberts is a gem:

  Creating a falling leaf effect

  https://www.aenhancers.com/viewtopic.php?t=8

  First make the layer 3D, put the Expressions on the Position, Y Rotation, and Z Rotation (and Adjust the Orientation 90,0,0), and reposition the paper at the top of the screen.

  But, it’s a bit awkward to work with (adjusting), so I tried adding a slider for each of the adjustable parameters.

  On a new Null layer, Effect>Effect Controls>Slider Control

  Dup the slider Control 5 time (select it, Ctrl D). Rename the sliders, yVelocity, oscFreq, etc
  Then expose the expressions (ee) and select the number only (200 for yVelocity) and then pickwhip to the yVelocity Slider on the Null Layer. You need to right click the value on the slider and “Edit Value”, then change the Maximum value to something like 500 (the default slider value is 0 to 100, so we’re changing it). Do the same for the other numbers and Sliders (most dont need an edit value adjustment).

  Do the same for the other adjustable parameters, being sure to pickwhip the OscFreq for BOTH the Position and Y Rotation to the same slider (they need to be the same as per Dan’s warning).

  Anyway it sounds like a lot, but it goes fast (3 to 10 minutes depending if you’ve done it before), but then you have a very tweakable setup. So adjust away.

  Now the motion looks fine, you can even have it effected by a gust of wind, halfway down, by setting keyframes for the sliders, for Tilt, Drift, etc and changing the values, then copying the first keyframes, pasting them back in down the line and returning to the original Falling Drift.

  So, I like the movement, but the paper looks flat and stiff (and unreal) as it falls.

  There are two ways to give it some curl (probably more), Bezier Warp on the Paper Layer, or Wave Warp on a New Adjustment layer at the top of the layer stack. I used both and like the wave Warp at about:

  Wave Type: Sine
  Wave Height: 5
  Wave Width: 80

  But these setting depend on how big your paper is on the screen, so tweak to taste.

  The Wave Warp is cool because it changes as the paper falls.

  Anyway, thanks for asking the question, I always found Dan’s Falling Leaf Expression tantalizing, but never got it to look right, but now I’ve found a new toy.

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