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After Effects – Trapcode Particular + rotobrush
Hi everyone, Im having a little trouble with the trapcode particular effect.
What I am trying to achieve is something like the Apple ipod commercial in 2006 (link at the bottom). I havent had any trouble creating the light stream, what i am having trouble doing is making the light stream travel in 3d space behind another object.
The plan, like the advert, is to make the beam travel infront and behind the subject person, and thus be blocked form view when traveling behind the person.
I have duplicated the video, and on the top layer and I have rotobrushed the person (person in foreground, hidden backgorund), I used a rotobrush because the video has a slow pan on it.
Then i moved the foreground layer infront by 10z, and the idea was to make the continuous beam of light travel around the subject and out of the video.
The problem is that I want the light to disappear when it travels behind the rotobrushed area of the layer (the person), and not the layer itself.
I have already searched around and from what i hear i cannot actually delete the physical content of the layer that wasnt in the selcetion, nor can I create a new layer from the rotobrushed layer.Any ideas please? im sure there must be a way of making the ‘obstruction layer’ use only the rotobrushed area of the layer. Or is there a better (hopefully more simpler) solution.
Thanks
(ipod commercial, same light effects as i want, but the subject needs to be rotobrushed, good example is at 0:11): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2zyK7Hpm6A
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4 Replies
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Can you upload the .aep file so I can take a look at what you did. I’m having a little trouble understanding exactly what you aren’t getting to work. I have particular 2 and don’t need your footage.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb. -
Hi John,
I dont have the aep file at the moment but i can upload an example project of what i am trying to do. Basically I need the “obstruction layer” to only apply to the rotobrushed area of the layer.
Because the rotobrush hides the unselected area but does not actually delete it, the whole 1080×720 layer is still physically there, only certain areas are visible.
https://aefreemart.com/2006/08/09/particular-obscuration-example/
The example on here is what i am trying to do, only the red box will be a rotobrushed person on a seperate layer.
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Take your rotobrushed layer and precomp and make sure you select “move all atributes into new compostions”. Now in your final comp, turn your precomped layer into a 3d layer.
Particular can act a little strange sometimes if you have already made selections, so it might be easier to just reset your particular settings and delete anything extra it created(lights that have been created named Obscure). So starting from scratch, under the visibility settings choose the precomp as a obscuration layer. You should be able to tie your emitter to a light now, circle around your subject and be good to go.
Johnny Cuevas, Editor
Thinkck.com“I have not failed 700 times. I have succeeded in proving that those 700 ways will not work. When I have eliminated the ways that will not work, I will find the way that will work.”
—THOMAS EDISON on inventing the light bulb. -
ok mate thanks for your help i will give that a try tomorrow, is that all there is to it? It just seemed that particular was ignoring the fact that I had rotobrushed out the video (which was standing -10 on z axis) and was being obscured once it travelled behind -10z regardless if that area of the video was roto’d or hidden. Other than that everything on particular was working fine.
Sorry to rabble on, its just that I couldn’t find anyone else on the internets who had come across this problem, perhaps I am using an unreliable method?
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