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Beam connecting nodes not working with DOF
Hi people,
I’ve got a problem where several layers have been connected using the old “beam” effect trick to draw a line from the center of one layer to the center of another. The two nodes are in 3D space and the beam is on a 2D layer. The expression used is:
targetLayer=thisComp.layer(“
“);
targetLayer.toComp(targetLayer.anchorPoint);which I found here on the cow (thanks). This works brillantly. So off I go setting up tons of nodes. Now comes the part where I want to animate the camera in and around these nodes. Turns out the width of the beam doesn’t change as it gets further away, which is a bugger, but I can deal with that.
Then, I turn on DOF and because the beams aren’t 3D layers, they don’t get blurred like the nodes they are connecting. ARGH!!! The DOF is a necessity due to the style of the piece.
Is there anyway I can cheat this and still get the beam’s to honour the DOF by forcing them into 3D space somehow but still keep the connections?
Any help would be appreciated!
Lev
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7 Replies
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Nope, not this way. You’d have to use real 3D solids. If you look at my tutorials here at the COW (Sun, Spreading World Map), you will find the basic math (in 2D), all you need to do is take it to the 3rd dimension.
Mylenium
[Pour Myl
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Thanks for that. It’s helping me heaps. Only thing I’m now stuck on is getting the TRUE position of a layer that is parented to a null. The .position reference doesn’t seem to pull the absolute position of a layer after it’s parenting. Is there a way to get this. You see, all these nodes are also being rotated inside a NULL so all the positions are relative to the NULL at the top of the stack.
Great tutorial, though!
Cheers
Alex
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Heh oops…posted on a collegues PC where I was trying this. So ignore the confusion 😉
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The expression from your first post should work, except use toWorld() instead of toComp():
targetLayer=thisComp.layer(“”);
targetLayer.toWorld(targetLayer.anchorPoint);Dan
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That’s the ticket! Thanks Dan.
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Hello,
I am having trouble creating DOF on a Beam using the toWorld expression mentionned by Dan Ebberts. I’m using AE CS4, and my comp contains 2 3D nulls (called ”null 1” and ”null 2”), a camera, and a 2D solid on which I have applied the Beam effect.
The starting point of the Beam effect has the following expression:
targetLayer=thisComp.layer(“null 1”);
targetLayer.toWorld(targetLayer.anchorPoint);and the ending point of the Beam effect has the following expression:
targetLayer=thisComp.layer(“null 2”);
targetLayer.toWorld(targetLayer.anchorPoint);The only thing I get when using this expression is a small dot in between those two 3D nulls, but no Beam effect in 3D space and certainly no DOF on that Beam. On the other hand, when I use toComp instead of toWorld, I do get a 3D Beam connecting those two 3D nulls but there is no DOF acting on the Beam.
Please let me know what I’m doing wrong. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Renaud
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Hey – did you ever get this working, Renaud?
I’m having a similar problem… toComp works fine (albeit, without proper 3D, obviously), but changing it to toWorld seems to take us back to square one. I thought perhaps the beam layers should be 3D, but they just sit on a flat plane within the 3D space (ie. they don’t response to the null’s movement in z space, just x and y).
Perhaps delving into Mylenium’s Spreading World Map tutorial will answer the problem, but Dan Ebbert’s response seemed to suggest that wasn’t necessary…?
Cheers!
Dylan
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