creating a crowd

[Mylenium]

Use the 3D Assistants (full version, not LE) to create arrays of people from 3D layers. The same could be done using Trapcode’s Echospace. If you have Particular, you can of course use it and make your people custom particles. There’s even a tutorial on this at the Belief website .

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Steve_at_pru]

mylenium,

Thanks for the help, I cant seem to be able to find the tut on Belief’s site.

[Mike Clasby]

For the crowd of babies out to the horizon, Three steps, a Position expression to distribute over 3D Space (on a plane), sequence layers to get them to appear one after the other, and an optional scale expression to get them to pop or bounce on.

Everything is 3D so check that little box as you bring things in.

For the first Big Baby I’d animate it as you want it to appear.

Then for the masses of babies that appear, this expression on Position modified from Dan should do what you want pretty quickly (if I read you correctly). It’s to spread them randomly over x, y, z within Min Max you set. It’s been modified from Dan’s original post (at bottom) to make it look like they’re on one plane.

minX = 0;
maxX = thisComp.width*2;
minY = thisComp.height;
maxY = thisComp.height;
minZ = 0;
maxZ = 2000;

seedRandom(1,true);
random([minX,minY,minZ],[maxX,maxY,maxZ])

Change Z if you want more depth.

Add the expression to the position of the first copy of the baby that will fill to the horizon. Dup that layer until you get the number of babies you want. If all the new babies are different, put the expression on the first new baby, then select the expression and Edit>Copy Expression Only, then paste it onto any other layer you want to have that expression.

Add a new camera, and frame the shot the way you want. You might have to move your original baby to get the look right (like a bigger -Z position value to bring it closer to the camera and drag into position.

Anyway when you have your mass of babies out the horizon, Select all then

Animation>Keyframe Assistant>Sequence layers.
Check Overlap, Transition Off, and set the Duration to a number slightly smaller than the comp length (time), for example 9.25 if you have a 10 sec comp and want the masses of babies to come in every 5 frames . Or 9.20 if you want them to come in every 10 frames.

This expression for scale will make them bounce or Squish and squash (sounds bad looks pretty good) on appearance.

max_dev=20; // max deviation in pixels
spd=35; //speed of oscillation
decay=10; //how fast it slows down
t = time – in_point;
s = max_dev*Math.sin(spd*(t))/Math.exp(decay*t);
value + [s,s]

Do the Copy Expression only/Paste trick above to add this to all.

Dan original post for Random XYZ here:

Dan Ebberts – 12:43pm Aug 3, 06 PST (#1 of 1)

Something like this should get you started:

minX = 0;

maxX = thisComp.width;

minY = 0;

maxY = thisComp.height;

minZ = 0;

maxZ = 1000;

seedRandom(index,true);

random([minX,minY,minZ],[maxX,maxY,maxZ])

Dan

Dan’s post for bounce in here:
https://forums.creativecow.net/cgi-bin/new_read_post.cgi?forumid=2&postid=884348

[Reloaded]

Here is the link for the tutorial you need.
https://www.apple.com/pro/video/belief/video3.html

Enjoy it.

[Reloaded]

Me again.
Here is another link for the same tutorial, but bigger then the last one.
https://belief.com/stage/index.php?section=process&project=02.Zoom%20Network%20Launch&id=01.How%20To%20Make%20a%20Crowd.800×600.mov&width=800&height=600

Trapcode Particular is amazing, but if you cannot afford it and all you need is to create a crowd, you just have to duplicate the layer several times and reposition them in the Z position, a lot more to do, but a lot cheapper too.

I hope it helps.

[Dotan Baytman]

Is there a link to the project file aswell?
or where can i get a video of people infront of a green screen so i can try it
thanx

[Reloaded]

Well, I think you should record your friends in front of greenscreen, but if it is just for test, there is this behind the scenes where you can get some (small and low quality) scene. But, please, just for testing. Don’t you ever use other’s people material without permition.
https://www.apple.com/pro/video/belief/video2.html

[Steve_at_pru]

Hey, thanks for the help. I have applied the expression with varying success. I need the distribution accross the x and z planes with the y at a constant. figureing it out is half the fun, right?

Thanks again.

[Dotan Baytman]

Thanx
off course its just for testing
thanx for the link very useful

[Jim Tierney]

Actually you can do it with 3D Assistants LE that comes with AE 6.0 and 6.5 PB. The pro version gives you a few more options, but it’s possible with LE.

Select your layers and set up Cubic Distribution with the following dimensions:

X: 3000, Y: 1, Z: 3000

Hit Apply.

That’s it. (about 10 seconds of work)

You can also use the Repeat Layers option to randomly duplicate your layers. It maxes out at 10, so if you’re starting off with 10 layers and want a 1000, you’ll need to apply the assistant twice… once to get 100 layers (10 x 10 = 100), then once to get 1000 (10 x 100).

cheers,
Jim

——————
Jim Tierney
Digital Anarchy
http://www.digitalanarchy.com
415-586-8434